{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_6483/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_6483","id":"gutenberg_6483","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6483","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - British","Category: History - Modern (1750+)","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Milton, John, 1608-1674","Poets, English -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Biography"],"text":"Produced by Anne Soulard, Charles Franks\nand the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIFE OF JOHN MILTON:\nNARRATED IN CONNEXION WITH THE POLITICAL,\nECCLESIASTICAL, AND LITERARY HISTORY OF HIS TIME.\nVOL. III. 1643-1649.\n\nBY DAVID MASSON, M.A., LL.D.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nJULY 1643--MARCH 1643-4.\n\n_HISTORY_:--FIRST EIGHT MONTHS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: CIVIL\nWAR AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT CONTINUED.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON STILL IN ALDERSGATE STREET: HIS MARRIAGE\nMISFORTUNE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TREATISE.\n\nCHAP.\n\nI. The Westminster Assembly in Session--The Solemn League and Covenant:\nScottish Commissioners in the Assembly--Debates on Church-Government:\n_Apologetical Narration_ of the Independents--Parliamentary\nProceedings--Scottish Auxiliary Army in England\n\nII. Milton unhappy in his Marriage: His First Divorce Tract: Two Editions\nof it\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nMARCH 1644-MARCH 1645.\n\n_HISTORY_:--THE YEAR OF MARSTON MOOR: CIVIL WAR, LONG PARLIAMENT,\nAND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED--STRUGGLE OF INDEPENDENCY WITH\nPRESBYTERIANISM: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY: ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES--\nPRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES: HIS SECOND DIVORCE PAMPHLET,\n_TRACT ON EDUCATION_, _AREOPAGITICA_, _TETRACHORDON_, AND _COLISTERION_.\n\nCHAP.\n\nI. Inactivity of the Scottish Auxiliaries--Spread of Independency and\nMultiplication of Sects--Visitation of the University of Cambridge--\nBattle of Marston Moor--Fortnight's Vacation of the Westminster Assembly\n(July 23-August 7, 1644),--Principle of Toleration and State of the\nToleration Controversy: Synopsis of English Sects and Sectaries in 1644.-\n-Resumption of Assembly's Proceedings: Denunciation of Picked Sectaries\nand Heretics--Cromwell's Interference for Independency: Accommodation\nOrder of Parliament--Presbyterian Settlement voted--Essex beaten and the\nWar flagging: Self-denying Ordinance and New Model of the Army--\nParliamentary Vengeances: Death of Laud\n\nII. Milton among the Sectaries, and in a \"World of Disesteem\": Story of\nMrs. Attaway--Samuel Hantlib, John Durie, and John Amos Comenius: Schemes\nof a Reformed Education, and Project of a London University--Milton's\n_Tract on Education_, and Method with his Pupils--His Second Divorce\nTract, or Compilation from Bucer--Mr. Herbert Palmer's Attack on Milton\nfrom the Pulpit--Milton and the Stationers' Company: Their Accusation of\nhim in a Petition to the Commons--His _Areopagitica_, or Speech for\nthe Liberty of Unlicensed Printing--Anger of the Stationers, and their\nComplaint against Milton to the Lords: Consequence of the Complaint--The\nDivorce Question continued: Publication of Mr. Herbert Palmer's Sermon,\nand farther Attacks on Milton by Prynne, Dr. Featley, and an Anonymous\nPamphleteer--_Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_: Their Replies to\nthe Assailants.\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nAPRIL 1645-AUGUST 1646.\n\n_HISTORY_:--SIXTEEN MONTHS OF THE NEW MODEL, AND OF THE LONG\nPARLIAMENT AND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED.--BATTLE OF NASEBY AND ITS\nCONSEQUENCES: EPISODE OF MONTROSE IN SCOTLAND: FLIGHT OF THE KING TO THE\nSCOTS AND CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR.--PROGRESS OF THE TOLERATION\nCONTROVERSY AND OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE\nINDEPENDENTS.--LONDON AND LANCASHIRE PRESBYTERIANIZED.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--RETURN OF MILTON'S WIFE: HIS REMOVAL FROM ALDERSGATE\nSTREET TO BARBICAN: FIRST EDITION OF HIS POEMS: THREE MORE SONNETS:\nCONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS RETALIATION: TROUBLES OF\nTHE POWELL FAMILY.\n\nCHAP.\n\nI. Composition of the New Model, and View of the Work lying before it--\nFirst Actions of the New Model--Cromwell retained in Command: Battle of\nNaseby: Other Successes of the New Model--Poor Performance of the\nScottish Auxiliary Army--Episode of Montrose in Scotland--Fag-end of the\nWar in England, and Flight of the King to the Scots--Fallen and Risen\nStars.\n\nII. Work in Parliament and the Westminster Assembly during the Sixteen\nMonths of the New Model--The two continued Church Controversies--\nIndependency and Sectarianism in the New Model: Toleration Controversy\ncontinued: Cromwell's part in it: Lilburne and other Pamphleteers: Sion\nCollege and the Corporation of London: Success of the Presbyterians in\nParliament--Presbyterian Frame of Church Government completed: Details of\nthe Arrangement--The Recruiting of the Commons: Eminent Recruiters--\nEffects of the Recruiting: Alliance of Independency and Erastianism:\nCheck given to the Presbyterians: Westminster Assembly rebuked and\ncurbed--Negotiations round the King at Newcastle--Threatened Rupture\nbetween the Scots and the English: Argyle's Visit to London: The Nineteen\nPropositions--Parliament and the Assembly reconciled: Presbyterianizing\nof London and Lancashire: Death of Alexander Henderson.\n\nIII. Effects of Milton's _Areopagitica_--His Intention of another\nMarriage: His Wife's Return and Reconciliation with him--Removal from\nAldersgate Street to Barbican--First Edition of Milton's Collected Poems:\nHumphrey Moseley the Bookseller--Two Divorce Sonnets and Sonnet to Henry\nLawes--Continued Presbyterian Attacks on Milton: His Anti-Presbyterian\nSonnet of Reply--Surrender of Oxford: Condition of the Powell Family--The\nPowells in London: More Family Perplexities: Birth of Milton's first\nChild.\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\nAUGUST 1646--JANUARY 1648-9.\n\n_HISTORY_:--THE LAST TWO YEARS AND A HALF OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I.:--\n\nI. HIS CONTINUED CAPTIVITY WITH THE SCOTS AT NEWCASTLE, AND FAILURE OF\nHIS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PRESBYTERIANS;\n\nII. HIS CAPTIVITY AT HOLMBY HOUSE, AND THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE ENGLISH\nPARLIAMENT AND THE ENGLISH ARMY;\n\nIII. HIS CAPTIVITY WITH THE ENGLISH ARMY, AND THEIR PROPOSALS TO HIM;\n\nIV. HIS CAPTIVITY IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT, AND THE SECOND CIVIL WAR;\n\nV. HIS TRIAL AND DOOM.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON IN BARBICAN AND IN HIGH HOLBORN.--PRIVATE AND\nPUBLIC ANXIETIES: ODE TO ROUS, TWO MORE SONNETS, AND TRANSLATION OF NINE\nPSALMS: OTHER WORKS IN PROGRESS: LETTERS TO AND FROM CARLO DATI.\n\nCHAP.\n\nI. Charles in his Captivity First Stage of the Captivity: Still with the\nScots at Newcastle: Aug. 1646--Jan. 1646-7.--Balancings of Charles\nbetween the Presbyterians and the Independents--His Negotiations in the\nPresbyterian direction: The Hamiltons his Agents among the Scots--His\nAttempt to negotiate with the Independents: Will Murray in London--\nInterferences of the Queen from France: Davenant's Mission to Newcastle--\nThe Nineteen Propositions unanswered: A Personal Treaty offered--\nDifficulties between the Scots and the English Parliament--Their\nAdjustment: Departure of the Scots from England, and Cession of Charles\nto the English--Westminster Assembly Business, and Progress of the\nPresbyterian Settlement\n\nSecond Stage of the Captivity: At Holmby House: Feb. 1646-7--June 1647.--\nThe King's Manner of Life at Holmby--New Omens in his favour from the\nRelations of Parliament to its own Army--Proposals to disband the Army\nand reconstruct part of it for service in Ireland--Summary of Irish\nAffairs since 1641--Army's Anger at the Proposal to disband it--View of\nthe State of the Army: Medley of Religious Opinions in it. Passion for\nToleration: Prevalence of Democratic Tendencies: The Levellers--\nDetermination of the Presbyterians for the Policy of Disbandment, and\nVotes in Parliament to that effect--Resistance of the Army: Petitions and\nRemonstrances from the Officers and Men: Regimental Agitators--Cromwell's\nEfforts at Accommodation: Fairfax's Order for a General Rendezvous--\nCromwell's Adhesion to the Army--The Rendezvous at Newmarket, and Joyce's\nAbduction of the King from Holmby--Westminster Assembly Business: First\nProvincial Synod of London: Proceedings for the Purgation of Oxford\nUniversity\n\nThird Stage of the Captivity: The King with the Army: June-Nov. 1647.--\nEffects of Joyce's Abduction of the King--Movements of the Army: their\nDenunciation of Eleven of the Presbyterian Leaders: Parliamentary Alarms\nand Concessions--Presbyterian Phrenzy of the London Populace: Parliament\nmobbed, and Presbyterian Votes carried by Mob-law: Flight of the two\nSpeakers and their Adherents: Restoration of the Eleven--March of the\nArmy upon London: Military Occupation of the City: The Mob quelled,\nParliament reinstated, and the Eleven expelled--Generous Treatment of the\nKing by the Army: His Conferences with Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton--The\nArmy's _Heads of Proposals_, and Comparison of the same with the\n_Nineteen Propositions_ of the Parliament--The King at Hampton Court,\nstill demurring privately over the _Heads of Proposals_, but playing them\noff publicly against the _Nineteen Propositions:_ Army at Putney--\nCromwell's Motion for a Recast of the _Nineteen Propositions_ and Re-\napplication to the King on that Basis: Consequences of the Compromise--\nIntrigues at Hampton Court: Influence of the Scottish Commissioners\nthere: King immoveable--Impatience of the Army at Putney: Cromwell under\nSuspicion: New Activity of the Agitatorships: Growth of Levelling\nDoctrines among the Soldiers: _Agreement of the People_--Cromwell breaks\nutterly with the King: Meetings of the Army Officers at Putney: Proposed\nConcordat between the Army and Parliament--The King's Escape to the Isle\nof Wight\n\nFourth Stage of the Captivity: In the Isle of Wight: Nov. 1647-Nov.\n1648.--Carisbrooke Castle, and the King's Letters thence--Parliament's\nNew Method of the _Four Bills_--Indignation of the Scots: their\nComplaints of Breach of the Covenant--Army Rendezvous at Ware:\nSuppression of a Mutiny of Levellers by Cromwell, and Establishment of\nthe Concordat with Parliament--Parliamentary Commissioners in the Isle of\nWight: Scottish Commissioners also there: the King's Rejection of the\nFour Bills--Firmness of Parliament: their Resolutions of No Farther\nAddresses to the King: Severance of the Scottish Alliance--_The\nEngagement_, or Secret Treaty between Charles and the Scots in the Isle\nof Wight--Stricter guard of the King in Carisbrooke Castle: His Habits in\nhis Imprisonment--First Rumours of _The Scottish Engagement_: Royalist\nProgramme of a SECOND CIVIL WAR--Beginnings of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR:\nRoyalist Risings: Cromwell in Wales: Fairfax in the Southeast: Siege of\nColchester--Revolt of the Fleet: Commotion among the Royalist Exiles\nabroad: Holland's attempted Rising in Surrey--Invasion of England by\nHamilton's Scottish Army: Arrival of the Prince of Wales off the\nSoutheast Coast: Blockade of the Thames--Consternation of the Londoners:\nFaintheartedness of Parliament: New Hopes of the Presbyterians: their\nOrdinance against Heresies and Blasphemies: their Leanings to the King:\nIndependents in a struggling minority: Charge of Treason against Cromwell\nin his absence--The Three Days' Battle of Preston and utter Defeat of the\nScots by Cromwell: Surrender of Colchester to Fairfax: Return of the\nPrince of Wales to Holland: Virtual End of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR--\nParliamentary Treaty with the King at Newport: Unsatisfactory Results--\nProtests against the Treaty by the Independents--Disgust of the Army with\nthe Treaty: Revocation of their Concordat with Parliament, and Resolution\nto seize the Political Mastery: Formation of a Republican Party--\nPetitions for Justice on the King: The _Grand Army Remonstrance_--\nCromwell in Scotland: Restoration of the Argyle Government there:\nCromwell at Pontefract: His Letter to Hammond--The King removed from the\nIsle of Wight to Hurst Castle--The Army again in possession of London\n\nII. Troubles in the Barbican Household: Christopher Milton's Composition\nSuit: Mr. Powell's Composition Suit: Death of Mr. Powell: His Will: Death\nof Milton's Father--Sonnet XIV. and Ode to John Rous--Italian\nReminiscences: Lost Letters from Carlo Dati of Florence: Milton's Reply\nto the last of them--Pedagogy in the Barbican: List of Milton's known\nPupils: Lady Ranelagh--Educational Reform still a Question: Hartlib\nagain: The Invisible College: Young Robert Boyle and William Petty--\nRemoval from Barbican to High Holborn--Meditations and Occupations in the\nHouse in High Holborn: Milton's Sympathies with the Army Chiefs and the\nExpectant Republicans--Still under the Ban of the Presbyterians:\nTestimony of the London Ministers against Heresies and Blasphemies:\nMilton in the Black List--Another Letter from Carlo Dati: Translation of\nNine Psalms from the Hebrew--Milton through the Second Civil War: His\npersonal Interest in it, and Delight in the Army's Triumph: His Sonnet to\nFairfax--Birth of Milton's Second Child: Another Letter from Carlo Dati\n\nIII. The Two Houses in the Grasp of the Army: Final Efforts for the King:\nPride's Purge and its Consequences--The King brought from Hurst Castle to\nWindsor: Ordinance for his Trial passed by the Commons alone:\nConstitution of the Court--The Trial in Westminster Hall: Incidents of\nthe Seven successive Days: The Sentence--Last Three Days of Charles's\nLife: His Execution and Burial\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.\n\nJULY 1643--MARCH 1643-4.\n\n _HISTORY_:--FIRST EIGHT MONTHS OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: CIVIL\nWAR AND THE LONG PARLIAMENT CONTINUED.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON STILL IN ALDERSGATE STREET: HIS MARRIAGE\nMISFORTUNE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TREATISE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nTHE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY IN SESSION--THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT:\nSCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS IN THE ASSEMBLY--DEBATES ON CHURCH-GOVERNMENT:\n_APOLOGETICAL NARRATION_ OF THE INDEPENDENTS--PARLIAMENTARY\nPROCEEDINGS--SCOTTISH AUXILIARY ARMY IN ENGLAND.\n\n\nThe Westminster Assembly held its first formal meeting in Henry the\nSeventh's Chapel on Saturday, July 1, 1643, after the impressive opening\nceremonial of a sermon preached before a great congregation in the Abbey\nChurch by the appointed Prolocutor, Dr. Twisse, on the text John xiv. 18,\n\"_I will not leave you comfortless_!\" About 69 of the members were\npresent at that first meeting, many who attended afterwards not having\nyet come up from the country. Among the 69 were the few of \"the Episcopal\npersuasion\" who afterwards dropped off; and these were conspicuous by\ntheir canonical dresses among the bulk of the members in all sorts of\nplain Puritan suits. The average attendance subsequently seems to have\nbeen from 60 to 80. The place of meeting for some time continued to be\nKing Henry the Seventh's Chapel; but this was changed, when the weather\ngrew colder, for the celebrated Jerusalem Chamber, also in the close\nvicinity of the Houses of Parliament. [Footnote: The Ordinance of\nParliament authorizing the change of the place of meeting to the\nJerusalem Chamber is dated Sept. 23, 1643 see Lords Journals for that\nday] None but members of the Assembly were allowed to be present, and\nthere was no deviation from this rule except on the very rarest occasions\nand by special authority from Parliament. The Assembly sat commonly from\nnine in the morning till one or two P.M. The Prolocutor sat at one end of\nthe room on a raised chair; his two Assessors were near him; and a table\nran through the whole length of the room, at one end of which sat the\nScribes, close to the Prolocutor, while the members were seated in tiers\nat the sides and other end. The forms of debate and voting were very much\nthose of the House of Commons. Besides the meetings of the Assembly as\nsuch, there were afternoon meetings of Committees for the preparation of\nbusiness for the Assembly. There were three such chief Standing\nCommittees, to one or other of which every member belonged. [Footnote:\nLightfoot's Notes of Assembly Works (ed. 1824), Vol. XIII, pp. 4, 5; and\nBaillie, II. 107-109]\n\n\nFIRST BUSINESS OF THE ASSEMBLY: REVISION OF THE ARTICLES.\n\nNot till Thursday, July 6, or indeed Saturday, July 8, was the Assembly\nconstituted for actual business. On the first of these days the\nRegulations which had been drawn up by the two Houses of Parliament for\nthe procedure of the Assembly were duly received; and on the second all\nthe members of Assembly present took the solemn Protestation which had\nbeen settled for them by the Commons with the concurrence of the Lords.\nIt was in these terms: \"I, A. B., do seriously and solemnly protest, in\nthe presence of Almighty God, that in this Assembly, wherein I am a\nmember, I will not maintain anything in matters of Doctrine but what I\nthink in my conscience to be truth, or in point of Discipline but what I\nshall conceive to conduce most to the glory of God and the good and peace\nof His Church.\" So sworn, the members were ready for their first work.\nThat also had been rigidly prescribed for them by Parliament. On July 5\nthe Commons had ruled and the Lords had agreed \"that the Assembly, in\ntheir beginning, in the first place shall take the ten first Articles of\nthe Church of England into their consideration, to vindicate them from\nall false doctrine and heresy.\" In other words, it was the pleasure of\nParliament that the first business of the Assembly should consist in a\nrevision and amendment of the Thirty-nine Articles, and that, by way of a\ncommencement in this business, or specimen to Parliament of the manner in\nwhich it might be done, they were to confine themselves at first to the\nfirst Ten of the Articles. Accordingly, the Assembly at once addressed\nthemselves to this business. It was with a view to it that they first\nadopted that machinery of Committees which was to be employed\nsubsequently, with so much effect, in all the deliberations. The Divines\nof the Assembly were distributed, in the order in which their names stood\nin the Ordinance calling the Assembly, into three Committees for\npreparatory revision of the said Articles in such a manner that the whole\nAssembly might more clearly exercise its final judgment on them; while a\nfourth Committee, in which the lay-members were included, was to assist\nthe others by procuring the most correct copies of the text of the\nArticles. To the first revising Committee, of which Dr. Burges was\nappointed chairman, were entrusted the first four Articles; to the\nsecond, of which Dr. Stanton was chairman, the fifth, sixth, and seventh\nArticles; and to the third, which had Mr. Gibbon for chairman, the\neighth, ninth, and tenth.\n\nImagine the Assembly collectively in Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and its\nCommittees distributively there or in other places of meeting, busy day\nafter day, through the rest of the hot month of July, and then into\nAugust, over its appointed revision of the Articles. \"_I. Of Faith in\nthe Holy Trinity; II. Of the Word, or Son of God, which was made very\nMan; III. Of the going down of Christ into Hell; IV. Of the Resurrection\nof Christ; V. Of the Holy Ghost; VI. Of the Sufficiency of the Holy\nScriptures for Salvation; VII. Of the Old Testament; VIII. Of the Three\nCreeds; IX. Of Original or Birth Sin; X. Of Free Will_;\" imagine the\nArticles under these headings discussed successively, sentence by\nsentence and clause by clause, most of the sentences and clauses allowed\nto pass without change as perfectly satisfactory, but here and there at\nintervals a phrase modified or omitted, or a slight addition made, so as\nto bring the meaning more sharply into accord with the letter of\nScripture or the Calvinistic system of doctrine. Such mere imagination of\nthe general process will suffice, and it is unnecessary to take account\nof the actual changes proposed in the phraseology of particular Articles.\nFor, in fact, these first weeks of the Assembly's pains over the Articles\nof the Church were to be labour wasted. Before the end of August, and\nwhile they were still probing through the first Ten Articles, events had\ntaken such a course that the Assembly was called upon to co-operate with\nthe Parliament in matters of greater urgency.\n\n\nTHE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT: SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS TO THE ASSEMBLY.\n\nThe war, which had been on the whole in the King's favour hitherto, was\ngoing more and more against Parliament. In the north, Lord Fairfax had\nbeen beaten at Atherston Moor by the Earl of Newcastle (June 30); Sir\nWilliam Waller, the hitherto unconquered, had been beaten twice in the\nsouth-west (at Lansdowne, July 5, and at Roundway Down, July 13); the\nQueen, coming from the north, had joined the King in his quarters, amid\ngreat rejoicing, after their seventeen months of separation; and Bristol,\ninefficiently defended by Nathaniel Fiennes, was on the point of yielding\nto Prince Rupert. It was time, in short, to do what it had long been in\nthe mind of Parliament to do--call in once more the aid of the Scots.\n\nOn this the Parliament had already resolved. As it was judged likely,\nhowever, that the Scots would listen more readily to the application for\narmed aid if it were accompanied with some distinct proof of a desire for\n\"uniformity of religion\" between the two kingdoms, the Assembly was\nrequired to assist Parliament in pleading with the Scots. The Scottish\nConvention of Estates was then sitting (it had met, by express call, June\n22); and the Scottish General Assembly was to meet on the 2nd of August.\nLet there be Commissioners from both the English Parliament and the\nWestminster Assembly to these two bodies; let the Assembly write letters\nto the Scottish Assembly, backing the political application with\nreligious arguments; let every exertion be made to secure a new alliance\nwith the Scottish nation! Accordingly, while the Assembly was pursuing\nits revision of the Articles, or occupying itself with such incidental\nmatters as the appointment of ministers to preach before the two Houses,\nand the recommendation of a Fast Day extraordinary in London, their\nthoughts, like those of Parliament, were chiefly fixed on the issue of\ntheir joint embassy to Edinburgh. [Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes for July\n1643; and my MS. chronology of events]\n\nThe Scots had foreseen the application. Three courses were before them.\nThey might remain neutral; they might interfere as \"redders,\" or\nmediators between the King and the English Parliament; or they might\nopenly side with the Parliament and help it in the war. Great efforts had\nbeen made by the King to induce the Scots to the first course. [Footnote:\nBurnet's Dukes of Hamilton (ed. 52), pp. 279-298] Five or six of the\nScottish noblemen who were with the King at Oxford had been sent back\namong their countrymen to labour for this end. All in vain. It had become\nclear to Argyle, Loudoun, Warriston, and the other Scottish leaders, that\nneutrality would be ruinous. Things were in this state when the\nCommissioners from the English Parliament and the Westminster Assembly\narrived in Edinburgh (Aug. 7). The Scottish Convention of Estates was\nthen still sitting; and the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk, with\nAlexander Henderson again its Moderator (the third time he had been\nraised to this Presidency), was in the middle of its annual fortnight or\nso of Scottish ecclesiastical business--one item of the business this\ntime being, I find, \"the late extraordinar multiplying of witches,\"\nespecially in Fifeshire. Both the Convention and the Assembly had been\nanxiously waiting for the English Commissioners, and were delighted when\nthey arrived. They were six in all--Sir William Armyn, Sir Harry Vane the\nyounger, Mr. Hatcher, and Mr. Darley, from the Parliament; and Stephen\nMarshall and Philip Nye from the Westminster Divines. And what moving\nletters they brought with them--official letters from the Parliament and\nthe Westminster Assembly to the Scottish Convention of Estates and\nGeneral Assembly, and also a more private letter signed by about seventy\nEnglish Divines! And how the Scots were impressed by the letters! The\nprivate letter of the seventy Divines in especial was \"so lamentable\"\nthat, when it was read in the General Assembly, \"it drew tears from\nmany.\" And how all were struck by the ability and gravity of young Sir\nHarry Vane, and liked him and Stephen Marshall, but did not take so much\nto Mr. Nye, because of his known Independency! In short, in conferences\nbetween the English Commissioners and Commissioners appointed by the\nScottish Convention and General Assembly to meet them, it was all\narranged. There was, indeed, still some lingering question at first among\nthe Scottish leaders whether it might not do to \"go as redders or friends\nto both, without siding altogether with the Parliament;\" but Warriston\nalone \"did show the vanity of that notion and the impossibility of it.\"\nAnd so Vane and the other Commissioners could write to England that their\nmission had been successful, and that the armed aid of the Scottish\nnation might be expected.\n\nAy, but there was a special condition. The Commissioners had come to\ntreat about \"Scottish assistance to Parliament and a uniformity of\nreligion,\" and it was the prospect held out in the second phrase that\nmost reconciled the Scots to all that was involved in the first. The\nextension of Scottish Presbyterianism over all England and Ireland, or,\nat all events, the union of the two kingdoms in some common form of\nChurch-government not essentially differing from Scottish\nPresbyterianism--for that object the Scots _would_ strike in; for\nthat object they _would_ shed their blood, as fellow-soldiers with\nEnglishmen, in the fields of England! Now the English Commissioners, like\nwary men, and probably in accordance with their instructions, would fain\nhave avoided any too definite a pledging of England to a particular\necclesiastical future. Nye, in especial, as an Independent, must have\ndesired to avoid this; and Vane, as a man who did not know how far from\nhis present opinions continued reasoning might carry him, may have felt\nwith Nye. Hence, on the religious question, they tried to get off with\ngeneralities. If there were a league between the two kingdoms for their\ncivil liberties, would not a uniformity in Church matters naturally\nfollow? But this was not quite satisfactory to the Scottish\nCommissioners. \"The English were for a civil league, we for a religious\ncovenant,\" says Baillie; and the event has made the sentence memorable\nhistorically. Let England and Scotland unite first in subscribing one and\nthe same document, swearing one and the same oath, which should base\ntheir alliance on a certain amount of mutual engagement in the matter of\nReligion! To such oaths of mutual allegiance the Scots, among themselves,\nhad long been accustomed. They called them \"Covenants.\" This agency of\n\"Covenanting\" had been a grand agency in Scottish History. Was not the\npresent liberation of Scotland, the destruction of Episcopacy root and\nbranch within its borders, the result of the \"National Covenant\" sworn to\nonly five years and a half ago--that Covenant being but the renewal, with\nslight additions, of a document which had done not unimportant work in a\nformer age? Why not have another Covenant for the present emergency--not\nthat National or purely Scottish Covenant, but a Covenant expressly\nframed for the new purpose, and fit to be a religious pact between the\ntwo kingdoms? So argued the Scots with the English Commissioners; and,\nthat the English Commissioners might see what was meant, Alexander\nHenderson, who was probably the author of the idea, and to whom, at any\nrate, the preparation of any extremely important document was always\nentrusted, produced a draft of the proposed Covenant. The English\nCommissioners did not altogether like this draft; but, after a good deal\nof discussion, and apparently some suggestions from Vane tending to\nvagueness in the religious part and greater prominence of the civil, the\ndraft was modified into a shape in which it was agreed to unanimously. On\nthe 17th of August it was reported by Henderson to the General Assembly,\nand passed there not only unanimously and with applause, but with a most\nunusual show of emotion among old and young; and on the same day it\npassed the Scottish Convention. \"This seems to be a new period and crise\nof the most great affair,\" writes Baillie, recording these facts.\n[Footnote: Acts of Scottish General Assembly of 1644; Baillie's Letters,\nII. 81-90; Burnet's Hamiltons, 298-307.]\n\nBaillie was right. THE SOLEMN LEAGUE AND COVENANT, as Henderson's amended\ndocument of August 1643 was called (not the same thing at all, it is to\nbe remembered, as the SCOTTISH NATIONAL COVENANT of 1638, though\ngenerally confounded therewith), became a most potent instrument in\nEngland. This, however, could not be foreseen at first. It remained to be\nseen whether the English Parliament would adopt the document which had\nbeen agreed to by their Commissioners in Edinburgh. In the faith that\nthey would, or that they might be induced to do so, the Scottish General\nAssembly, before its rising (Aug. 19), not only sent cordial and\nsympathetic answers to the letters received from the Parliament and the\nWestminster Divines, but also complied with that request of the\nParliament which desired the nomination of some Scottish ministers to be\nmembers of the Westminster Assembly. The ministers nominated were\nHenderson, Mr. Robert Douglas, Baillie, Mr. Samuel Rutherford, and Mr.\nGeorge Gillespie; but it was thought right, if only to accustom the\nEnglish to the principle of lay-eldership, to associate with these\nministers the Earl of Cassilis, Lord Maitland, and Johnstone of\nWarriston. Of the eight Commissioners so appointed three were to be a\nquorum. Accordingly, Henderson, Gillespie, and Lord Maitland sailed for\nLondon at once (Aug. 30), leaving the others to follow more at leisure.\n[Footnote: Acts of Scottish Assembly of 1643; and Baillie's Letters, II.\n96-98.]\n\nWhen Henderson reached London, he found his \"Covenant\" the universal\ntopic. The Parliament had lost no time in referring the document to the\nWestminster Divines for their consideration; and there had been three or\nfour days of debate over it in that Assembly (Aug. 28 and onwards). Some\nmembers, especially Dr. Cornelius Burges, took exceptions. On the whole,\nhowever, the feeling of the Assembly decidedly was that the Covenant was\na splendid invention, might be adopted with a few verbal changes, and\nmight lead to fine results. This was reported to Parliament Aug. 31; and\nDr. Burges, continuing in his captiousness against this judgment of the\nAssembly, found himself in disgrace. The two Houses then proceeded to\nexamine the Covenant for themselves. They also proposed some\nmodifications of the document, and referred it back, with these, to the\nAssembly (Sept. 14). The arrival of Henderson and his two colleagues at\nthis nick of time accelerated the conclusion. On the 15th of September,\nwhen they first appeared among the Westminster Divines, and Henderson\nfirst opened his mouth in the Assembly and expounded the whole subject of\nthe relations between the two kingdoms, all opposition came to an end.\nThe document passed, with only the modifications that had already seemed\nreasonable, and to which the Scots Commissioners had assented; and,\n\"after all was done, \"Mr. Prolocutor, at the desire of the Assembly, gave\nthanks \"to God for the sweet concurrence of us in the Covenant.\" The\nwords are Lightfoot's; who adds that, to make the joy complete, Dr.\nBurges came in radiant and repentant, expressing his complete\nsatisfaction now with the Covenant, and begging to be forgiven.\n[Footnote: Burges had actually been suspended by Parliament from being a\nmember of the Assembly for his contumacy in this affair, Sept. 2, 1643;\nbut he was restored on his own humble petition, Sept. 15, the very day of\nhis repentant reappearance in the Assembly. He had already on that day\nbeen called in before the Commons and had explained \"that it was very\ntrue he had unhappily taken exception to some things in the Covenant,\"\nbut that \"he hears there had been a review of this Covenant,\" and such an\nalteration \"as will give him satisfaction.\" See Commons Journals of the\ntwo dates named.] The Covenant having thus been finally adjusted, the two\nHouses of Parliament were swift in enacting it. On the 21st of September,\nthey ordered that it should be printed and published, and subscribed and\nsworn to by the whole English realm; and, on Monday the 25th, to set the\nexample, there was a solemn meeting of the members of the two Houses and\nof the Divines of the Assembly in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster, at\nwhich 220 of the Commons and all the Divines then present swore to the\nnew pact, and signed it with their names.--This was but the beginning.\nThe Covenant was thenceforth the Shibboleth of Parliamentarianism. In\nLondon first, and then gradually through England, in towns, parishes, and\nparish churches, wherever Parliament prevailed, all had to sign it or\nswear to it if they would be considered friends to the cause of\nParliament and allowed action and standing-room as true Englishmen.\nOliver Cromwell, as a member of the House of Commons, signed it--if not\namong the 220 of the Commons who signed it originally on the 25th of\nSeptember (at which time there is proof that he was absent from London),\nat least in due course; and Milton must have signed it, as a London\nhouseholder. But, in fact, the signing went on for months and months, the\nRoyal Proclamation from Oxford forbidding the Covenant (Oct. 9) only\nincreasing the zeal for it. From Sept. 1643, onwards for some years, the\ntest of being a Parliamentarian in England was \"Have you signed the\nCovenant?\" and the test of willingness to _become_ a Parliamentarian, and\nof fitness to be forgiven for past malignancy or lukewarmness, was \"Will\nyou _now_ sign the Covenant?\" Such was the strange fortune of the hurried\npaper drawn up by Henderson's pen in some room in the High Street of\nEdinburgh.--In Scotland, it need hardly be said, the Covenant was sworn\nto with alacrity. As the document was, in its very nature, a pact between\nthe two kingdoms, proposed by the Scots, it was useless for them to swear\nuntil they had seen whether the English would accept the pact. But, as\nsoon as it was known in Scotland that the Covenant had been adopted by\nthe English and that the swearing in England had begun, the Scots did\ntheir part. There was some little grumbling at first over the verbal\nchanges that had been made by the English in the text of the Covenant;\nbut this ceased, and it was even agreed that the changes were for the\nbetter. Accordingly, on the 13th of October, 1643, most of the Scottish\nnobles in Edinburgh, including 18 of the Privy Council, swore solemnly to\nthe Covenant in one of the city churches; and from that day on, for weeks\nand months, there was a general swearing to the Covenant by the whole\npeople of Scotland, as by the Parliamentarians in England, district by\ndistrict, and parish by parish. Thus the Scots came now to have two\nCovenants. There was their own _National Scottish Covenant_, peculiar to\nthemselves; and there was the _Solemn League and Covenant_, in which they\nwere joined with the English Parliamentarians. [Footnote: Lightfoot,\nXIII. 10-16; Baillie, II. 98, 99, and 102; Neal, III. 65-70; Stevenson,\n515, 516; Parl. Hist. III. 172-174; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed. 1857), I.\n137, 138.]\n\nAnd what was this _Solemn League and Covenant_, the device of\nHenderson and the Scots for linking the Scottish and English nations in a\npermanent civil and religious alliance? The document is not nearly\nHenderson at his best, and it has not the deep ring, the fervour and\nfierceness, of the old Scottish Covenant. For its purpose, however, it\nwas efficient enough, and not so very illiberal either, the necessity of\nsuch a league being allowed, and the time and other things considered.\nHere are the essential parts:--\n\nWe, Noblemen, Barons, Knights, Gentlemen, Citizens, Burgesses, Ministers\nof the Gospel, arid Commons of all sorts, in the Kingdoms of England,\nScotland, and Ireland ... with our hands lifted up to the most high God,\ndo swear:--\n\nI. That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of\nGod, endeavour, in our several places and callings, the preservation of\nthe Reformed Religion in the Church of Scotland, in Doctrine, Worship,\nDiscipline and Government, against our common enemies; [also] the\nInformation of Religion in the Kingdoms of England and Ireland, in\nDoctrine, Worship, Discipline and Government, according to the Word of\nGod and the example of the best Reformed Churches: and we shall endeavour\nto bring the Churches of God in the three Kingdoms to the nearest\nconjunction and uniformity in Religion, Confession of Faith, Form of\nChurch-Government, Directory for Worship and Catechising, that we and our\nposterity after us may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord\nmay delight to dwell in the midst of us.\n\nII. That we shall in like manner, without respect of persons, endeavour\nthe extirpation of Popery, Prelacy (_i.e._ Church-government by\nArchbishops, Bishops, their Chancellors and Commissaries, Deans, Deans\nand Chapters, Archdeacons, and all other ecclesiastical Officers\ndepending on that Hierarchy), Superstition, Heresy, Schism, Profaneness,\nand whatsoever shall be found to be contrary to sound doctrine and the\npower of godliness; lest we partake in other men's sins, and thereby be\nin danger to receive of their plagues, and that the Lord may be one and\nhis Name one in the three Kingdoms.\n\nIII. We shall with the same sincerity, reality, and constancy, in our\nseveral vocations, endeavour with our estates and lives mutually to\npreserve the rights and privileges of the Parliaments, and the liberties\nof the Kingdoms, and to preserve and defend the King's Majesty's person\nand authority, in the preservation and defence of the true Religion and\nLiberties of the Kingdoms; that the world may bear witness with our\nconsciences of our loyalty, and that we have no thoughts or intentions to\ndiminish his Majesty's just power and greatness.\n\nIV. We shall also with all faithfulness endeavour the discovery of all\nsuch as have been or shall be Incendiaries, Malignants, or evil\nInstruments, by hindering the Information of Religion, dividing the King\nfrom his People, or one of the Kingdoms from another, or making any\nfaction or parties among the People contrary to the League and Covenant;\nthat they may be brought to public trial, and receive condign punishment\nas the degree of their offences shall require or deserve, or the supreme\njudicatories of both Kingdoms respectively, or others having power from\nthem for that effect, shall judge convenient.\n\nV. And, whereas the happiness of a blessed Peace between these Kingdoms,\ndenied in former times to our progenitors, is by the good Providence of\nGod granted unto us, and hath been lately concluded and settled by both\nParliaments, we shall, each one of us, according to our places and\ninterest, endeavour that they may remain conjoined in a firm Peace and\nUnion to all posterity, and that justice may be done upon the wilful\nopposers thereof in manner expressed in the precedent Article.\n\nVI. We shall also, according to our places and callings, in this common\ncause of Religion, Liberty, and Peace of the Kingdoms, assist and defend\nall those that enter into this League and Covenant in the maintaining and\npursuing thereof, and shall not suffer ourselves, directly or indirectly,\nby whatsoever combination, persuasion, or terror, to be divided and\nwithdrawn from this blessed union and conjunction, whether to make\ndefection to the contrary part, or give ourselves to a detestable\nindifferency and neutrality in this cause, which so much concerneth the\nglory of God, the good of the Kingdoms, and the honour of the King; but\nshall all the days of our lives zealously and constantly continue therein\nagainst all  opposition, and promote the same according to our power\nagainst all lets and impediments whatsoever; and what we are not able\nourselves to suppress or overcome we shall reveal and make known, that it\nmay be timely prevented or removed: all which we shall do as in the sight\nof God... [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 478-9, and Lords Journals, Sept. 18,\n1643.--\"Not so very illiberal either,\" I have said of the League and\nCovenant in the text; and reader of the Second Article, pledging to\n\"endeavour the extirpation of Popery, Prelacy, Superstition, Heresy,\nSchism, Profaneness,\" will naturally demur. This Article, however, was\nbut a repetition of what all, of both nations, who might sign the\nCovenant, including the English Parliament, were, by past actions and\nresolutions, already pledged to, neck-deep or more. The illiberality is\nto be charged not upon this particular League and Covenant, but upon the\nentire British mind of the time, with individual theorists excepted. It\nbelonged to the Royalists equally with the Parliamentarians; the only\ndifference being that the objects for \"extirpation\" in _their_\npolicy were and had been the Calvinisms and Presbyterianisms that were\nnow exulting in the power of counter-extirpation.--The most important\nArticle of the six is the First, pledging to a recognition and defence of\nthe Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and to an endeavour after a\nReformation of Religion in England and Ireland \"according to the Word of\nGod,\" with a view to uniformity in the three Kingdoms. The insertion of\nthe caution \"according to the word of God\" is said to have been owing to\nVane, who did not want to pre-commit the English too much to exact\nScottish Presbytery. The few other changes made by the English Parliament\nand Westminster Assembly in Henderson's original Edinburgh draft of the\nCovenant may be traced by a diligent reader in the proceedings of the\nLords and Commons on this subject as recorded in their Journals between\nAug. 31 and Sept. 15. The parenthetical definition of Prelacy in Art. II.\nwas a suggestion of the Assembly's; the bringing in of Ireland into the\nCovenant seems to have been a notion of the Commons.]\n\nOno effect of the Solemn League and Covenant was to clear away from the\nWestminster Assembly the few Anglicans who had till then tried to hang on\nto it. Dr. Featley alone, of this party, persisted in keeping his place\nfor some time longer; but, on the discovery that he was acting as a spy\nin the King's interest and corresponding with Usher, he was expelled by\nthe Parliament, sequestrated from his livings, and committed to prison\n(Sept. 30). On the other hand, the Assembly had now an accession of\nstrength in the Commissioners deputed to it from the Kirk of Scotland.\nTwo of these, Mr. Douglas and the Earl of Cassilis, never made their\nappearance; but the other six duly took their places, though not all at\nonce. They were admitted by warrant of the Parliament, entitling them \"to\nbe present and to debate upon occasion\"; but, as Commissioners from the\nChurch of another nation, they declined being considered \"members\" in the\nordinary sense. Practically, however, this was a mere formality; and the\nreader has now therefore to add to the list of the Assembly the following\nScotchmen:--\n\n\nDIVINES.\n\nALEXANDER HENDERSON: since 1639 one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and\nsince 1640 Rector of the University of Edinburgh (annually re-elected).\n_\u00e6tat._ 60.--As Henderson has appeared again and again in this\nHistory, I have only to add here that my researches have more and more\nconvinced me that he was, all in all, one of the ablest and best men of\nhis age in Britain, and the greatest, the wisest, and most liberal, of\nthe Scottish Presbyterians. They had all to consult him; in every strait\nand conflict he had to be appealed to, and came in at the last as the man\nof supereminent composure, comprehensiveness, and breadth of brow.\nAlthough the Scottish Presbyterian rule was that no churchman should have\nauthority in State affair's, it had to be practically waived in his case:\nhe was a Cabinet Minister without office. The tradition in Scotland is\nperfectly just which recollects him as the second founder of the Reformed\nChurch in that part of the island, its greatest man after Knox. Such is\nthe tradition; and yet you may look in Encyclop\u00e6dias and such-like works\nof reference published of late years in Scotland, and not find\nHenderson's name. The less wonder that he has never received justice in\ngeneral British History! I undertake, however, that any free-minded\nEnglish historian, investigating the course of even specially English\nHistory from 1638 to 1646, will dig up the Scottish Henderson for himself\nand see reason to admire him.--Henderson, it will be remembered, had been\nin London, on the Anglo-Scottish business, before. But his stay then had\nbeen for but seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641). Now, as Scottish\nCommissioner to the Westminster Assembly, he was to remain in England for\nthe best part of three years (Aug. 1643--Aug. 1646). It was the easier\nfor him to give this service to English Parliamentarianism because he was\nan unmarried man. His Edinburgh congregation and Edinburgh University had\nto endure his absence as well as they could. Letters between Edinburgh\nand London could go and come by sea in ten or twelve days.\n\nGEORGE GILLESPIE: one of the ministers of Edinburgh (formerly minister of\nthe parish of Wemyss in Fifeshire): _\u00e6tat._ 3l.--He had flashed into\nnotice in Scotland in 1637, when he was only four-and-twenty years of\nago. He was then but tutor in the household of the Earl of Cassilis; but\nhe had written \"_A Dispute against the English--Popish Ceremonies\nobtruded upon the Church of Scotland_;\" and the publication of this\ntreatise, happening opportunely in the crisis of the Scottish revolt\nagainst Laud's novelties, attracted immediate attention to him, and\ncaused him to be regarded as one of the young hopes of Scottish\nPresbyterianism. Hence his appointment to the parish of Wemyss (1638);\nand hence his previous mission to London, in company with Henderson,\nBaillie, and Blair (1640-41). Returning from that mission, he had been\ntranslated from Wemyss to Edinburgh; but hardly had he settled in\nEdinburgh when he was again sent off to London on this new business. His\nwife and family joined him in London. He took a very active part in the\nbusiness of the Assembly. He died in 1648, soon after his return to\nScotland, aged only 35, leaving various writings besides his first one.\nAmong these were Notes of the Proceedings of the Assembly, chiefly during\n1644. They were first published from the MSS. in 1846.\n\nROBERT BAILLIE: Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow\n(formerly minister of Kilwinning in Ayrshire): _\u00e6tat._ 4l.--Baillie\nalso had been on the former Scottish Commission to London; and it way\nsorely against his will that he was appointed on this second one. He\nfollowed Henderson and Gillespie in November 1643, leaving his wife and\nfamily in Glasgow. He also remained fully three years in London,\nattending the Assembly punctually, but not speaking much. Fortunately,\nhowever, he kept up his habit of jotting down in his note-books and his\ncorrespondence all he saw and heard, Baillie's _Letters and Journals_\n(first properly edited by Mr. David Laing in 1842) are among the most\ngraphic books of contemporary memoir to be found in any language. His\nfaculty of narration in his pithy native Scotch is nothing short of\ngenius. Whenever we have an account from Baillie of anything he saw or\nwas present at, it is worth all other accounts put together for accuracy\nand vividness. So in his account of Stratford's trial; and so in his\naccount of his first impressions of the Westminster Assembly.\n\nSAMUEL RUTHERFORD: one of the ministers of St. Andrews, and also\nProfessor of Divinity in the University there (formerly minister of\nAnwoth, Kirkcudbright): _\u00e6tat_. 43.--Of him, as of the others, we\nhave had to take note before. Much of his celebrity in Scottish\necclesiastical history and in the history of Scottish theology had yet to\nbe acquired; but for sixteen years he had been known as one of the most\nfervid spirits and most popular preachers in all Scotland. In what mood\nhe accepted his commission to the Westminster Assembly may be judged from\na private letter of his from St. Andrews, Oct. 20, 1643. \"My heart\nbeareth me witness,\" he there says, \"and the Lord who is greater knoweth,\nmy faith was never prouder than to be a common rough barrowman in Anwoth,\nand that I could not look at the honour of being ane mason to lay the\nfoundations for many generations, and to build the waste places of Sion\nin another kingdom, or to have ane hand in the carved work in the cedar\nand almug trees in that new Temple.\" He went to London along with Baillie\nin November 1643, his wife and family either accompanying him or\nfollowing him. He also remained in London three years or more, burying\ntwo of his children there. He was a much more frequent speaker in the\nAssembly than Baillie.\n\n\nLAY COMMISSIONERS.\n\nJOHN, LORD MAITLAND (eldest son of the Earl of Lauderdale), _\u00e6tat_.\n27.--This young nobleman, who had a long and strange career before him,\nwas now one of the most zealous of the Scottish Covenanters, and was\nselected by the Scottish Kirk, as one of the lay-elders to be sent to the\nWestminster Assembly, on account of his great ability and learning. He\naccompanied Henderson and Gillespie, and took his place in the Assembly\nin August 1645; and, from his first arrival in London, he was much\ncourted by the Parliamentary leaders. Baillie and the rest were proud of\ntheir young noble. This was hardly, however, on account of his personal\nappearance; for he was a large-bodied young fellow, red-haired, of\nboisterous demeanour, and with a tongue too big for his mouth, so that he\nspluttered and frothed when he spoke. Ah! could the Scots but have\nforeseen, could the young fellow himself but have foreseen, what years\nwould bring about!\n\nSIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON, Knt.: one of the Judges of the\nScottish Court of Session (hence by courtesy \"Lord Warriston\"'): _\u00e6tat.\ncirc_. 35.--He had been, as we know, a leader among the Scottish\nCovenanters since 1637, and his knighthood and judgeship, conferred on\nhim by the King in Edinburgh in 1641, had been the reluctant recognition\nof his activity during the four preceding years.--Beside Henderson and\nArgyle there is no man of the Scottish Presbyterians of that time more\nworthy of mark than Warriston. He had prodigious powers of work,\nrequiring but three hours of sleep out of the twenty-four: and he was\nmutually crafty and long-headed, always ready with lawyer-like\nexpedients. Bishop Burnet, who was his nephew, adds, \"He went into very\nhigh notions of lengthened devotions, in which he continued many hours a\nday: he would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an\nunexhausted copiousness that way. What thought soever struck his fancy\nduring these effusions, he looked on it as an answer of prayer, and was\nwholly determined by it.\" Such descriptions, and even parts of his own\ncorrespondence, might picture him as a kind of fanatical Machiavelli; but\nhe seems to have been much liked and trusted by all who knew him.\nBaillie, for instance, addresses him familiarly and heartily as\n\"Archibald\" in his more private letters. He had much of his career still\nbefore him.--His judgeship and other business in Edinburgh prevented him\nfrom going to London along with the other Commissioners; but he took his\nplace in the Westminster Assembly Feb. 1, 1643-4, and was for some time\nafterwards in England.\n\n[Besides Lord Maitland and Lord Warriston, there were admitted into the\nWestminster Assembly from time to time other Scottish lay-commissioners,\neither to make up for the absence of the Earl of Cassilis originally\nappointed, or for other reasons. Thus in September 1643, when Henderson,\nGillespie, and Lord Maitland took their places, ROBERT MALDRUM, a\nconfidential agent of the Scots in London, was admitted along with them;\nand the EARL OF LOUDOUN, LORD BALMERINO and even ARGYLE himself, sat in\nthe Assembly at various times subsequently.]\n\nEvery respect was paid to the Scottish Commissioners in London. They had\nWorcester House in the City assigned, or rather re-assigned, them for a\nresidence, with St. Antholin's church again made over to them for their\npreachings; [Footnote: Memoir of Baillie, by David Laing, in Baillie's\nLetters and Journals, p. li. In Cunningham's \"London,\" and else where,\nWorcester House in the Strand, on the site of the present Beaufort\nBuildings, afterwards Lord Clarendon's house is mad the residence of the\nScottish Commissioners; but Mr. Laing points out that it was Worcester\nHouse or Worcester Place in the City, which had been the mansion of John\nTiptoft, Earl of Worcester.] and they had a special bench of honour in\nthe Assembly. And from that bench, day after day, week after week, month\nafter month, they laboured to direct the Assembly, and, to a great\nextent, did direct it. For, as the mainly Presbyterian character and\ncomposition of the Assembly at its first meeting had been the result of\nthe influence of Scottish example and of continued Scottish action in\nEngland for a year or two, so it was to Henderson's Covenant, and to the\npresence of the Scottish Commissioners in London, that the Assembly,\nwhile yet in its infancy, was indebted (if it was a debt) for a new\nimpulse or twist in the strict Presbyterian direction. English\nPresbyterianism might be willing, but it was vague and uninformed;\nwhereas here, in the Scottish Commissioners, were men who knew all about\nPresbyterianism, had every detail of it at their fingers' ends, had\nstudied it nearly all their lives, and had worked it practically for five\nyears. What a boon to England to be able to borrow for a year or two such\na group of Scottish instructors! It was as if a crowd of Volunteers,\nright-minded and willing to learn, had secured a few highly-recommended\nregulars to be their drill-sergeants.\n\n\nDEBATES IN THE ASSEMBLY: PRESBYTERIANISM AND INDEPENDENCY: THE\n_APOLOGETIC NARRATION_ OF THE INDEPENDENTS.\n\nIt was not till October 12, 1643, that the real debating in the Assembly\nbegan. Till then they had been occupied with matters in which they could\nbe pretty nearly of one mind, including their revision of the Thirty-nine\nArticles. In that business, where we left them at the Tenth Article\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 6), they had crawled on through five Articles more: viz.-\n\"_XI. Of Justification by Faith_\"; \"_XII. Of Good Works_\"; \"_XIII. Of\nWorks before Justification_\"; \"_XIV. Of Works of Supererogation_\"; \"_XV.\nOf Christ alone without Sin_\"; and on the 12th of October they were busy\nover Article XVI. \"_Of Sin after Baptism._\" But on that day they received\nan order from the two Houses (and Scottish influence is here visible) to\nleave for the present their revision of the Thirty-nine Articles, and\nproceed at once to the stiffer questions of the new form of Church-\ngovernment and the new Directory of Worship for England. [Footnote:\nLightfoot's Notes, p. 17.] Of these questions the Assembly chose the\nfirst to begin with. On what a sea of troubles they were then launched!\n\n(1) CHURCH OFFICERS AND OFFICES.--Under this heading alone they had\ndebates extending over nearly three months (Oct. 1643--Jan. 1643-4), and\nlabouring successively through such topics as these--Christ's Priesthood,\nProphetship, and Kingship, with the nature of his Headship over the\nChurch; the Church officers under Christ mentioned in Scripture\n(Apostles, Prophets, Pastors, Doctors or Teachers, Bishops or Overseers,\nPresbyters or Elders, Deacons, and Widows), with the nature of their\nfunctions respectively, and the proper discrimination between those of\nthem that were extraordinary and temporary and those that were to be\nordinary and permanent in the Church; the settling therefrom of the\nofficers properly belonging to each modern Christian congregation, and\nespecially whether there should be ruling lay-elders along with the\npastor or minister, and, if so, what should be their exact duties.\nGradually, in the course of this long discussion, carried on day after\nday in the slowest syllogistic way, the differences of the Independents\nand the Erastians from the Presbyterian majority of the Assembly came\nout. On the question of lay-eldership, indeed, there was a more extensive\ncontest. Such English Presbyterians as Mr. Vines, Mr. Palmer, and Mr.\nGataker, joined with the Erastian Divines, Lightfoot and Coleman, and\nwith the Independents, in wholly or partially opposing lay-eldership,\nagainst the advocacy of their brethren, Marshall, Calamy, Newcomen, Young\n(four of the Smectymnuans), Seaman, Herle, Walker, Whitaker and others,\nhacked by the Scottish Commissioners. On the whole, however, the votes\nwere decidedly in favour of the Scottish Presbyterian arrangement of\nchurch offices. Henderson occasionally waived a point for the sake of\naccommodation.\n\n(2) ORDINATION:--This subject and its adjuncts occupied the Assembly\nduring some fourteen sittings in January 1643-4. Ordination having been\ndefined to be \"the solemn setting apart of a person to some public church\noffice,\" it was voted, not without opposition, that such ordination is\nalways to be continued in the church, and consequently that there should\nnot be promiscuous preaching by all and sundry, but only preaching by\nauthorized persons. But then who were to ordain? What were to be the\nqualifications for being ordained to the pastoral office? How far were\nthe congregations or parishioners to have a voice in the election of\ntheir pastors? What was to be the ceremonial of ordination? On these\npoints, or on some of them, the Independents fought stoutly, being\ncarefully on their guard against anything that might endanger their main\nprinciple of the completeness of every congregation of believers within\nitself. Selden also interposed with perturbing Erastian arguments. On the\nwhole, however, in this matter also the drift of the Assembly was as the\nPresbyterians wished. While it was agreed that \"in extraordinary cases\nsomething extraordinary may be done until a settled order can be had,\" it\nwas voted that even in such cases there should be a \"keeping as near as\npossibly may be to the rule;\" which rule was indicated, so far at least,\nby the resolution that \"preaching Presbyters may ordain,\" or that Bishops\nare not required for the act. But, before this subject of Ordination\ncould be carried farther, it melted into a larger one.\n\n(3) PRESBYTERIAL GOVERNMENT OR CONGREGATIONALISM:--This controversy,\nwhich had been underlying the whole course of the previous debating,\nemerged in express terms before the end of January 1643-4. Then began the\nreal tug of the verbal war. It is unnecessary to enumerate all the items\nof the controversy. The battle was essentially between two principles of\nchurch-organization. Was every individual assembly, or association of\nChristians (it might be of hundreds of persons, or it might be of as few\nas seven persons, voluntarily drawn together), to be an independent\necclesiastical organism, entitled to elect its own pastor and other\nofficers, and to exercise the powers of admonition and excommunication\nwithin itself--any action of surrounding congregations upon it being an\naction of mere observation and criticism, and not of power or\njurisdiction; and no authority to belong to meetings of the office-\nbearers of congregations of the same city or neighbourhood, or to general\nsynods of office-bearers, however useful for various purposes such\noccasional meetings and synods might be? This was what the Independents\nmaintained; and to this the Presbyterians vehemently said Nay. It was not\ndesirable, they said in the first place, that congregations themselves\nshould be mere gatherings of Christians drawn together by chance\naffinities. That would be to put an end to the parochial system, with all\nthe advantages of orderliness and effective administration that belonged\nto it. Let every congregation consist, as heretofore, mainly of the\ninhabitants of one parish or definitely marked ecclesiastical territory.\nThen let there be a strict inter-connectedness of all these parochial\ncongregations over the whole land by means of an ascending series of\nchurch-judicatories. Let the congregations of the same town or district\nbe connected by a Presbyterial Court, consisting of the assembled\nministers and the ruling lay-elders of all the congregations,\nperiodically reviewing the proceedings of the said congregations\nindividually, or hearing appeals from them; and let these Presbyteries or\nPresbyterial Courts be in like manner under the authority and review of\nSynods, embracing many Presbyteries within their bounds, and, finally, of\nNational Assemblies of the whole Church. Fierce and hot waxed the war\nbetween the two systems. Much turned on the practice of the apostolic\nchurches or primitive Christian communities of Jerusalem Ephesus,\nAntioch, Corinth, &c., as it could be gathered from various passages of\nScripture: and great was the display of learning, Hebraic and\nHellenistic, over these passages on both sides. Goodwin as the chief\nspeaker for the Independents; but he was aided by Nye, Burroughs, Bridge,\nand Simpson; and Selden struck in, if not directly for Congregationalism,\nat least so as to perplex the Presbyterians. On the other side Marshall\nand the other Smectymnuans were conspicuous, with Vines, Seaman, Burges,\nPalmer, Herle, and Whitaker. Henderson looked on and assisted when\nrequired. But no one on this side was more energetic than Henderson's\nyoung colleague, Gillespie. His countryman Baillie was in raptures with\nhim, and in writing to Scotland and to Holland could not praise him\nenough. \"Of a truth\" he says in one letter, \"there is no man whose parts\nin a public debate I do so admire. He has studied so accurately all the\npoints that ever yet came to our Assembly, he has got so ready, so\nassured, so solid a way of public debating, that, however there be in the\nAssembly divers very excellent men, yet, in my poor judgment, there is\nnot one who speaks more rationally and to the point than that brave youth\nhas done ever.\" On one occasion Gillespie, on a question of sheer\nlearning, dared to grapple even with the great Selden, and with such\neffect, according to tradition (Scottish!), that even Selden reeled. And\nso on and on, from January 1643-4, through February, March, and April,\nthe debate proceeded, and there seemed to be no likely end to it. For,\nthough Congregationalism was maintained but by a small knot of men in the\nAssembly, they fought man fully, inch by inch, and there were various\nreasons why the majority, instead of overwhelming them by a conclusive\nvote or two, allowed them to struggle on. For one thing, though Baillie\nthought there was a \"woful longsomeness\" in the slow English forms of\ndebating at such a time, it was felt by the English members that, in so\nimportant a business as the settling of a new constitution for the\nNational Church, hurry would be unbecoming. But, besides this, the\nAssembly was not a body legislating in its own right. It had been called\nonly to advise the Parliament; and, though its deliberations were with\nclosed doors, was not all that it did from day to day pretty well known,\nnot only in Parliament, but in London and throughout the country? Might\nnot the little knot of Independents fighting within the Assembly\nrepresent an amount of opinion out of doors too large to be trifled with?\n[Footnote: In Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly and Gillespie's similar\nNotes, the proceedings which I have endeavoured to summarize in this\nparagraph and the two preceding may be traced in detail--Lightfoot's\nNotes traversing, with great minuteness, the whole of the time under\nnotice; and Gillespie's beginning at Feb. 2, 1643-4. Prefixed to\nGillespie's Notes, as edited by Meek in 1846, there is, however, a very\nuseful set of official minutes of the proceedings from Oct. 17, 1643,\nonwards, by the Scribes of the Assembly; which may be compared with\nLightfoot's more extensive jottings. There are excellent and luminous\nnotices of the Assembly's proceedings during most of the time indicated\nin Baillie, II. 106-174. Neal is very confused in his account of the\nAssembly, and does not seem to have studied its proceedings well. In\nHetherington's _History of the Westminster Assembly_ there is a\nfairish popular account, compiled from Lightfoot and Gillespie, but\ncharged with the author's strong personal Presbyterianism. The\ntraditional part of the story of Gillespie's fight with Selden (which had\ncome down, I believe, through the careful Scottish Church antiquary,\nWodrow) is given by Mr. Hetherington in his History of the Assembly, but\nmore fully and interestingly in his Memoir of Gillespie, prefixed to\nMeek's Edition of Gillespie's Notes.]\n\nNone knew this better than the little knot of Independents in the\nAssembly itself. They had already acted on the knowledge. Foreseeing that\nthe determination of the great question in the Assembly would inevitably\nbe against them, they had taken the precaution, before the question came\non in its final form, to record an appeal from the Assembly to Parliament\nand public opinion. This they had done in a so-called _Apologetical\nNarration_, presented to Parliament, and published and put in\ncirculation not later than the beginning of January 1643-4. [Footnote: I\nfind it registered at Stationers' Hall, Dec. 30, 1643.] It is a tract of\nsome thirty quarto pages, signed openly by the five writers--Thomas\nGoodwin, Sidrach Simpson, Philip Nye, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William\nBridge. Having explained first that they had been in no haste to press\ntheir peculiar opinions, and would have preferred to disclose them\ngradually, but that recent experience had left them no option but to\nappeal to Parliament as \"the supreme judicatory of this kingdom,\" and\n\"the most sacred refuge and asylum for mistaken and misjudged innocence,\"\nthey proceed to a historical sketch of their doings while they had been\nin Holland, and an exposition of their differences from their\nPresbyterian brethren. Three principles of practical conduct, they say,\nhad taken firm hold of them--_first_, that their supreme rule in\nchurch-matters, out of themselves, should be the pattern of the primitive\nor apostolic churches; _secondly_, that they would not bind themselves\nby their present judgment in any matter against a possible future change\nof judgment; and, _thirdly_, that they would study accommodation, as\nfar as they could, to the judgments of others. Acting on these\nprinciples, but foreseeing the condemnation of their Congregationalism by\nthe Assembly, they hoped at least that the issue would be so regulated\nfinally by Parliament that they might not be driven into exile again, but\nmight be permitted \"to continue in their native country, with the\nenjoyment of the ordinances of Christ, and an indulgence in some lesser\ndifferences,\" so long as they continued peaceable subjects. [Footnote:\nNeal, III. 131-133, _Narration_ itself, also Hanbury's _Historical\nMemorials relating to the Independents_, Vol. II. (1841), pp. 221-\n230.]\n\nThis appeal to C\u00e6sar by the five leading Independents had by no means\npleased the rest of the Assembly. Though they acknowledged the great\nability and even the moderation of the dissentients, they thought it an\nunfriendly stroke of policy on their part to have thus sheltered\nthemselves by anticipation under the power outside. But, indeed, it was\nmore than a stroke of personal policy. The five knew that they were\nspeaking not for themselves only, but for all that might adhere to them.\nTheir act reminded the Assembly of what was otherwise becoming apparent--\nto wit, that the Assembly was after all but an imperfect representation\nof contemporary English opinion. It was an ark floating on a troubled\nsea, with its doors and windows well pitched, and perhaps with Noah on\nboard, but not all Noah's family, and certainly not specimens of all the\nliving creatures, even of non-episcopal kinds, that were to survive into\nthe new order of things. What if, on the subsidence of the waters, the\nsurvivors in this ark should find themselves confronted with another\npopulation, which, having survived somehow on chance spars and rafts,\nmust be included in the new community, and yet would insist that\nquestions should be kept open in that community that had been settled by\nvotes passed within the ark? That such was likely to be the case the\nPresbyterians already had proof.\n\nWhat, then, were they to do? In the first place, as they believed Noah to\nbe within _their_ ark, they were to trust to his power, and the\nveneration that would be accorded to him, when he should re-emerge. In\nother words, they were to press on the Presbyterian theory in the\nAssembly, allowing \"the Five Dissenting Brethren,\" as they were now\ncalled, the most prolix liberty of speech and reasoning, but always\nbeating them in the final vote so as to secure a thoroughly Presbyterian\nreport to Parliament at the last. But, in the second place, as the\nIndependents had appealed to public opinion against such a contingency,\nit was necessary not only to carry Presbyterianism within the Assembly,\nbut also to argue for it out of doors. Hence, through the year 1644,\namong the shoals of pamphlets that came from the London press (including\nFast-day Sermons, Sermons before the Lords and Commons, &c., by the most\neminent members of Assembly) there were not a few pleas for Presbytery,\nintended to counteract the effects of the _Apologetical Narration_\nand other pleas for Congregationalism. Rutherford's _Temperate Plea for\nPaul's Presbytery in Scotland, or Modest Dispute touching Independency of\nparticular Congregations_, and the same author's _Peaceable Plea for the\nGovernment of the Church of Scotland_, had preceded the _Apologetical\nNarration_; but the express answers to the _Narration_ were numerous. One\nof the most celebrated of these was a pamphlet entitled _Some\nObservations and Annotations upon the Apologetical Narration,_ addressed\nto the Parliament and the Assembly by a writer who signs himself merely\n\"A. S.,\" but is known to have been a certain Dr. Adam Steuart, a Scot\nresiding in London, but who soon afterwards received a call to Leyden. To\nthis pamphlet there were replies on the part of the Independents,\nespecially one entitled _M. S. to A. S._ (a title changed in a second\nedition into \"_A Reply of Two of the Brethren to A.S._\"); again \"A.S.\"\nresponded; and so the controversy went on, pamphlets thickening on\npamphlets. [Footnote: Lowndes's Bibl. Manual, by Bohn, Article \"Steuart,\nAdam;\" Baillie, II. 216; and Hanbury's _Hist. Memorials relating to the\nIndependents_, II. 251 _et seq._, and 341 _et seq._, where there are full\naccounts of the pamphlets, with extracts.]\n\n\nPROCEEDINGS OF PARLIAMENT TO FEB. 1643-4: STATE OF THE WAR: THE SCOTTISH\nAUXILIARY ARMY.\n\nMeanwhile, notwithstanding this ominous difference in the Assembly on the\ngreat question of Church-government, all parties in the Assembly were co-\noperating harmoniously with each other and with Parliament in other\nimportant items of the general \"Reformation\" which was in progress. The\nchief of these items may be grouped under headings:--\n\n_Simplification of Church Service, and Suppression of unpopular Rites\nand Symbols_.--This process, which had been going on naturally from\nthe beginning of the Parliament, and more violently and riotously in some\nplaces since the beginning of the war, had been accelerated by recent\nParliamentary enactments. Thus, in May 1643, just when Milton was\npreparing to leave London on his marriage holiday, there had been a\ntearing down, by authority, with the sound of trumpets and amid the\nhuzzas of the citizens, of Cheapside Cross, Charing Cross, and other such\nstreet-monuments of too Popish make. At the same time the anti-\nSabbatarian \"Book of Sports\" had been publicly burnt. Then followed (Aug.\n27) an ordinance for removing out of churches all \"superstitious images,\ncrucifixes, altars,\" &c.; the effect of which for the next few months was\na more or less rough visitation of pickaxing, chipping, and chiselling in\nall the parish-churches within the Parliament's bounds that had not\nalready been Puritanized by private effort. Then, again, on the 20th of\nNovember, the House of Commons recommended to the consideration of the\nAssembly a new English Version of the Psalms, which had been recently\nexecuted, and put into print, by the much-respected member for Truro, Mr.\nFrancis Rous. Ought not Sternhold and Hopkins's Version to be disused\namong other lumber; and, if so, might not Rous's Version be adopted\ninstead, for use in churches? It would be a merited compliment and also a\nsource of private profit to the veteran Puritan--whom the Parliament, at\nany rate, were about to appoint to the Provostship of Eton College (worth\n800_l_ a year and more), instead of the Malignant, Dr. Stewart, then\nwith his Majesty. The Assembly did actually take up Rous's Psalter, his\nfriends pressing it on the old gentleman's account, but others not\nthinking it good enough; and we find Baillie regretting, Scot-like, when\nthe subject was first brought up, that he had not with him a copy of\nanother version of the Psalms then in MS., by his friend and countryman,\nSir William Mure of Rowallan. This version he liked best of any he had\nseen, and thought decidedly better than Rous's; and; if he had had a\ncopy, he might have been able to do his friend a good turn! [Footnote:\nCommon Journals, Nov. 20, 1643; Baillie, II. 101 (and note), and 120-121.\nBaillie, at the very time he was privately wishing he had his friend\nRowallan's Psalms to pit against Rous's, was becoming acquainted with\nRous; to whom in a month or two he dedicated a sermon of his preached\nbefore the Commons. He there calls Rous his \"much honoured friend.\"\nRowallan's Psalms remain in MS. to this day; but specimens of them have\nbeen published. See Baillie's Letters, pp. 535-6 of Appendix, Vol. III.;\nwhere there is an interesting and curious history of English Versions of\nthe Psalms, by the editor, Mr. David Laing.] The adoption of Rous's\nPsalter was not immediately voted by the Assembly, but lay over along\nwith the general business of the new Directory for Worship. In this\nbusiness too they were making some private progress in Committee, though\nretarded by the debates on Church-government; and there was every\nlikelihood of substantial agreement here. Independents and Erastians were\npretty sure to agree with Presbyterians on the subjects of the Liturgy,\nSabbath-observance, abolition of Festival-days, and the recommendation of\na plain and Puritan church-service generally. There were significant\nproofs of this. Actually on Christmas-day 1643 (who would have thought\nit?) the Lords and Commons met for business as usual, thus showing the\nexample of contempt of the great holiday--all the more to the delight of\nthe Scottish Commissioners, and of the zealous Puritans of the Assembly\nand the City, because the Assembly was still weak-hearted enough as a\nwhole to adjourn for that day. It was the Scottish Commissioners, indeed,\nthat had contrived this rebuke to the weaker spirits. And within a week\nor two thereafter there was this farther Puritan triumph--also the\ncontrivance of the Scottish Commissioners through their friends in\nParliament,--that the use of the Liturgy was discontinued in the two\nHouses, in favour of extempore prayers by Divines appointed for the duty\nby the Assembly. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 120 and 130.]\n\n_Ejection of Scandalous and Malignant Ministers_.--A somewhat\nwholesale process, described in such terms by the winning side, had been\ngoing on, everywhere within the sway of Parliament, for several months.\nIt was part, indeed, of a more general process, for the sequestration to\nthe use of Parliament of the estates of notorious Delinquents of all\nkinds, which had been the subject of various Parliamentary ordinances.\n[Footnote: Commons Journals from March 1612-3 onwards. For sequence of\nproceedings and dates, see Index to Journals, Vol III. _sub cocc._\n\"Delinquents.\" See also the main sequestrating ordinances (March 31 and\nAug. 19, 1643) in Scobell's collection.] By these ordinances a machinery\nfor the work of sequestration had been established, consisting of a\ncentral committee in London, and of committees in all the accessible\ncounties. The special application of this machinery to clerical\ndelinquents had come about gradually. From the very beginning of the\nParliament (Nov. 1640) there had been a grand Committee of the Commons,\nof which Mr. White, member for Southwark, was chairman, for inquiring\ninto the scandalous immoralities of the clergy, and an acting Sub-\ncommittee, of which Mr. White also was chairman, for considering how\nscandalous ministers might be removed, and real preaching ministers put\nin their places. By the action of these committees month after month--\nreceiving and duly investigating complaints brought against clergymen,\neither of scandalous lives or of notoriously Laudian opinions and\npractices--a very large number of clergymen had been placed on the black\nbooks, and some actually ejected, before the commencement of the war.\nBut, after the war began, sharper action became necessary. For now the\nParliament had to provide for what were called \"the plundered ministers\"\n--_i.e._ for those Puritan ministers who, driven from their parsonages\nin various parts of the country by the King's soldiers, had to flock into\nLondon, with their families, for refuge and subsistence. A special\nCommittee of the Commons had been appointed (Dec. 1642) to devise ways\nand means for the relief of these \"godly and well-affected ministers;\"\nand, as was natural, the proceedings of this Committee had become inter-\nwound with those of the Committee for the ejection of scandalous\nministers--Mr. White at the head of the whole agency. And so, in the\nCommons, we hear ultimately of such determinations as these respecting\n\"scandalous ministers:\"--July 3,1643: \"Ordinance to be prepared to enable\nthe Committees (for sequestration) in the several counties to sequester\ntheir livings;\"--July 27: \"the Committee for plundered Ministers to\nconsider of informations against them and to put them to the proof;\"--\nSept. 6: \"Deputy Lieutenants and Committees in the counties empowered to\nexamine witnesses against them.\" The result was the beginning of that\n\"great and general purgation of the clergy in the Parliament's quarters\"\nabout which there was such an outcry among the Royalists at the time, and\nwhich, after having been a rankling memory in the High Church heart for\nseventy years, became the main text of Walker's famous folio of 1714 on\n\"The Sufferings of the Clergy of the Church of England in the Grand\nRebellion.\" According to that book, and to Royalist tradition, it was a\nruthless persecution and spoliation of all the best, the most venerable,\nand the most learned of the clergy of England. Fuller, however, writing\nat the time, and corroborated by Baxter, represents the facts more\nfairly. Not a few of the clergy first ejected, he admits, were really men\nof scandalous private character, and were turned out expressly on that\naccount; others, who were turned out for what was called their \"false\ndoctrine,\" or obstinate adherence to that Arminian theology and\nceremonial of worship which the nation had condemned, might regard\nthemselves as simply suffering in their turn what Puritan ministers had\nsuffered abundantly enough under the rule of Laud; and, if gradually the\nsequestration extended itself beyond these two categories of \"scandalous\nministers\" and \"ministers of unsound faith,\" and swept in among\n\"malignants\" generally, or those whose only fault was that they were\nprominent adherents to the King, what was that but one of the harsh\nnatural vengeances of a civil war? At the beginning of the purgation, at\nall events, Parliament professed carefulness and even leniency in its\nchoice of victims. A fifth of the income of every ejected minister was\nreserved to his wife and family; and, in order that the public, and even\nthe Royalists, might judge of the equity with which Parliament had\nproceeded in so odious a business, Mr. White, the chairman of the\ncommittees on clerical delinquency, put forth in print (Nov. 19, 1643)\nhis \"First Century of Scandalous Malignant Priests,\" or statement of the\ncases of one hundred of the sequestered clergy, chiefly in London and the\nadjacent counties, with the reasons of their ejection. At the time when\nMr. White (thenceforward known as \"Century White\") put forth this\npamphlet, the number of the ejected must have already considerably\nexceeded one hundred, or perhaps even three hundred; and, as the war went\non, and sequestration became more and more co-extensive with\n\"malignancy,\" the number swelled till, as is calculated, some 1,500 or\n1,600 clergymen in all, or about a sixth part of the total clergy of\nEngland, were thrown out of their livings. [Footnote: Commons Journals of\ndates July 3, July 27, and Sept. 6, 1643; White's _First Century_,\nFuller's Church History (ed. 1842), III. 458, 460; Neal's Puritans, III.\n23-34. Sec also Hallam's Const. Hist. (10th ed.), II. 164-166.]\n\n_Filling up of Vacant Livings by the appointment of New\nMinisters_.--For the sequestered livings there were, of course,\nnumerous candidates. Not only were there the \"plundered\" Puritan\nministers, most of them congregated in London, to be provided for; but\nthere were the young Divinity scholars growing up, for whom, even in a\nstate of war, or at least for such of them as took the side of\nParliament, it was necessary to find employment. Obviously, however, some\norder or method had to be adopted in the exercise of the large patronage\nof vacant livings which had thus come suddenly into the hands of\nParliament. The plundered ministers could not be thrust promiscuously, or\nby mere lottery, into such livings as were vacant. They had all,\ncertainly, the qualification of being already ordained; but there were\ndifferent sorts of persons among them, and some with very little to\nrecommend them except their distress. It was essential that there should\nbe some examination or re-examination of all such petitioners for new\nlivings, in order that the unfit should not be appointed, and that the\nothers might be provided for according to their degrees of fitness.\nAccordingly, at the request of the two Houses, the Westminster Assembly\n(Oct. 1643) appointed two-and-twenty of its Divines to be a committee for\nexamining and reporting on the qualifications of all such petitioners for\nlivings as might be referred to it by Parliament. About the same time a\nprovisional arrangement was made for the more difficult matter of\nordaining new candidates for the Ministry. The whole question of\nOrdination having yet to be argued and settled in the Assembly (see\n_ant\u00e8_, p. 20), it was felt on all hands that some temporary\narrangement was imperative. Accordingly, by the advice of the Assembly,\nthe whole business of deciding who were fit to be ordained, and of duly\nordaining such, was entrusted by Parliament to certain committees or\nassociations of godly ministers, themselves already ordained, appointed\nfor certain centres and districts. The chief Ordaining Committee was, of\ncourse, that for London and the country round. This committee, to which\nwas assigned not only the ordination of new ministers for its important\ndistrict, but also the ordination of all chaplains for the army and navy,\nconsisted of twenty-three associated Presbyters (ten Divines of the\nAssembly and thirteen parish-ministers of London not in the Assembly), of\nwhom seven were to be a quorum. Whosoever, not already ordained, should\npresume to preach publicly or otherwise exercise the ministerial office\nwithout having been ordained by this association, or one of the others,\nor at least without a certificate of having been approved by the\nExamining Committee of the Assembly, was to be reported to Parliament for\ncensure and punishment. The London Divines were enjoined to be careful\nwhom they admitted into their pulpits. In short, it was the object of\nboth the Parliament and the Assembly to proclaim their determination\nthat, while the question of Church-government was being considered, some\ndecent rule of practical order should be carefully observed, and England\nshould not be allowed to lapse, as the loyalists were giving out, into a\nmere anarchy of ranters, preaching cobblers, and every fool his own\nparson. [Footnote: Neal, III. 88-90, and 138-141.]\n\n_Visitation of the University of Cambridge_.--While the scandalous\nand malignant among the parish clergy were being sequestered and ejected,\nit was not to be expected that Parliament would spare the Universities.\nOxford, for the present, was beyond reach; but Cambridge was within\nreach. Was it to be endured that, while the town of Cambridge was the\nvery centre of the Associated Eastern Counties, the most zealously\nParliamentarian region in all England, the University should be a\nfortress of malignancy, with many of its Heads of Houses and Fellows\nnotoriously disaffected to Parliament, and showing their disaffection by\nsermons, publications from the University press, continuance of the\nforbidden usages and symbolisms in the College chapels, and such other\nacts of contumacy? For a long time Parliament had been asking itself this\nquestion. As early as June 10, 1643, the subject of \"some effectual means\nof reforming\" the University of Cambridge, \"purging it from all abuses,\ninnovations, and superstitions,\" and dealing with conspicuous malignants\nin it, had been under discussion in the Commons. There had been a\nreluctance, however, to proceed too rapidly, or so as to incur the\nRoyalist reproaches of \"invasion of University rights\" and \"ruin of a\ngreat seat of learning.\" Hence, whatever dealings with the University had\nbeen necessary had been left very much to the discretion of the ordinary\nagencies representing Parliament in the Associated Counties, at the head\nof which, since Aug. 1643, had been the Earl of Manchester. There was\neven a Parliamentary ordinance (Jan. 6, 1643-4) explaining that, whatever\nsequestration there might be of the revenues of individual delinquents in\nthe University, every regard was to be paid to the property of the\nUniversity as such, and not an atom of _it_ should be alienated. By\nthis time, however, it was felt that the malignancy of the University\nmust be dealt with more expressly. Accordingly, on the 22nd of January\nthere was passed \"an Ordinance for regulating the University of Cambridge\nand for removing of scandalous Ministers in the several Associate\nCounties.\" By this ordinance it was provided that, \"whereas many\ncomplaints are made by the well-affected inhabitants of the associated\ncounties of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, Hertford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, and\nLincoln, that the service of the Parliament is retarded, the enemy\nstrengthened, the people's souls starved, and their minds diverted from\nany care of God's cause, by their idle, ill-affected and scandalous\nclergy of the University of Cambridge and the Associated Counties\" and\nwhereas \"many that would give evidence against such scandalous ministers\nare not able to travel to London,\" therefore the Earl of Manchester\nshould be commissioned to take the necessary steps in the University and\nthe Counties themselves. He was to appoint Committees who were to have\n\"power to call before them all Provosts, Masters, and Fellows of\nColleges, all students and members of the University, and all ministers\nin any county of the Association, and all schoolmasters;\" and, after due\ninquiry by these Committees, he was to have power \"to eject such as he\nshall judge unfit from their places, and to sequester their estates,\nmeans and revenues, and to place other fitting persons in their room,\nsuch as shall be approved of by the Assembly of Divines.\" A very\nimportant ordinance, as we shall see in due time. [Footnote: Commons\nJournals, June 10, 1643, and Jan. 20, 1643-4; Lords Journals, Jan. 6 and\nJan. 22, 1643-4; and Neal, III. 105-107.]\n\nThe reader need hardly be reminded by what authority all these acts and\nchanges in the system of England were decreed and carried into effect.\nSince the beginning of the war the government of England, except where\nthe King's troops were in possession, had been in the two Houses of\nParliament sitting at Westminster; but since July 1643 it may be said\nrather to have been in these two Houses of Parliament _with_ the\nAssembly of Divines. What the reader requires, however, to be reminded of\nis the smallness numerically of this governing body. The House of Lords,\nin particular, though still retaining all its nominal dignity and keeping\nup all its stately forms, was a mere shred of its former self. About 29\nor 30 persons, out of the total Peerage of England, as we reckoned (Vol.\nII. pp. 430-31), had avowed themselves Parliamentarians; so that, had all\nthese been present, the House of Lords would have been but a very small\ngathering. But, as a certain number even of these were always absent on\nmilitary duty or on other occasions, it was seldom that more than 14 or\n15 Peers were present in the House around Lord Grey of Wark on the\nwoolsack as elected Speaker. Sometimes, when the business was merely\nformal, the number sank to 4 or 5; and I do not think the Lords Journals\nregister, during the whole time with which we are now concerned, a larger\nattendance than 22. That was the number present on the 22nd of January,\n1643-4, when the ordinance for visiting Cambridge University was passed.\n[Footnote: As the Lords Journals give the names of the Peers present each\nday, very accurate information on this subject is obtainable from them.]\nIn the Commons, of course, the attendance was much larger. When a \"whip\"\nwas necessary, between 200 and 300 could be got together. Thus on the\n25th of September, 1643, which was the day of inaugurating the Covenant,\n220 were present; and on the above-mentioned 22nd of January, 1643-4--an\nimportant day for various reasons--as many as 280 made their appearance,\nwhile it was calculated that 100 were absent in the Parliamentary\nservice. [Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 199.] Usually, however, the\nattendance was much less numerous. On a vote taken Nov. 26, 1643, the\ndivision showed 59 against 58, or 117 present; and this appears to be\nrather above the mark of the attendance in general.--On the whole, one\nmay say that the business of the nation in the interest of Parliament was\ncarried on habitually during those important months by some 12 or 15\nParliamentarian Peers, and some 100 Commoners, keeping up the forms of\nthe two Houses, and having for their assessors, and in part for their\nspurs and tutors, the 60 or 80 Puritan Divines who sat close at hand in\nthe Jerusalem Chamber.\n\nWas all this to last? Whether it was to last or not depended not a little\non the conduct of the Parliament itself, but greatly more on the conduct\nof the generals and armies that held up its banners in various parts of\nEngland. And how, since our last glimpses of the state of the war in the\ndark month of Hampden's death and the month following that (June and July\n1643), had the war been going on? Much as before. What do we see? A siege\nhere and a siege there, a skirmish here and a skirmish there, ending\nsometimes for the Parliament, but as often for the King; amid all these\nsieges and skirmishes no battle of any magnitude, save the first Battle\nof Newbery (Sept. 20, 1643), where Lord Falkland, weary of his life, was\nslain, and also the Royalist Earls of Carnarvon and Sunderland, but\notherwise the damage to the King was inconsiderable; Essex still heavy\nand solemn, an excellent man, but a woful commander-in-chief; little Sir\nWilliam Waller still the favourite and set up against Essex, but\nconfidence in him somewhat shaken by his recent defeats; the Fairfaxes in\nthe north, and others in other parts, doing at best but respectably;\nCromwell, it is true, a marked man and always successful wherever he\nappeared, but appearing yet only as Colonel Cromwell! \"For the present\nthe Parliament side is running down the brae,\" wrote the sagacious\nBaillie, Sept. 22, 1643; and again, more pithily, Dec. 7, \"They may tig-\ntag on this way this twelvemonth.\" The only remedy, Baillie thought--the\nonly thing that would change the sluggish \"tig-tagging\" of Essex and the\nEnglish into something like what a war should be--was the expected\ncoming-in of the Scots. For this event the English Parliamentarians also\nlonged vehemently. \"All things are expected from God and the Scots\" is\nBaillie's description of the feeling in London in the winter of 1643-4.\nFor, though the bringing in of a Scottish force auxiliary to the English\narmy had been arranged for in the autumn--though it was for that end that\nthe English Parliament had sent Commissioners to Edinburgh, had accepted\nHenderson's \"Solemn League and Covenant,\" and had admitted Scottish\nCommissioners into the Westminster Assembly--yet the completing of the\nnegotiations, and the getting together and equipping of the Scottish army\nfor its southward march, had been a work of time. About Christmas 1643 it\nwas understood that the Scots were in readiness to march; but the precise\ntime when they might be expected to cross the border was yet in anxious\nconjecture. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 83, 99, 104-5, and 114-15.]\n\nIt was an unusually severe winter, cold and snowy. The Londoners, in\nespecial, deprived of their coal from Newcastle, felt it severely.\nBaillie particularly mentions the comfortable hangings of the Jerusalem\nChamber, and the good fire kept burning in it, as \"some dainties in\nLondon\" at that date, and duly appreciated by the members of the\nAssembly. [Footnote: Ibid. II. 106.] Among the printed broad-sheets of\nthe time that were hawked about London, I have seen one entitled\n\"_Artificial Fire; or, Coal for Rich and Poor: this being the offer of\nan excellent new Invention_.\" The invention consists of a proposal to\nthe Londoners of a cheap substitute for coal, devised by a \"Mr. Richard\nGesling, Ingineer, late deceased.\" Mr. Gesling's idea was that, if you\ntake brickdust, mortar, sawdust, or the like, and make up pasteballs\nthereof mingled with the dust of sea-coal or Scotch coal, and with\nstable-litter, you will have a fuel much more economical than coal\nitself. But, though this is the practical proposal of the fly-sheet, its\nmain interest lies in its lamentation over the lack of the normal fuel.\n\"Some fine-nosed city dames,\" it says, \"used to tell their husbands, 'O\nhusband! we shall never be well, we nor our children, whilst we live in\nthe smell of this city's sea-coal smoke! Pray, a country-house for our\nhealth, that we may get out of this sea-coal smell!' But how many of\nthese fine-nosed dames now cry, 'Would to God we had sea-coal! Oh! the\nwant of fire undoes us! O the sweet sea-coal fires we used to have! how\nwe want them now: no fire to your sea-coal!'... This for the rich: a\nword for the poor! The great want of fuel for fire makes many a poor\ncreature cast about how to pass over this cold winter to come; but,\nfinding small redress for so cruel an enemy as the cold makes, some turn\nthieves that never stole before--steal posts, seats, benches from doors,\nrails, nay, the very stocks that should punish them; and all to keep the\ncold winter away.\" [Footnote: Folio sheet dated 1644 (_i.e._ winter\nof 1643-4), in British Museum Library: Press-mark, 669, f.]--If on no\nother account than the prospect of a re-opening of the coal-traffic\nbetween Newcastle and London, what joy among the Londoners when the news\ncame that, on Friday the 19th of January, 1643-4, the expected Scottish\narmy had entered England by Berwick! They had entered it, toiling through\ndeep snow, 21,500 strong, and were already--God be praised!--spreading\nthemselves over the winter-white fields of the very region where the coal\nlay black underground. At their head who but old Field-marshall Leslie,\nnow Earl of Leven, Scottish commander-in-chief for the third time, and\ntolerably well acquainted already with the North of England? Second in\ncommand to him, as Lieutenant-general of the Foot, was William Baillie,\nof Letham, in this post for the second time; and the Major-general, with\ncommand of the horse was David Leslie, a third Gustavus-Adolphus man,\nand, though a namesake of the commander-in-chief, only distantly related\nto him. The marquis of Argyle accompanied the invaders, nominally as\nColonel of a troop of horse; and among the other colonels of foot or\nhorse were the Earls of Cassilis, Lindsay, Loudoun, Buccleugh,\nDunfermline, Lothian, Marischal, Eglinton, and Dalhousie. The expenses of\nthe army, averaging 1,000_l._ per diem (6_d._ a day for each\ncommon foot-soldier, 8_d._ for a horse-soldier, and so on upwards)\nwere, by agreement, to be charged to England. [Footnote: Rushw. V. 604-7;\nParl. Hist. III. 200, 201; Baillie, II. 100 and 137.]\n\nThe condition on which the Scots had consented thus to aid the English\nParliament must not be forgotten. It was the agreement of the two nations\nin one and the same religious Covenant. In all the negotiations that had\nbeen going on between London and Edinburgh, the Scots had always assumed\nthe fulfilment of this condition on the part of the English. And, so far,\nwe have seen, it had already been fulfilled. Since September 1643, when\nHenderson's Covenant had first been proposed to the English Parliament\nand the Westminster Assembly, and the Commons and the Westminster Divines\nhad set the example by swearing to it collectively in one of the London\nchurches, \"the Covenant\" had been a phrase familiar to the English mouth.\nIn all the miscellaneous activity of the Parliament for the detection and\ndisabling of \"Malignants,\" there had been no instrument more effective or\nmore commonly used. There were other tests and oaths by which the\n\"malignants\" might be distinguished from the \"well-affected\"; but the\ntaking or not taking of the Solemn League and Covenant was the test\nparamount. Wherever the Parliament had power it had been in operation.\nSince December 20, for example, it had been the law that no one could be\na Common Councilman of the City of London who had not subscribed to the\nCovenant. Still, in this matter of subscription to the Covenant, the\nEnglish, both as the larger nation and as the less accustomed to\nCovenants, had remained considerably in arrear of the Scots; and, when\nthe Scots actually did make their appearance in England, there was a\nsudden refreshing of the memory of the English Parliament on the subject,\nand a sudden exertion to make up the arrears. \"The Scots are among us on\nthe supposition that we have all taken the Covenant; and lo! we have not\nyet all taken it,\" was virtually the exclamation of the Parliament.\nAccordingly, that all might be brought in, that there might be no escape,\nand that there might remain to all time coming a vast register of the\nnames of the Englishmen then living who had entered into this solemn\nleague with their Scottish neighbours, there was passed, on the 5th of\nFebruary, 1643-4, a new and conclusive ordinance on the subject. By this\nordinance it was enacted that true copies of the Covenant should be sent\nto the Earl of Essex and other commanders of the army, and to all\ngovernors of towns, &c., to the intent that it might be sworn to by every\nman in the army; also that copies should be sent into all the counties,\nso that they should punctually reach every parish and every parish-\nminister--the instructions being that every minister should, the next\nLord's day after the certified copy of the Covenant reached him, read it\naloud to his congregation, discourse and exhort upon it, and then tender\nit to all present, who should swear to it with uplifted hands, and\nafterwards sign it with their names or marks. All men over eighteen years\nof age, whether householders or lodgers, were to take it in the parishes\nin which they were resident; and the names of all refusing, whether\nministers or laymen, were to be reported. [Footnote: See Ordinance in\nLords Journals, Feb. 5, 1643-4.] Nay, by an arrangement about the same\ntime, the action of the Covenant was made to extend to English subjects\nabroad. Notwithstanding all this stringency, there is reason to believe\nthat not a few soldiers in the army, and not a few ministers and others,\ncontrived, in one way or another, to avoid the Covenant, without being\ncalled to account for the neglect. Where a minister otherwise\nunexceptionable, or an officer or soldier of known zeal and efficiency,\nhad scruples of conscience against signing, the authorities, both civil\nand military, appear in many places to have exercised a discretion and\nwinked at disobedience or procrastination.--The case of the Earl of\nBridgewater may here be of some interest, on its own account, and as\nillustrating what went on generally. The Earl, known to us so long as\n\"the Earl of Milton's _Comus_\" had been living in retirement as an\ninvalid during the war, his wishes on the whole being doubtless with the\nKing, but his circumstances obliging him to keep on fair terms with the\nParliament. The test of the Covenant seems to have sorely perplexed the\npoor Peer. \"He says some things in the Covenant his heart goes along with\nthem, and other things are doubtful to him; and therefore desires some\ntime to consider of it.\" Such was the report to the Lords, Wednesday Feb.\n7, 1643-4, by the Earls of Rutland and Bolingbroke, who had been\nappointed to deal with him and other absent Peers in the matter. \"He\nshall have time till Friday morning next,\" was the entry ordered to be\nmade. On the Friday named there is no mention of the subject in the Lords\nJournals; but on Saturday the 10th Lords Rutland and Bolingbroke were\nable to report that it was all right. Two days had convinced the Earl\nthat signing would be best for him. [Footnote: Lords Journals of dates\ncited.]\n\nBesides this universal imposition of the Covenant by Parliamentary\nordinance upon all who had hitherto neglected to take it, there was\nanother immediate effect of the presence of the Scots in England. The two\nnations being now in arms for the same cause, the fortunes of each nation\ndepending largely on the conduct of the other, and the two national\narmies indeed having to co-operate strategically, there required to be\nsome common directing power, intermediate between the English Parliament\nin Westminster and the Scottish Estates in Edinburgh, representing both,\nand acting for both in all matters of military concern. The Scots, on\ntheir part, had made provision accordingly. Besides appointing a\nstationary Committee of the Estates to manage matters from Edinburgh, and\nanother Committee to be with the Scottish army as a kind of Council to\nthe Earl of Leven, they had nominated (Jan. 9, 1643-4) a Special\nCommission of four persons to go to London with full powers to represent\nthe views and interests of Scotland in the enterprise in which it was now\nconjoined with England. These were--the EARL OF LOUDOUN, High Chancellor\nof Scotland; LORD MAITLAND (already in London as Scottish Commissioner to\nthe Westminster Assembly); SIR ARCHIBALD JOHNSTONE OF WARRISTON (due in\nLondon at any rate as a Commissioner to the Assembly); and MR. ROBERT\nBARCLAY, Provost of Irvine in Ayrshire. These Commissioners having\npresented their Commission to the English Parliament, Feb. 5, the\nParliament were moved to appoint some of its trustiest men from the two\nHouses to be an English Committee of Consultation with the Scottish\nCommissioners, and in fact to form, along with them, a joint \"Committee\nof the Two Kingdoms.\" Such an institution was not at all to the taste of\nLord General Essex, inasmuch as it trenched on his powers as commander-\nin-chief. Some opposition was therefore offered. On the whole, however,\nthe argument that the two kingdoms ought to be \"joined in their counsels\nas well as in their forces\" proved overpowering; and on the 16th of\nFebruary an ordinance was passed appointing the following persons (7\nPeers and 14 Commoners) to be a Committee for the purpose named--the EARL\nOF NORTHUMBERLAND, the EARL OF ESSEX, the EARL OF WARWICK, the EARL OF\nMANCHESTER, VISCOUNT SAYE AND SELE, LORD WHARTON, LORD EGBERTS, WILLIAM\nPIERREPOINT, SIR HENRY VANE, Senr., SIR PHILIP STAPLETON, SIR WILLIAM\nWALLER, SIR GILBERT GERRARD, SIR WILLIAM ARMYN, SIR ARTHUR HASELRIG, SIR\nHENRY VANE, Junr., JOHN CREWE, ROBERT WALLOP, OLIVER ST. JOHN, SAMUEL\nBROWNE, JOHN GLYNN, and OLIVER CROMWELL. Six were to be a quorum, always\nin the proportion of one Lord to two Commoners, and of the Scottish\nCommissioners meeting with them two were to be a quorum. There can be no\ndoubt that the object was that the management of the war should be less\nin Essex's hands that it had been. [Footnote: Lords Journals of dates\nFeb. 5 and 16, 1643-4; and Baillie, II. 141, 142]\n\nThe name of JOHN PYM may have been looked for in the Committee. Alas! no\nlonger need his name be looked for among the living in this History. He\nhad died on the 8th of December, 1643, when the Scots were expected in\nEngland, but had not yet arrived. He was buried magnificently in\nWestminster Abbey, all the Lords and Commons attending, and Stephen\nMarshall preaching the funeral sermon. England had lost \"King Pym,\" her\ngreatest Parliamentary man. No one precisely like him was left. But,\nindeed, he had done his work to the full; and, had he lived longer, he\nmight have been loved the less! [Footnote: Rushworth V. 376; Parl. Hist.\nIII. 186-7; and Baillie, II. 118.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nMILTON UNHAPPY IN HIS MARRIAGE: HIS FIRST DIVORCE TRACT: TWO EDITIONS OF\nIT.\n\n\nWe left Milton in his house in Aldersgate Street in or about 1643,\nwaiting for the promised return of his recently-wedded wife at\nMichaelmas, and meanwhile comfortable enough, with his books, his pupils,\nand the quiet companionship of his old father. We are now seven or eight\nmonths beyond that point in our general History. What had happened in the\nAldersgate household in the interval? A tremendous thing had happened.\nMilton had come to desire a divorce from his wife, and had written and\npublished a Tract on Divorce, partly in the interest of his own private\ncase, but really also with a view to suggest to the mind of England, then\nlikely to be receptive of new ideas, certain thoughts on the whole\nsubject of the English law of Marriage which had resulted from reflection\non his own experience. Here is the story:--\n\n\"Michaelmas [Sept. 29, 1643] being come,\" says Phillips, \"and no news of\nhis wife's return, he sent for her by letter, and, receiving no answer,\nsent several other letters, which were also unanswered; so that at last\nhe despatched down a foot-messenger [to Forest Hill] with a letter,\ndesiring her return. But the messenger came back not only without an\nanswer, at least a satisfactory one, but, to the best of my remembrance,\nreported that he was dismissed with some sort of contempt. This\nproceeding, in all probability, was grounded upon no other cause but\nthis--viz.: that, the family being generally addicted to the Cavalier\nparty, as they called it, and some of them possibly engaged in the King's\nservice, who by this time had his head-quarters at Oxford and was in some\nprospect of success, they began to repent them of having matched the\neldest daughter of the family to a person so contrary to them in opinion,\nand thought it would be a blot on their escutcheon whenever that Court\nshould come to flourish again. However, it so incensed our author that he\nthought it would be dishonourable ever to receive her again, after such a\nrepulse; so that he forthwith prepared to fortify himself with arguments\nfor such a resolution, and accordingly wrote,\" &c. Here Phillips goes on\nto enumerate Milton's various Divorce Tracts, the first of which in order\nof time was his _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. Aubrey\ncorroborates Phillips, but has little on the subject but what he may have\npicked up from gossip. \"She was a ... Royalist, and went to her mother\nnear Oxford: he sent for her after some time, and I think his servant was\nevilly entreated,\"--such are Aubrey's brief notes of the facts; after\nwhich come his own reflections on the rupture: \"Two opinions do not well\non the same bolster;\" and \"What man, especially contemplative, would like\nto have a young wife environed and stormed by the sons of Mars, and those\nof the enemy party?\" Finally Wood, in his _Fasti_, does little more\nthan repeat Aubrey: \"Though he sent divers pressing invitations, yet he\ncould not prevail upon her to come back;\" whereupon \"he, being not able\nto bear this abuse, did therefore, upon consideration, after he had\nconsulted many eminent authors, write the said book of Divorce, with\nintentions to be separated from her.\" [Footnote: Phillips's Memoir;\nAubrey's Lives; and Wood's Fasti Oxon. I. 482-3.]\n\nOn all grounds Phillips's authority is the best. And yet there are\ndifficulties in his account. According to that account, it was the non-\nreturn of Milton's wife at or about Michaelmas (Sept. 29) 1643, and not\nonly her non-return then, but her obstinate and repeated refusal to\nreturn after that date, and the insulting conduct of her family to the\nmessenger he finally sent to urge her return, that roused Milton's\nindignation, put the thought of divorce into his mind, and induced him to\nwrite his first Divorce Tract. If so, the tract could hardly have been\nready till some weeks after Michaelmas 1643--say, till about Christmas of\nthe same year. There is proof, however (and I do not think it has been\nobserved before), that Milton's first Divorce Tract was already published\nand in circulation two months _before_ the Michaelmas in question.\nThe proof is not, where we might expect it, in the books of the\nStationers' Company; for the Tract, like all Milton's previous pamphlets,\nwas published by him, rather defiantly, without the required legal\nformalities of licence and registration. But there is a precious copy of\nit in Thomason's great collection of pamphlets, called \"the King's\nPamphlets,\" in the British Museum. The title in that copy is as follows:\n\"_The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, Restor'd, to the good of both\nSexes, from the Bondage of Canon Law and other mistakes, to Christian\nFreedom, guided by the Rule of Charity; wherein also many places of\nScripture have recovered their long-lost meaning: seasonable to be now\nthought on in the Reformation intended._\" Underneath this title there\nfollows on the title-page the quotation \"Matth. xiii. 52. Every Scribe\ninstructed to the Kingdome of Heav'n is like the Maister of a house which\nbringeth out of his treasurie things old and new;\" and at the foot of the\ntitle-page is the legend \"_London, Printed by T. P. and M. S. in\nGoldsmiths' Alley_: 1643.\" [Footnote: Copy in British Museum Library\nPress mark, 12. G.F. 17 119.] This printed legend alone would all but\ndetermine the publication to have been prior to Christmas 1643; but the\nquestion is set at rest by a manuscript note on the title-page, \"_Aug.\n1st_.\" The note was put there by, or by the direction of, the\ncollector, Thomason, to indicate the day on which the copy came into his\nhands, and is to be relied on implicitly. The Tract, it will be observed,\nwas anonymous; but the words \"_Written by J. Milton_,\" penned on the\ntitle-page by the same hand that penned the date \"_Aug. 1st_,\" show\nthat the authorship was no secret from the all-prying Thomason. In short,\non evidence absolutely conclusive, Milton's first Divorce Tract was in\nprint and on sale in London on the 1st of August, 1643, or two months\nbefore Phillips's fatal Michaelmas. [Footnote: This may be the place for\na word or two about the collector of those Pamphlets in the British\nMuseum among which I have had so frequently to range for the purposes of\nthis work, and to which, like other inquiries into English History from\n1610 to 1660, I owe more items of information than I can count.--George\nThomason was a London bookseller of the Civil War time; his place of\nbusiness being the \"Rose and Crown\" in St. Paul's Churchyard. He was of\nRoyalist sympathies; but his hobby was to collect impartially all the\npamphlets, broad-sheets, &c., that teemed from the press on both sides,\nand not only those that teemed from the English press, but also all\npublished abroad that bore on current English questions. He began this\nlabour in 1641, and pursued it indefatigably till after the Restoration;\nso that, at his death in or about 1666, he left a collection of about\n33,000 pamphlets, &c. on English affairs, published between 1638 and\n1662. The making of this collection had been the delight of his life; it\nhad been his anxiety that no single tract, or printed scrap of any\ninterest, should escape him. When he began to collect in 1641, he had\ntaken pains to obtain copies of publications of the immediately preceding\nyears; and after that his work had been facilitated by the notoriety of\nhis passion for collecting. Booksellers and authors (Milton for one) seem\noccasionally to have sent copies of their pamphlets to Thomason. \"Exact\ncare hath been taken,\" he himself tells us in the Introduction to a MS.\ncatalogue of his treasures, \"that the very day is written upon most of\nthem that they came out;\" and this care of his has fixed the dates of\nmany publications that would else have been unknown or but vaguely\nknown.--For farther particulars of this interesting person, an account of\nthe shifts to which he was put to save his collection from the chances of\nParliamentarian pillage, and a history of the fortunes of his collection\ntill it came to be part of the Library of King George III., and so of the\nBritish Museum, see Edwards's _Memoirs of Libraries_ (1859), Vol. I\npp, 456-460.--I may add that I have seen a pencil jotting in Thomason's\nhand on one of the fly-leaves of his collection as fresh and legible,\nafter 220 years, as if it had been written yesterday.]\n\nOne of two suppositions therefore:--(1.) If Phillips is right in his\nstatement that Milton's first Divorce Tract was caused by the obstinate\nrefusal of his wife to return to him, and the insulting conduct of her\nfamily in detaining her and laughing at his letters and messages, then\nPhillips's dates in the whole matter of the marriage must be a little\nwrong. \"About Whitsuntide it was (May 21, 1643) that my uncle left us in\nAldersgate Street, on what turned out to be his marriage journey; in\nabout a month's time he returned, bringing his wife, and some of her\nrelations, with him (June 1643); the relations stayed about a week,\nduring which there was much feasting and merriment; for about a month\nafter they were gone the newly-married wife remained with my uncle; but\nthen (late in July or early in August 1643), tired of a philosophical\nlife, and pining for the society of home, she contrived a request from\nher family to have her with them during the rest of the summer--to which\nmy uncle consented, on the understanding that she was to come hack about\nMichaelmas (Sept. 29, 1643).\" Such, re-expressed in words for the nonce,\nis Phillips's account as we have already given it. But, as the Divorce\nTract was published August 1, 1643, it is clear that, if the cause of\nthat Tract was the persistent, protracted, and contemptuous absence of\nhis wife, then Phillips's memory must have been at fault, and he must\nhave somewhat post-dated the marriage itself. The marriage in that case\nmust have been before Whitsuntide 1643; and the return of the wife to her\nrelations, her refusal to come hack, and Milton's chagrin and anger so\noccasioned, must have been matters not of after Michaelmas 1643, but of\nat least a month or two before the August of that year. This is quite a\ntenable supposition; for there are other inaccuracies in Phillips, and\nthe register of the place and date of Milton's marriage with Mary Powell\nhas not been found. (2) On the whole, however, Phillips's recollections\nabout the marriage are so circumstantial, and there is such a likelihood\nof their being true, that, until contradictory records shall be produced,\nit seems right to accept his dating. But then his explanation of the\ncause of his uncle's speculations about divorce must be wrong. The cause\nin that case cannot have been the obstinate refusal of his wife to\nreturn; for the Divorce Tract must have been written and ready for the\npress while she was still with him in the Aldersgate Street house (July\n1643), and it was actually out (Aug. 1) before she can have reached her\nfather's house at Forest Hill on her granted two months of leave till\nMichaelmas. What are we to make of this discrepancy? One is puzzled. That\na man should have occupied himself on a Tract on Divorce ere his\nhoneymoon was well over--should have written it perseveringly day after\nday within sound of his newly-wedded wife's footsteps and the very rustle\nof her dress on the stairs or in the neighbouring room--is a notion all\nbut dreadful. And yet to some such notion, if Phillips's dating is\ncorrect, we seem to be shut up. But, if so, more is involved than\nPhillips knew. The cause of Milton's thoughts about divorce, in that\ncase, must have been the agony of a deadly discovery of his wife's utter\nunfitness for him when as yet she had not been two months his wife. It\nmust have been the unutterable pain of the dis-illusioned bridegroom, the\ngnawing sense of his irretrievable mistake, The vision must then pass\nbefore our minds of scenes in the Aldersgate Street house, the reverse of\nthe happily connubial, _before_ that sudden departure of the bride\nback to her father's home, and leading to that incident perhaps rather\nviolently. One seems to hear the sound of differences, of conflicting\nopinions about this and that, of weeping girlish wilfulness opposed to\nsteady and perhaps too austere prohibitions. \"Well, then, I will go back\nto my mother: I am sure I wish I had never----\": \"Go\": And so the parting\nmay have come about, not wholly by her arrangement, but harshly and with\nsome quarrel on his part. There are not wanting subsequent facts that\nmight lend a plausibility to this version of the story. [Footnote:\nMilton's mother-in-law, having occasion, seven years afterwards (1651),\nto advert to her daughter's return home so soon after her marriage,\ndistinctly attributed it to Milton himself. The words are, \"He having\nturned away his wife heretofore for a long space upon some other\noccasion.\" I do not think Mrs. Powell was a very accurate lady, and she\nhad no fondness for Milton; but the words seem to imply more than a mere\npassive consent of Milton to his wife's proposal to revisit her family.]\nYet it is the other that one would wish to be true, and that would fit in\nmost naturally with the facts as a whole. That version is that Milton,\ngood-naturedly and perhaps taken by surprise, allowed his wife to go home\nfor two months at her own request, or the request of her relatives,\nbefore he had been three months married, and that it was the insult of\nher nonreturn that revealed to him his mistake in her, and drove him into\nhis speculations about divorce. Only, then, we repeat, Phillips's dating\nof the marriage and its incidents requires amendment.\n\nIn any case the first edition of Milton's _Doctrine and Discipline of\nDivorce_ was out in London on the 1st of August, 1643. [Footnote: The\nsupposition is always open that, by some oversight, Thomason misdated his\ncopy, putting \"Aug.\" for a much later month. But this is the unlikeliest\nthing of all.] It was a pamphlet of forty-eight small quarto pages, with\nan extra page supplying two omitted passages. The text was printed\ncontinuously, without division into chapters; at the end.\n\nBoth in matter and in manner the Tract was one of the boldest that had\never been submitted to the reading of England. Its thesis is laid down\nnear the beginning in these terms: \"_That indisposition, unfitness, or\ncontrarity of mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable,\nhindering and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugal\nsociety, which are solace and peace, is a greater reason of divorce than\nnatural frigidity, especially if there be no children, and that there be\nmutual consent._\" This thesis Milton sets himself to argue in all\nsorts of ways--from natural reason and expediency; from the Scripture\ndoctrine of marriage as it might be gathered from the Mosaic Law and the\nright interpretation of texts in the Old and New Testaments,\nnotwithstanding one or two individual texts (like that of Matth. v. 31,\n32) that had been hackneyed and misunderstood by mere literalists; and\nfrom opinions or indications of opinion on the subject that might be\nfound in the works of some of the Protestant Reformers, and other eminent\nwriters. His conclusion was that the notion of the indissolubility of\nmarriage, or even the modified law of England and of other countries,\nauthorizing divorce only for certain gross reasons, were mere relics of\nsuperstitious tradition, the concoction of the Canonists and\nSacramentalists in the ages of sacerdotal tyranny, unworthy of more\nenlarged views of justice and liberty, and a canker and cause of\nincalculable misery in the heart of modern society. Again and again he\nindicates his consciousness that in announcing this conclusion, and\ntrying to rouse his fellow-countrymen to the necessity of at once\nincluding a revision of the Marriage Law in the general Reformation then\nin progress, he is performing a great public service. Thus, at the very\nopening: \"By which [the precedent of certain liberal hints on the subject\nby Hugo Grotius], and mine own apprehension of what public duty each man\nowes, I conceive myself exhorted among the rest to communicate such\nthoughts as I have, and offer them now, in this general labour of\nReformation, to the candid view both of Church and Magistrate; especially\nbecause I see it the hope of good men that those irregular and\nunspiritual courts have spun their utmost date in this land, and some\nbetter course must now be constituted. He, therefore, that by adventuring\nshall be so happy as with success to ease and set free the minds of\ningenuous and apprehensive men from this needless thraldom; he that can\nprove it lawful and just to claim the performance of a fit and matchable\nconversation no less essential to the prime scope of marriage than the\ngift of bodily conjunction, or else to have an equal plea of divorce as\nwell as for that corporal deficiency; he that can but lend us the clue\nthat winds out this labyrinth of servitude to such a reasonable and\nexpedient liberty as this--deserves to be reckoned among the public\nbenefactors of civil and human life, above the inventors of wine and\noil.\" [Footnote: This passage is from the first edition; it is not nearly\nso full in the second.] As such a benefactor, such a champion of a\nneglected truth and a suppressed human liberty, the anonymous writer\noffers himself. He knows that he stands alone at present, but he trusts\nto the power of demonstration addressed to the mind of England, then\nnewly awakened and examining all institutions to their roots.\n\nThere is not a word of avowed reference to his own case throughout; and\nyet from first to last we are aware of young Mary Powell in the\nbackground. Inability for \"fit and matchable conversation\": this is that\nsupreme fault in a wife on which the descant is from first to last, and\nfrom which, when it is plainly ingrained and unamendable, the right of\ndivorce is maintained to be, by the law of God and all civil reason, the\ndue deliverance. Hopeless intellectual and spiritual incompatibility\nbetween husband and wife: it is on this, though not in these exact words,\nthat Milton harps again and again as in his view the clearest\ninvalidation of marriage, the frustration of the noblest and most divine\nends of the institution; an essentially worse frustration, he dares to\nsay in one place, than even that conjugal infidelity which \"a gross and\nboorish opinion, how common soever,\" would alone resent or recognise. It\nis marvellous with what richness of varying language he paints to the\nreader the horrible condition of a man tied for life to a woman with whom\nhe can hold no rational or worthy conversation. \"A familiar and co-\ninhabiting mischief\"; \"spite of antipathy to fudge together and combine\nas they may, to their unspeakable weariness and despair of all sociable\ndelight\"; \"a luckless and helpless matrimony\"; \"the unfitness and\neffectiveness of an unconjugal mind\"; \"a worse condition than the\nloneliest single life\"; \"unconversing inability of mind\"; \"a mute and\nspiritless mate\"; \"that melancholy despair which we see in many wedded\npersons\"; \"a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper\"; \"ill-twisted\nwedlock\"; \"the disturbance of her unhelpful and unfit society\"; \"one that\nmust be hated with a most operative hatred\"; \"forsaken and yet\ncontinually dwelt with and accompanied\"; \"a powerful reluctance and\nrecoil of nature on either side, blasting all the content of their mutual\nsociety\"; \"a violence to the reverend secret of nature\"; \"to force a\nmixture of minds that cannot unite\"; \"two incoherent and uncombining\ndispositions\"; \"the undoing or the disheartening of his life\"; \"the\nsuperstitious and impossible performance of an ill-driven bargain\";\n\"bound fast to an uncomplying discord of nature, or, as it oft happens,\nto an image of earth and phlegm\"; \"shut up together, the one with a\nmischosen mate, the other in a mistaken calling\"; \"committing two\nensnared souls inevitably to kindle one another, not with the fire of\nlove, but with a hatred irreconcilable, who, were they severed, would be\nstraight friends in any other relation\"; \"two carcases chained\nunnaturally together, or, as it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead\ncorpse\"; \"enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit and sink him to\na low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in all his actions\": such are a few\nspecimens of the phrases with which the tract abounds. [Footnote: Some of\nthe phrases quoted occur in passages added in the second edition; but it\nis not worth while to distinguish those. Most of the phrases, and those\nof the same, occur in the third edition.] But one passage may be quoted\nentire:--\n\n\"But some are ready to object that the disposition ought seriously to be\nconsidered before. But let them know again that, for all the wariness can\nbe used, it may yet befall a discreet man to be mistaken in his choice,\nand we have plenty of examples. The soberest and best-governed men are\nleast practised in these affairs; and who knows not that the bashful\nmuteness of a virgin may oft-times hide all the unliveliness and natural\nsloth which is really unfit for conversation? Nor is there that freedom\nof access granted or presumed as may suffice to a perfect discerning till\ntoo late; and, where any indisposition is suspected, what more usual than\nthe persuasion of friends that acquaintance, as it increases, will amend\nall? And, lastly, it is not strange though many who have spent their\nyouth chastely are in some things not so quick-sighted while they haste\ntoo eagerly to light the nuptial torch: nor is it therefore that for a\nmodest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, and no charitable\nmeans to release him; since they who have lived most loosely, by reason\nof their bold accustoming, prove most successful in their matches,\nbecause their wild affections, unsettling at will, have been as so many\ndivorces to teach them experience; whenas the sober man, honouring the\nappearance of modesty, and hoping well of every social virtue under that\nveil, may easily chance to meet ... often with a mind to all other due\nconversation inaccessible, and to all the more estimable and superior\npurposes of matrimony useless and almost lifeless; and what a solace,\nwhat a fit help, such a consort would be through the whole life of a man\nis less pain to conjecture than to have experience.\"\n\nOh! and is it come to this? Then, as now, nothing so common as that such\nmischances of marriage, heard of by the world, and the rather if\npublished by the sufferers or one of them, should be received only as\nexcellent amusement for people round about. It is as if the one thing\nintrinsically and unceasingly comic in the world, for most people, were\nthe fact that it consists of man and woman, as if the institution on\nwhich human society is built and by which the succession of earth's\ngenerations is maintained, were the one only subject, with most people,\nfor nothing else than laughter. Even now perhaps our disposition to\njocosity on this subject, not sufficiently entertained by incidents of\nour own day, will range back to that case of Milton and Mary Powell two\nhundred and twenty-eight years ago, and join in the gossip which it then\nbegan to circulate through the town. In the lobby of the House of Commons\nit must have been heard of: it may have given a relish to the street-talk\nof reverend Presbyterian gentlemen talking home together from the\nAssembly \"Only a month or two married; his wife gone home again; and now,\ninstead of proper reticence about what can't he helped, all this\nhullaballoo of a new doctrine about Divorce! Just like him!\" This and\nsuch-like is what we seem to overhear; this and such-like is what Milton\ndid overhear; not much more than this and such-like are most of us\nprepared to say even now when we read the story. And yet the story is\nsurely worth more. One fails to see, after all, that it yields only\nmatter for jest and the repetition of commonplaces. What are the facts?\nTwo human beings, long dead and gone, but then alive and with the,\nexpectation of many years of life before them, had hardly been banded\ntogether in church when they found, or thought they found, that their\nunion was for their mutual misery. The one was a poor country-girl in her\nteens, ruing the fate to which she had committed herself, but with no\nweapons for her relief but her tears, her terror, and the mitigation of\nrefuge in her father's house. _Her_ case is to be pitied; shame if\nit is _not_! The other was a man extraordinary--so extraordinary\nthat even now we try to follow him in fancy in his walks through the\nLondon streets, and any bit of old wall his arm may have touched is a\nsacred antiquity, and we regard the series of thoughts that was in his\nmind through any month, or series of months, as something of prime\ninterest in the spirit of the past, a prize that we would give gold to\nrecover. Well, here was one series of thoughts that was in this man's\nmind for months and months, and that left effects, indeed, to his life's\nend. He was moody in his house; he walked moodily in the streets; we can\nhear him muttering to himself, we can see his teeth clenched. Morning and\nevening, day after day, he is in a great despair. And why? Because he has\nmade the most fatal mistake a man can make, and is gazing on, morning and\nevening, day after day, into the consequences. Lo! into that life which\nhe had hoped to make worthy of the God who gave it, a pattern life, a\ngreat poem within hose azure fitness other poems should arise to spin\ntheir gleaming courses--into this life what had he imported? Not the\nsolace and bliss of a kindred soul's society, which had been his intent\nand dream; but a darkness, a disturbance, a marring melancholy, a daily\nand hourly debasement, a coinhabiting mischief! It was enough, he says,\nto drive a man \"at last, through murmuring and despair, to thoughts of\nAtheism.\" But was there no remedy? Ah! in the very power of putting this\nquestion lay the advantage of the strong man over the weak Oxfordshire\ngirl. He could reason, he could delve into the subject, he could revolve\nit intellectually. What if the plight in which he found himself were no\nnecessary and irremediable evil? What if the permanence of marriage once\ncontracted between two persons utterly unsuitable for each other were no\ndecree of God, no real requirement of religion or of social well-being,\nbut a mere superstitious and fallacious tradition, a stupid and\npernicious convention among men? Once on this track, there was light for\nMilton. Out of his own private mishap there came the suggestion of a\ngreat enterprise. He would thunder, if not the mishap itself, at least\nits public significance, out upon the world. He would rouse his\ncountrymen on the whole subject of the Law of Marriage. Who knew but his\nvoice might be heard? Who knew but that, were it loud enough, there would\nbe a response of assent from the whole land, and his new idea of Divorce,\nalbeit the proclamation of only one man, might be carried, with other\nthings, in the current Reformation? There ran a touch of this sanguine\ntemper, this faith that any ideal might easily be made actual, through\nall Milton's life; and it appeared now most conspicuously. His idea, he\nwas aware, was new; but only let his demonstration be sufficiently\nthorough, only let him succeed in disturbing the existing apathy and\nsetting the thoughts of the nation astir on the subject, \"and then,\"\nwhat?--\"then I doubt not but with one gentle stroking to wipe away ten\nthousand tears out of the life of men.\" [Footnote: This phrase is in one\nof the inserted passages in the second edition.] Alas! after the\nhurricane of two hundred years the tear-drops still hang, multitudinous\nas ever, amid the leaves of that poor forest!\n\n\"Just like him\" I have imagined to have been a comment on this new\nappearance of Milton by some gossip of the day who may have known a\nlittle of him personally. Really, though not as intended, the comment\nwould have been just. This whole action of Milton, consequent on his\nunhappy marriage, was deeply characteristic. And yet there was perhaps no\none then living from whom such a course of action could less have been\nexpected. From all that we know of the youth and early manhood of Milton,\nwe should certainly have predicted of him, with whatever heterodoxy in\nother matters, yet a life-long orthodoxy on the subject of marriage.\nThink of him as we have seen him heretofore, the glorious youth,\ncherishing every high ethical idealism, walking as in an ether of moral\nviolet, disdaining customary vice, building up his character consciously\non the principle that he who would be strong or great had best be\nimmaculate. Think of him as the author of _Comus_; or think of him\nas he had described himself some years later in one of his Italian\nSonnets:--\n\n  \"Young, gentle-natured, and a simple wooer,\n    Since from myself I stand in doubt to fly,\n    Lady, to thee my heart's poor gift would I\n    Offer devoutly: and, by tokens sure,\n  I know it faithful, fearless, constant, pure,\n    In its conceptions graceful, good, and high.\n    When the world roars, and flames the startled sky,\n    In its own adamant it rests secure,\n  As free from chance and malice ever found,\n    And fears and hopes that vulgar minds confuse,\n    As it is loyal to each manly thing\n  And to the sounding lyre and to the Muse.\n    Only in that part is it not so sound\n    Where Love hath set in it his cureless sting.\"\n\nWhen he wrote thus, to what did he look forward, and to what might others\nhave looked forward for him? A career, it was probable, of speculative\ndissent from his contemporaries in many things, and of undaunted courage\nin the vindication of such dissent, but hardly of dissent from the\nestablished moralities of the marriage-institution. Had he been happily\nmarried, had he found himself united at last to one such as his dreams\nhad figured, who so likely to have persevered fondly in the traditional\ndoctrine of marriage, to have maintained the mystic sanctity and the\nnecessary permanence of the marriage-bond, and to have launched\ndenunciations against all who dared to tamper with this article of the\nestablished ethics? But, as it had chanced otherwise, it was not the less\ncharacteristic that he himself had been the audacious questioner, the\nchampion of a heresy. Driven by his own experience to investigate, his\nspeculative boldness had brought him at once to a conclusion the novelty\nof which would have made others hesitate, but had no terrors for him. For\n(and here was his difference from most men, here was what may be called a\nMiltonic peculiarity) he would take no benefit from such private\ndispensation as a man might pass for his own relief in such a case, his\nneighbours winking at it so long as he did not disturb the forum. He\n_would_ disturb the forum! What \"Milton\" did should be done openly,\nshould be avowed, should be lawful! Others, circumstanced as he now was,\nmight, if they liked--and there were examples all round, and especially\nin that Bohemian world of wits and men of letters with which he might be\nclassed, though he abjured the brotherhood--others might, if they liked,\nadopt a policy of silence and acquiescence, hypocritically bowing to\ntheir fate, but taking out their protest in secret consolations! No such\npolicy for him! The word \"illicit\" and his name should never be brought\ninto conjunction! Whatever _he_ did should be according to a rule of\nright, clear to his own conscience, and held aloft in his hand under the\nwhole roof of Heaven! And, if such a rule, ratified between himself and\nHeaven, should chance to conflict with one of the moralities of the\nexisting code of men, there was but one course for him. He would assail\nthe so-called \"morality\"; he would blast it out of the beliefs of men; he\nwould perform for his fellows the service of their liberation, along with\nhimself, from a useless and irrational thraldom! Or, if that work should\nprove too hard and toilsome, at least he should have published his own\nrule in opposition to the general superstition, and should walk on, as he\nhad resolved always to walk, unabashed in the daylight.\n\nIt was in August 1643, as we have seen, that Milton put forth anonymously\nhis _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_. From that time, on through\nthe rest of the autumn of 1643 and the winter of 1643-4, we are to fancy\nhim in his house in Aldersgate Street, with his father and his pupils for\nhis companions, and his thoughts much occupied, like those of other\nEnglishmen, with the course of public events. On the whole, the\nParliament had no greater admirer than Milton; and there were particular\nmen in the Parliament that were after his own heart. From the Westminster\nAssembly, too, he seems to have expected good. So far as he had formed\nviews as to the desirable form of Church-government for England, these\nviews, as we have seen (Vol. II. pp. 376-382), might be described as an\nexpectant Presbyterianism, not positively fixed and determined at all\npoints, but kept conveniently fluid. Accordingly, his sympathies, at\nfirst, may well have been with the Presbyterians of the Assembly; among\nwhom he could reckon, at any rate, his old tutor Young, and his other\nfriends and fellow-labourers in the Smectymnuan controversy. Or, if some\nthings among the tenets of the small Independent minority had begun to\ngain upon him, he seems still, through the winter of 1643-4, to have\nlooked forward to some compromise that should be acceptable to England\nand yet tend to that conformity between the two kingdoms which the Scots\ndesired, and to the furtherance of which they had pledged England by\nHenderson's international League and Covenant. At all events, Milton did,\nsome time after September 1643, subscribe to this League and Covenant\nwith the rest of his Parliamentarian countrymen. There are words of his\nown which vouch the fact. [Footnote: In the dedication to Parliament of\nhis _Tetrachordon_, published March 1644-5, he uses these words,\n\"That which I saw and was partaker of, your vows and solemn covenants.\"]\n\nA moody time though the autumn of 1643 and the winter of 1643-4 must have\nbeen for Milton, there was some relaxation for him in society more\ngeneral than that of his wife-deserted household. \"Our author,\" says\nPhillips, \"now as it were a single man again, made it his chief diversion\nnow and then in an evening to visit the Lady Margaret Ley, daughter to\nthe--Ley, Earl of Marlborough, Lord High Treasurer of England, and\nPresident of the Privy Council to King James the First. This lady, being\na woman of great wit and ingenuity, had a particular honour for him, and\ntook much delight in his company; as likewise her husband, Captain\nHobson, a very accomplished gentleman.\" Phillips seems to be sufficiently\naccurate in this account, but a few details may be added:--\n\nA man still well-remembered in England, though he had been dead fifteen\nyears, was James Ley, first Earl of Marlborough, he had attained to that\ndignity only in his old age, having advanced to it through a long\nprevious career. Born about 1552, the younger son of a Wiltshire squire,\nhe had passed from Oxford to the study of law at Lincoln's Inn, and had\nattained to high eminence in his profession before the death of\nElizabeth. Emerging from her reign, aged about fifty, he had been\nappointed by James to an Irish Chief Judgeship (1604); then brought back\nto England, knighted (1609), baroneted (1620), and made Chief Justice of\nthe Court of King's Bench (1621); and finally raised by the same King to\nthe great office of Lord High Treasurer of England, and to a peerage with\nthe title of Baron Ley of Ley in Devonshire (1624). In recognition of his\nlong services, Charles, in the first year of his reign (Feb. 5, 1626-7),\nhad created for him, when he was almost seventy-four years of age, the\nEarldom of Marlborough in his native Wiltshire. While thus promoting him,\nhowever, Charles appears not to have found him a minister such as he and\nBuckingham wanted. He had accordingly removed him from the High\nTreasurership in 1628, on the ground of his old age, but in reality to\nmake way for the more compliant Lord Weston, and had shelved him into the\nless important office of Lord President of the Council. He had died at\nLincoln's Inn, March 14, 1628-9, exactly four days after that ominous\ndissolution of Charles's third Parliament which announced his\ndetermination to have done with Parliaments and begin the reign of\n\"Thorough.\" The death of the old peer at such a juncture had apparently\nthe less been forgotten by reason of a tradition that the political\nanxieties of the juncture had had something to do with it. Now, at all\nevents, in the days of the Long Parliament and the Civil War, there was\nstill some respectful recollection of the old Earl of Marlborough as one\nof the best-liked ministers of James's reign and of the first years of\nCharles's. \"He was a person of great gravity, ability, and integrity;\nand, as the Caspian Sea is observed neither to ebb nor flow, so his mind\ndid not rise or fall, but continued the same constancy in all\nconditions.\" The words are Fuller's, and they probably express the\ncharacter of the Earl that had come down among his countrymen. [Footnote:\nDugdale's Baronage (1676), Vol. II. pp. 451, 452; Wood's Athen\u00e6, II. 441,\n443; Clar. Hist. (one vol. ed. 1843), p. 20; Fuller's Worthies,\n_Wiltshire_ (ed. 1840), III. 328-9.]\n\nThe Earl had been three times married; but he had left a family only by\nhis first wife--Mary, daughter of John Petty, of Stoke-Talmage, co.\nOxon., Esq. Eleven children had been the issue of this marriage:--to wit\n(according to Dugdale), \"three sons--_Henry, James_, and _William_; and\neight daughters--_Elizabeth_, married to Morice Carant, of Looner, in\ncom. Somers., Esq.; _Anne_, to Sir Walter Long, of Draycot-Cerne, in com.\nWilts., Knight; _Mary_, to Richard Erisy, of Erisy, in com. Cornw., Esq.;\n_Dionysia_, to John Harington, of Kelneyton, in com. Somers., Esq.;\n_Margaret_, to ... Hobson, of ... in the Isle of Wight, Esq.; _Hesther_,\nto Arthur Fuller, of Bradfield, in com. Hertf., Esq.; _Martha_, died\nunmarried; and _Phoebe_, to ... Biggs, of Hurst, in com. Berks., Esq.\"\n[Footnote: Dugdale, _vt. supra_.] All these children, it would appear,\nhad been born, and most of them married and settled in life, before their\nfather's promotion to the peerage, and while he was yet only James Ley,\nor Sir James Ley, the eminent lawyer. Indeed, his promotion to the\nEarldom in his old age had been, in part, a compliment to his third wife-\n-Jane, daughter of Lord Butler of Bramfield, whose mother was a sister of\nthe Duke of Buckingham; and it had been specially provided, in the patent\nof the Earldom, that it should descend, by preference, to his heirs by\nthat lady. That lady having failed, however, to produce heirs, the\nbenefits of the Earldom had reverted to the Earl's family by his first\nwife, Mary Petty. His eldest son by that wife, Henry Ley, had,\naccordingly, succeeded him in the title. But this Henry, second Earl of\nMarlborough, had died in 1638; and the actual Earl at the time with which\nwe are now concerned (1643) was _his_ son, James, a youth of only some\nthree-and-twenty years, but already serving as a general officer of\nartillery in the army of the King. He seems, indeed, to have been one of\nthe finest young fellows on that side; and he had a career before him\nwhich was to entitle him, at his death in 1665, to this notice in a\nsummary of his character by Clarendon: \"He was a man of wonderful parts\nin all kinds of learning, which he took more delight in than his title.\"\n[Footnote: Clar. Life, ed. 184 p. 1141.]  For the present, however, it is\nwith the good ladies his aunts, the surviving daughters of the first\nEarl, that we have to do; or rather only with the fifth of them--the Lady\nMargaret Ley, the friend of Milton. The husbands of at least two of her\nsisters (Long of Wilts., and Erisy of Cornwall) being among the\nParliamentarians of the Long Parliament, it can hardly be doubted that\nthis lady's husband--Dugdale's \"... Hobson of ... in the Isle of Wight,\nEsq.,\" and Phillips's \"Captain Hobson, a very accomplished gentleman\"--\nwas also a Parliamentarian, though of less wealth and note, and not in\nParliament. Otherwise, Lady Margaret's house in London could hardly have\nbeen one of Milton's evening resorts. What kind of \"Captaincy\" her\nhusband held, compatible with his being domiciled in London in 1643-4, it\nmight be difficult now to ascertain. Suffice it that he _was_ so\ndomiciled, and that his wife could receive guests not merely as Mrs.\nHobson, \"a woman of great wit and ingenuity,\" but as Lady Margaret Ley,\nthe daughter of a well-remembered Earl.\n\nIt is not from Phillips alone that we hear of Milton's friendship with\nthe Lady Margaret. Milton has himself commemorated it in one of his\nSonnets:--\n\n  \"TO THE LADY MARGARET LEY.\n\n  Daughter to that good Earl, once President\n    Of England's Council and her Treasury,\n    Who lived in both unstained by gold or fee,\n    And left them both, more in himself content,\n  Till the sad breaking of that Parliament\n    Broke him, as that dishonest victory\n    At Ch\u00e6ronea, fatal to liberty,\n    Killed with report that old man eloquent:\n  Though later born than to have known the days\n    Wherein your father flourished, yet by you,\n    Madam, methinks I see him living yet;\n  So well your words his noble virtues praise\n    That all both judge you to relate them true\n    And to possess them, honoured Margaret.\"\n\nThe \"old man eloquent\" is Isocrates, the Athenian orator, whose\npatriotism made him refuse to survive the defeat of the Athenians and\nThebans by Philip of Macedon at Ch\u00e6roncia, This comparison of the lady's\nfather to the famous Greek is perhaps the most poetical turn in the\nSonnet. For the rest, it tells us something about the lady herself. She\nmust have been somewhat, if not considerably, older than Milton; for,\nthough Milton had been twenty years old at the time of the good Earl's\ndeath, and might therefore well remember his Treasurership and Presidency\nof the Council, he speaks of knowing the days wherein the old peer had\nflourished chiefly through the Lady Margaret's talk about him and them.\nHer conversation, it would therefore seem, ran much upon her father and\nhis private and political virtues; and Milton listened respectfully,\nseeing much in the lady herself of what she praised in her sire. Perhaps\nMilton would talk to her freely in return of his own concerns. The Lady\nMargaret Ley, and her husband, Captain Hobson, were probably in his\nconfidence on the subject of his marriage misfortune. The Sonnet was\nunquestionably written in 1643 or 1644. [Footnote: It was printed in the\nfirst or 1645 edition of Milton's Poems, and it is placed last in the\nseries of Sonnets there contained. The draft of it in the Cambridge Book\nof Milton's MSS. is in Milton's own hand--the title \"To the Lady Margaret\nLey\" being likewise his hand.]\n\nA younger and unmarried lady must then also have been among Milton's\nacquaintances. How else can we account for this other Sonnet?\n\n  \"Lady, that in the prime of earliest youth\n    Wisely hast shunned the broad way and the green,\n    And with those few art eminently seen\n    That labour up the hill of heavenly truth,\n  The better part, with Mary and with Ruth,\n    Chosen thou hast; and they that overween,\n    And at thy glowing virtues fret their spleen,\n    No anger find in thee, but pity and ruth.\n  Thy care is fixed, and zealously attends\n    To fill thy odorous lamp with deeds of light,\n    And hope that reaps not shame. Therefore be sure\n  Thou, when the Bridegroom with his feastful friends\n    Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night,\n    Hast gained thy entrance, Virgin wise and pure.\"\n\nThis Sonnet, to which the heading \"_To a Virtuous Young Lady_\" is\nnow prefixed in the editions of Milton, had no such heading prefixed in\nhis own copy. [Footnote: In the Cambridge MSS. there is a draft in\nMilton's own hand immediately before the draft of the Sonnet to Lady\nMargaret Ley. In the edition of 1645 the Sonnet was printed in the same\norder and without a heading. In the MS. draft there are several erasures\nand corrections. Thus Milton had originally written \"_blooming\nvirtue_\" in as if with reference to the personal appearance of the\nyoung lady; but in the margin he substitutes the present reading,\n\"_growing virtues_.\"] Who the young lady was that so won upon Milton\nat this critical time, and seemed to him so superior to the more\ncommonplace of her sex, we are left uninformed. There is a conjecture on\nthe subject, which may afterwards appear. It is clear, meanwhile, that\nthe poor absent Mary Powell may have suffered not only from her own\ndefects, but also from the opportunity of some such contrast.\n\nThe Divorce subject continued to occupy Milton. His tract had been\nrapidly bought, and had caused a sensation. Through the cold winter of\n1643-4, while the Parliament and the Assembly were busy, and the\nauxiliary Scottish army was expected, a good many people had leisure to\nread the strange production, or at least to look into it, and be properly\nshocked. It seems to have been about this time, for example, that James\nHowell, the letter-writer, came, upon a copy. Or rather the copy must\nhave come upon him; for the poor man, now past fifty years of age, and\nousted from his clerkship to the Privy Council, was in the Fleet Prison\nfor debt, and dependent for his subsistence there on translations,\ndedications and poems to friends, and all sorts of literary odds and\nends. [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 745, and Cunningham's London Article\n_Fleet Prison_.] In one of his rambling pieces, afterwards published\nin the form of Letters, mostly without dates, and addressed to friends\nfrom feigned places, he thus gives what I take to be his impression of\nMilton's tract when it first reached him in the Fleet: \"But that opinion\nof a poor shallow-brained puppy, who, upon any cause of dissatisfaction,\nwould have men to have a privilege to change their wives, or to repudiate\nthem, deserves to be hissed at rather than confuted; for nothing can tend\nmore to usher in all confusion and beggary throughout the world:\ntherefore that wiseacre deserves,\" &c. [Footnote: Howell's Familiar\nLetters Book IV, Letter 7, addressed \"To Sir Edward Spencer, knight,\" (pp\n453-457 of edit. 1754.) The letter is dated \"Lond. 24 Jan.,\" no year\ngiven; but the dates are worthless, being afterthoughts, when the Letters\nwere published in successive batches.] As Mr. Howell's own notions about\nmarriage and its moralities were of the lightest and easiest, his severe\nvirtuousness here is peculiarly representative. More interesting on its\nown account is the opinion of another contemporary--no other than\nMilton's late antagonist Bishop Hall. In Hall's _Cases of Conscience_\n(not published till 1649) he thus describes the impression which Milton's\nDivorce pamphlet had made upon him when he first read it in its anonymous\nform: \"I have heard too much of, and once saw, a licentious pamphlet,\nthrown abroad in these lawless times in the defence and encouragement of\nDivorces (not to be sued out; that solemnity needed not; but) to be\narbitrarily given by the disliking husband to the displeasing and unquiet\nwife, upon this ground principally, That marriage was instituted for the\nhelp and comfort of man: where, therefore, the match proves such as that\nthe wife doth but pull down aside, and, by her innate peevishness and\neither sullen or pettish and froward disposition, bring rather discontent\nto her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should it\nnot, saith he, be in the husband's power, after some unprevailing means\nof reclamation attempted, to procure his own peace by casting off this\nclog, and to provide for his own peace and contentment in a fitter match?\nWoe is me! to what a pass is the world conic that a Christian, pretending\nto Information, should dare to tender so loose a project to the public! I\nmust seriously profess that, when I first did cast my eyes upon the front\nof the book, I supposed some great wit meant to try his skill in the\nmaintenance of this so wild and improbable a paradox; but, ere I could\nrun over some of those too well-penned pages, I found the author was in\nearnest, and meant seriously to contribute this piece of good counsel, in\nway of reformation, to the wise and seasonable care of superiors. I\ncannot but blush for our age wherein so bold a motion hath been, amongst\nothers, admitted to the light. What will all the Christian Churches\nthrough the world, to whose notice these lines shall come, think of our\nwoeful degeneration, &c.\"? [Footnote: Hall's Works (edit. 1837), VII.\n467.] Hall, it will be seen, had noted the literary ability of the\npamphlet, while amazed by its doctrine.\n\nNeither Howell's nor Bishop Hall's opinion can have reached the author of\nthe pamphlet till long after the date now in view. But other opinions to\nthe same effect had been reaching him. Especially, it seems, the pamphlet\nhad caused a fluttering among the London clergy. The consequence had best\nbe told by himself. \"God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I\ndurst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of disesteem, and\nfound I durst. My name I did not publish, as not willing it should sway\nthe reader either for me or against me. But, when I was told that the\nstyle (which what it ails to be so soon distinguishable I cannot tell)\nwas known by most men, and that some of the clergy began to inveigh and\nexclaim on what I was credibly informed they had not read, I look it then\nfor my proper season both to show a name that could easily contemn such\nan indiscreet kind of censure, and to reinforce the question with a more\naccurate diligence, that, if any of them would be so good as to leave\nrailing, and to let us hear so much of his learning and Christian wisdom\nas will be strictly demanded of him in his answering to this problem,\ncare was had he should not spend his preparations against a nameless\npamphlet.\" [Footnote: This passage, fitting in here with chronological\nexactness, occurs in Milton's _Judgment of Martin Bucer concerning\nDivorce_, published in July 1644.] In other words, he resolved to abandon\nthe anonymous. His pamphlet, easily traced to him from the first by its\nMiltonic style, had been sold out, or nearly so; people generally, but\nclergymen especially, were saying harsh things about it, and about him as\nits author; but some of these critics, he authentically knew, had never\nread the pamphlet, and others were making a point of the fact that it had\nappeared without its author's name.  Well, there should be an end of\nthat! He would put forth a second edition of the pamphlet, and avow the\nauthorship! And this he would do rather because, since the publication of\nthe first edition, he had been looking farther into the literature of the\nquestion, and could now fortify his own reasoned opinion with authorities\nhe had been but dimly aware of, or had altogether overlooked.\n\nAccordingly, on the 2nd of February, 1643-4, there did come forth a\nsecond edition of Milton's first Divorce Tract, with this new title:\n\"_The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce. Restor'd to the good of both\nSexes, from the bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes, to the true\nmeaning of Scripture in the Law and Gospel compar'd. Wherein are set down\nthe bad consequences of abolishing or condemning of Sin, that which the\nLaw of God allowes, and Christ abolisht not. Now the second time revis'd\nand much augmented. In Two Books: to the Parliament of England with the\nAssembly. The Author J.M._\" Underneath this title, the text Matth\nxiii. 52 is repeated from the title-page of the first edition; with this\nnew text added, Prov. xviii. 13: \"He that answereth a matter before he\nheareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.\" Then follows the imprint,\n\"_London, Imprinted in the yeare_ 1644.\" In the copy in the British\nMuseum which is my authority, the collector Thomason has put his pen\nthrough the final figure 4, and has annexed, in ink, the date \"Feb. 2,\n1643.\" [Footnote: Brit, Mus. Press-mark, 12. E.e. 5/141.] This fixes the\nexact date of publication as above, Feb. 2, 1643-4.\n\nThis second edition is a great enlargement and improvement of the first.\nThe 48 small quarto pages of the first swell into 88 pages; the text is\ndivided into Two Books, each of which is subdivided into Chapters, with\ncarefully-worded headings; and, on the whole, the treatise is made more\ninviting in appearance. The bold Introductory Letter, addressed \"_To\nthe Parliament of England, with the Assembly_,\" consists of six pages,\nand is signed not with the mere initials \"J.M.\" which appear on the\ntitle-page, but fully \"John Milton.\" The additions in the text consist\nsometimes of a few words inserted, sometimes of expansions of mere\npassages of the first edition into two or three pages: in the Second Book\nthey attain to still larger dimensions, so that much of that Book is\ntotally new matter. Thus Chapters I., II., and III., of this Book,\nforming ten pages, come in lieu of a single paragraph of two pages in the\nfirst edition; Chapters IV., V., VI., and VII., forming together six\npages, are substituted for about a single page of the first edition; and\nChapter XXI., consisting of nearly five pages, is an expansion of about a\npage and a half in the first edition. The additions and expansions appear\nto have been made on various principles. Sometimes one can see that a\npassage has been added for the mere poetic enrichment of the text, and to\nprove that the hand that was writing was not that of a musty polemic, but\nof an artist, at home in splendours. There is a striking instance in\npoint in Chap. VI. of Book I., where there is interpolated a gratuitously\ngorgeous myth or fable, which may be entitled _Eros and Anteros,_ or\n_Love and Its Reciprocation_. The passage is characteristic and may\nbe quoted:--\n\nMarriage is a covenant the very being whereof consists, not in a forced\ncohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned\nlove and peace. And of matrimonial love no doubt but that was chiefly\nmeant which by the ancient sages was thus parabled: That Love, if he be\nnot twin-born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Anteros; whom\nwhile he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and\nfeigning desires that wander singly up and down in his likeness. By them\nin their borrowed garb Love, though not wholly blind as poets wrong him,\nyet having but one eye, as being born an archer aiming, and that eye not\nthe quickest in this dark region here below, which is not Love's proper\nsphere, partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to\nhim, often deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and\nsuborned striplings, as if they were his Mother's own sons, for so he\nthinks them while they subtly keep themselves most on his blind side.\nBut, after a while, as his manner is, when, soaring up into the high\ntower of his Apog\u00e6um, above the shadows of the Earth, he darts out the\ndirect rays of his then most piercing eyesight upon the impostures and\ntrim disguises that were used with him, and discerns that this is not his\ngenuine brother, as he imagined, he has no longer the power to hold\nfellowship with such a personated mate. For straight his arrows loose\ntheir golden heads and shed their purple feathers; his silken braids\nuntwine and slip their knots; and that original and fiery virtue given\nhim by Fate all on a sudden goes out and leaves him undeified and\ndespoiled of all his force; till, finding Anteros at last, he kindles and\nrepairs the almost faded ammunition of his Deity by the reflection of a\ncoequal and homogeneal fire. Thus mine author sung it to me; and, by the\nleave of those who would be counted the only grave ones, this is no mere\namatorious novel (though to be wise and skilful in these matters men\nheretofore of greatest name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest\narcs that human contemplation circling upwards can make from the glassy\nsea whereon she stands); but this is a serious and deep verity, showing\nus that Love in Marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be mutual.\n\nUnless more is meant than meets the eye by _Anteros_ here in\nMilton's own case, this interpolation [Footnote: The manner of the\ninterpolation is so curious that it deserves a note. Milton, perceiving\nthat such a poetic Fable might be objected to as fitter for a \"mere\namatorious novel\" than for a controversial treatise, insinuates an\napology for its introduction. The apology is that some of the wisest and\ngreatest men had allowed the use on occasion of those \"highest arcs that\nhuman contemplation, circling upwards, can make from the glassy sea\nwhereon she stands.\" In this phrase Milton furnished his critics with a\nweapon which they might have used against himself. Even now the most\ngeneral objection to his prose writings would be that they contain too\nmany of those gratuitous grandeurs, those upward arcs and circlings from\nthe glassy sea. But, in fact, he had his own theory of prose-writing as\nof other things, and it was not Addison's, nor any other that has been\ncommon since.] was for literary effect only. Very frequently, however,\nthe additions are of new reasonings, or farther interpretations of\nScripture. Above all, we have in the second edition the results of\nMilton's ranging in the literature of the question since he had published\nthe first. In that first edition he had been able to make some reference\nto Hugo Grotius, having fortunately at the last moment come upon some\nnotes of Grotius on Matth. v. which he thought reasonable. But since then\nhe had lighted on a more thorough-going authority on his side in one of\nthe German theologians of the Reformation period--Paul Fagius (1504-\n1550). \"I had learnt,\" he says, \"that Paulus Fagius, one of the chief\ndivines in Germany, sent for by Frederic the Palatine to reform his\ndominion, and after that invited hither in King Edward's days to be\nProfessor of Divinity in Cambridge, was of the same opinion touching\nDivorce which these men so lavishly traduced in me. What I found I\ninserted where fittest place was, thinking sure they would respect so\ngrave an author, at least to the moderating of their odious inferences.\"\n[Footnote: This explanation, referring to the second edition of the\n_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, does not occur in that\ntreatise itself, but in the _Judgment of Martin Bucer_, published\nsome months afterwards.]  Accordingly, in the second edition,\nconsiderable use is made of Fagius, as well as of Grotius, while, as\nbefore, other theologians of historical note--Calvin, Beza, Pareus (1548-\n1622), Perkins (1558-1602), Rivetus (1572-1651)--are respectfully cited,\nsometimes as furnishing a favourable hint, but sometimes as requiring\nreply and correction. Not the least interesting perhaps of the added\npassages is this in the last chapter: \"That all this is true [_i.e._\nthat Divorce is not to be restricted by Law] whoso desires to know at\nlarge with least pains, and expects not here overlong rehearsals of that\nwhich is by others already judiciously gathered, let him hasten to be\nacquainted with that noble volume written by our learned Selden, '_Of\nthe Law of Nature and of Nations_;' a work more useful and more worthy\nto be perused, whosoever studies to be a great man in wisdom, equity and\njustice, than all those Decretals and sumless Sums which the Pontifical\nclerks have doted on.\" The particular work of Selden's here referred to\nis his folio, _De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam\nHebr\u00e6orum_, published in 1640. His work more expressly on Divorce,\nentitled _Uxor Hebraica, sive De Nuptiis ac Divortiis_, did not\nappear till 1646--_i.e._ it _followed_ Milton's publications on\nthe subject, and in the main backed the opinion they had propounded. It\nseems to me not improbable that in 1643-4, when Milton paid Selden the\ncompliment we have quoted, he had just made Selden's personal\nacquaintance. Selden was then in his sixtieth year; Milton in his thirty-\nsixth.\n\nAfter the description given of the second edition of the _Doctrine and\nDiscipline of Divorce_ and its differences from the first, it seems\nnecessary to quote only some passages from Milton's opening address in it\nto the Parliament and the Westminster Assembly:--\n\n... Error supports Custom, Custom countenances Error; and these two\nbetween them would persecute and chase away all truth and solid wisdom\nout of human life, were it not that God, rather than man, once in many\nages, calls together the prudent and religious counsels of men deputed to\nrepress the encroachments, and to work off the inveterate blots and\nobscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle insinuating of Error and\nCustom: who, with the numerous and vulgar train of their followers, make\nit their chief design to envy and cry down the industry of free\nreasoning, under the terms of \"humour\" and \"innovation\"; as if the womb\nof teeming Truth were to be closed up if she presume to bring forth aught\nthat sorts not with their unchewed notions and suppositions. Against\nwhich notorious injury and abuse of man's free soul to testify, and\noppose the utmost that study and true labour can attain, heretofore the\nincitement of men reputed grave hath led me among others; and now the\nduty and the right of an instructed Christian calls me through the chance\nof good or evil report to be the sole advocate of a discountenanced\ntruth: a high enterprise, Lords and Commons, a high enterprise and a\nhard, and such as every seventh son of a seventh son does not venture\non.... You it concerns chiefly, worthies in Parliament, on whom, as on\nour deliverers, all our grievances and cares, by the merit of your\neminence and fortitude, are devolved: me it concerns next, having with\nmuch labour and diligence first found out, or at least with a fearless\nand communicative candour first published to the manifest good of\nChristendom, that which, calling to witness everything mortal and\nimmortal, I believe unfeignedly to be true.... Mark then, Judges and\nLawgivers, and ye whose office it is to be our teachers, for I will now\nutter a doctrine, if ever any other, though neglected or not understood,\nyet of great and powerful importance to the governing of mankind. He who\nwisely would restrain the reasonable soul of man within due bounds must\nfirst himself know perfectly how far the territory and dominion extends\nof just and honest liberty. As little must he offer to bind that which\nGod hath loosened as to loosen that which He hath bound. The ignorance\nand mistake of this high point hath heaped up one huge half of all the\nmisery that hath been since Adam. In the Gospel we shall read a\nsupercilious crew of Masters, whose holiness, or rather whose evil eye,\ngrieving that God should be so facile to man, was to set straiter limits\nto obedience than God had set, to enslave the dignity of Man, to put a\ngarrison upon his neck of empty and over-dignified precepts: and we shall\nread our Saviour never more grieved and troubled than to meet with such a\npeevish madness among men against their own freedom. How can we expect\nhim to be less offended with us, when much of the same folly shall be\nfound yet remaining where it least ought, to the perishing of thousands?\nThe greatest burden in the world is Superstition, not only of ceremonies\nin the Church, but of imaginary and scarecrow sins at home. What greater\nweakening, what more subtle stratagem against our Christian warfare,\nwhen, besides the gross body of real transgressions to encounter, we\nshall be terrified by a vain and shadowy menacing of faults that are not!\nWhen things indifferent shall be set to overfront us, under the banners\nof Sin, what wonder if we be routed, and, by this art of our Adversary,\nfall into the subjection of worst and deadliest offences! The\nsuperstition of the Papist is \"Touch not, taste not!\" when God bids both;\nand ours is \"Part not, separate not!\" when God and Charity both permits\nand commands. \"Let all your things be done with charity,\" saith St. Paul;\nand his Master saith \"She is the fulfilling of the Law.\" Yet now a civil,\nan indifferent, a sometime dissuaded Law of Marriage must be forced upon\nus to fulfil, not only without Charity, but against her. No place in\nHeaven or Earth, except Hell, where Charity may not enter; yet Marriage,\nthe ordinance of our solace and contentment, the remedy of our\nloneliness, will not admit now either of Charity or Mercy to come in and\nmediate or pacify the fierceness of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied\nloneliness of this remedy. Advise ye well, Supreme Senate, if charity be\nthus excluded and expulsed, how ye will defend the untainted honour of\nyour own actions and proceedings. He who marries intends as little to\nconspire his own ruin as he that swears allegiance; and, as a whole\npeople is in proportion to an ill Government, so is one man to an ill\nmarriage.... Whatever else ye can enact will scarce concern a third part\nof the British name; but the benefit and good of this your magnanimous\nexample [should they restore liberty of Divorce] will easily spread far\nbeyond the banks of Tweed and the Norman Isles. It would not be the first\nnor the second time, since our ancient Druids, by whom this Island as the\ncathedral of philosophy to France, left off their Pagan rites, that\nEngland hath had this honour vouchsafed from Heaven--to give out\nreformation to the world. Who was it but our English Constantine that\nbaptized the Roman Empire? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrod and\nWinifrid of Devon, with their followers, were the first Apostles of\nGermany? Who but Alcuin and Wicklif, our countrymen, opened the eyes of\nEurope, the one in Arts, the other in Religion? Let not England forget\nher precedence of teaching nations how to live....\n\nMilton's idea of the greatness of his enterprise, it will be seen from\nthese passages, had grown and grown the more he had brooded on it. What\nif in this Doctrine of Divorce he were to be the discoverer or restorer\nof a new liberty, not for England alone, but actually for all\nChristendom? Meanwhile what opposition he would have to face, what storms\nof scurrilous jest and severer calumny! Might it not have been better to\nhave written his treatise in Latin? This thought had occurred to him. \"It\nmight perhaps more fitly have been written in another tongue; and I had\ndone so, but that the esteem I have for my country's judgment, and the\nlove I bear to my native language, to seive it first with what I\nendeavour, made me speak it thus ere I assay the verdict of outlandish\nreaders.\" Yet there might have been a propriety, he feels, in addressing\nsuch an argument in the first place only to the learned.\n\nAnd what, after all, and in precise practical form, _was_ this\ntremendous proposition of Milton respecting Divorce? Reduced out of large\nand cloudy terms, it was simply this,--that marriage, as it respected the\ncontinued union of the two married persons, was a thing with which Law\nhad nothing whatever to do; that the two persons who had contracted a\nmarriage were the sole judges of its convenience, and, if they did not\nsuit each other, might part by their own act, and be free again; at all\nevents, that for husbands the Mosaic Law on the subject was still in\nforce: viz. (Deut. xxiv. 1) \"When a man hath taken a wife and married\nher, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he\nhath found some uncleanness in her [interpreted as including any moral or\nintellectual incompatibility, any unfitness whatever], then let him write\nher a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of\nhis house.\" Milton avoids as much as possible such reductions of his\nproposition to harsh practical form, and would have disowned such brief\npopular summaries of his doctrine as _Divorce at pleasure_, or\n_Divorce at the Husband's pleasure_; but, in reality, it came to\nthis. The husband, in modern times, had still, he maintained, the old\nMosaic right of giving his wife a \"bill of divorcement,\" if she did not\nsatisfy him, and sending her back to her father's house. The right was a\npurely personal one. Friends, indeed, might interfere with their good\noffices; nay it would be fitting, and perhaps necessary, that there\nshould be a solemn formality \"in presence of the minister and other grave\nselected elders,\" who should admonish the man of the seriousness of the\nstep he was about to take. But, if he persisted in taking it--if \"he\nshall have protested, on the faith of the eternal Gospel and the hope he\nhas of a happy resurrection, that otherwise than thus he cannot do, and\nthinks himself and this his case not contained in that prohibition of\ndivorce which Christ pronounced (Matth. v. 31-32), the matter not being\nof malice, but of nature, and so not capable of reconciling\"--then the\nChurch had done her part to the full, and the man was to be left to his\nown liberty. This passage, proposing a kind of public oath on the man's\npart, as a formality to be required in every case of dissolution of\nmarriage, occurs near the end of the treatise in both editions; and it\nindicates, I think, Milton's recoil from any rough or free and easy\nversion of his doctrine, and his desire to temper it as much as he could.\nEssentially, however, the proposal mattered little. The husband was still\nleft sole judge of his wife's fitness or unfitness for him, and whether\nhe should exercise his right of putting her away was a matter finally for\nhis private conscience.\n\nWith reference to Milton's own case, it is worth observing that the\ncauses of divorce on which he still rings the changes throughout the\nsecond edition of his treatise, as throughout the first, are the\nunmatchableness of dispositions, the unfitness of the wife for rational\nconversation, her intellectual and moral insufficiency or perverseness.\nThere is no word of _desertion_. I cannot but think that this\nconfirms the view that it was not the absence of Milton's wife that\ncaused his dissatisfaction with his marriage, but that the\ndissatisfaction preceded the absence and had helped to occasion it.\n\nNarration, rather than criticism, is my business in this work; and we\nhave not yet done with Milton's Divorce speculation. At this point,\nhowever, I may venture on three remarks:--\n\n(1.) What is most noticeable in Milton, underneath his whole conduct\nhere, as in so many other matters, is his intellectual courage. Among men\nof thought there are, I should say, two grades of honesty. There is\npassive honesty, or the honesty of never saying, or appearing to say,\nwhat one does _not_ think; and it is a rare and high merit to have\nattained to this. But there is the greater honesty of always saying, or\nindeed asserting and proclaiming, whatever one _does_ think. The\nproportion of those who have disciplined themselves to this positive or\naggressive honesty, and are at the same time socially sufferable by\nreason of the importance of what they have to say, has always been\nwonderfully small in the world. Now, Milton was one of this band of\nintellectual Ironsides. Even within the band itself he belonged to the\nextremest section. For he dared to question not only the speculative\ndogmas and political traditions of his time, which others round him were\nquestioning, but even some of the established \"moralities,\" which few of\nthem were questioning. It is not at all uncommon for men the most free-\nthinking in matters of religious belief to be immoveably and even\nfanatically orthodox in their allegiance to all customary moralities.\nThey abide by tradition, and think with the multitude, in ethical\nquestions, if in nothing, else. But on Milton, it appears from his\nAddress to the Parliament and the Assembly, there had dawned the idea\nthat, as there had come down in the bosom of society misbeliefs in\nscience, imperfect views of theology, and conventions of political\ntyranny, so there had come down things even worse, in the form of\ncobwebbed sacramentalisms and sanctities for private life, factitious\nrestrictions of individual liberty pretending themselves to be Christian\nrules of holiness. Among the greatest burdens and impediments in man's\nlife, he says, were such pseudo-moralities, such \"imaginary and scarecrow\nsins,\" vaunting themselves as suckers and corollaries from the Ten\nCommandments. This was a daring track to be upon, but Milton was upon it.\nHe did not believe that the world had arrived at a final and perfect\nsystem of morals, any more than at a perfect system of science. He\nbelieved the established ethical customs of men to be subject to revision\nby enlarged and progressive reason, and modifiable from age to age,\nequally with their theories of cosmology, their philosophical creeds, or\nanything else. There was no terror for him in that old and ever-repeated\noutcry about \"sapping the foundations of society.\" He believed that the\nfoundations of society had taken, and would still take, a great deal of\n\"sapping,\" without detriment to the superstructure. He believed that, as\nwe may read in Herodotus of ancient communities established on all sorts\nof principles, or even whim-principles, and yet managing to get on, and\nas these crude polities had been succeeded by other and better ones, to\nthe latest known in the world, so these last need not look to be\npermanent. Of a tendency to this state of feeling Milton had given\nevidences from early youth; but I do not think I am wrong in fixing on\nthe year 1643 as the time when it became chronic, nor in tracing the\nsudden enlargement of it then beyond its former bounds to the wrench in\nhis life caused by his unhappy marriage. At all events, henceforward\nthroughout his career we shall see the continuous action of this now\navowed Miltonism among others. We shall see him henceforward continually\nacting on the principle that, in addition to the real sins forbidden to\nman by an eternal law of right and wrong, revealed in his own conscience\nand authenticated by the Bible (for Milton did believe in such an eternal\nlaw, and, however it is to be reconciled with what we have just been\nsaying, was a transcendental or _a priori_ moralist at his heart's\ncore), the field of human endeavour was overstrewn by a multiplicity of\nmere \"scarecrow sins,\" one's duty in respect of which was simply to march\nup to them, one after another, and pluck them up, every stick of them\nindividually, with its stuck-on old hat and all its waving tatters.\n\n(2.) One notes in Milton's first Divorce Tract, as in much else of his\ncontroversial writing, a preference for the theoretical over what may be\ncalled the practical style of argument. The neglect of practical details\nin his reasoning throughout this particular Tract amounts to what might\nbe called greenness or innocence. What are the questions with which an\nopponent of the \"practical\" type would have immediately tried to pose\nMilton, or which such an one would now object to his doctrine? No one can\nmiss them. In a case where divorce is desired by the man only, what is to\nbecome of the divorced wife? Is not the damage of her prospects by the\nfact that she has once been married, if but for a month, something to be\ntaken into account? It is not in marriage as it may be in other\npartnerships. The poor girl that has been once married returns to her\nfather or her friends an article of suddenly diminished value in the\ngeneral estimation. What provision is to be made for this? Then, should\nthere be children, what are to be the arrangements? Or again, suppose the\ncase, under the new Divorce Law, of a man who has a weakness for a\nsuccession of wives--a private Henry the Eighth. He marries No. 1, and,\nafter a while, on the plea that he does not find that she suits him, he\ngives her a bill of divorcement; No. 2 comes and is treated in like\nmanner; and so on, till the brutal rascal, undeniably free from all legal\ncensure, may be living in the centre of a perfect solar system of his\ndiscarded wives, moving in nearer or farther orbits round him, according\nto the times when they were thrown off, and each with her one or two\nsatellites of little darlings! To be sure, there is the public oath\nwhich, it is supposed, might have to be taken in every case of divorce;\nbut what would such a blackguard care for any number of such oaths?\nBesides, you put it to him by his oath to declare that in his conscience\nhe believes the incompatibility between himself and his wife to be\nradical and irremediable, and that he does not find that he comes within\nChrist's meaning in that famous passage of the Sermon on the Mount in\nwhich he Christianized the Mosaic Law of Divorce. What does such a fellow\nknow of Christ's meaning? He will swear, and according to your new Law he\nneed only swear, according to his own standard of fitness; which may be\nthat variety is a _sine qu\u00e2 non_ for him, or that No. 2 is intolerable\nwhen No. 3 is on the horizon. How, in the terms of the new Law, is such\nlicence to sheer libertinism to be avoided? These and other such\nquestions are suggested here not as necessarily fatal to Milton's\ndoctrine: in fact, in certain countries, since Milton's time, the most\nthorough practical consideration of them has not impeded modifications of\nthe Marriage Law in the direction heralded by Milton. They are suggested\nas indicating Milton's rapidity, his impatience, or, if we choose so to\ncall it, his dauntless faith in ideas and first principles. It is\nremarkable how little, in his first Divorce Tract, he troubles himself\nwith the anticipation of such-like objections of the practical kind. The\nreason may partly be that, in his own case, some of them, if not all,\nwere irrelevant. There were no children in his case to complicate the\naffair; Mary Powell was probably as willing to part from him as he to\npart from Mary Powell; and, if she were to relapse into Mary Powell again\nand he to be free as before, the social expense of their two or three\nmonths' mismatch would hardly be appreciable! Doubtless, however, Milton\nforesaw many of the practical objections. He foresaw cases, that would be\nsure to arise under the new law, much more complicated than that of\nhimself and Mary Powell. That he did not discuss such cases may have,\ntherefore, been partly the policy of a controversialist, resolved to\nestablish his main principle in the first place, and leaving the details\nof practical adjustment for a future time or for other heads. On the\nwhole, however, the inattention to those practical details which would\nhave formed so much of the matter of most men's reasonings on the same\nsubject was very characteristic.\n\n(3.) My last remark is that Milton, in his tract, writes wholly from the\nman's point of view, and in the man's interest, with a strange oblivion\nof the woman's. The Tract is wholly a plea for the right of a man to give\nhis wife a bill of divorcement and send her home to her father. There is\nno distinct word about any counterpart right for a woman who has married\nan unsuitable husband to give him a bill of divorcement and send him back\nto his mother. On the whole subject of the woman's interests in the\naffair Milton is suspiciously silent. There is, indeed, one passage, in\nChap. XV. of the Tract, bearing on the question; and it is very curious.\nBeza and Par\u00e6us, it seems, had argued that the Mosaic right of\ndivorcement given to the man had been intended rather as a merciful\nrelease for afflicted wives than as a privilege for the man himself. On\nthis opinion Milton thinks it necessary to comment. He partly maintains\nthat, if true, it would strengthen his argument for the restoration of\nthe right of divorce to husbands; but partly he protests against its\ntruth. \"If divorce wore granted,\" he says, \"not for men, but to release\nafflicted wives, certainly it is not only a dispensation, but a most\nmerciful law; and why it should not yet be in force, being wholly as\nneedful, I know not what can be in cause but senseless cruelty. But yet\nto say divorce was granted for relief of wives, rather than for husbands,\nis but weakly conjectured, and is manifest the extreme shift of a huddled\nexposition ... Palpably uxorious! Who can be ignorant that woman was\ncreated for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured\nas insufferably in marriage as a wife. What an injury is it after wedlock\nnot to be beloved, what to be slighted, what to be contended with in\npoint of house-rule who shall be the head, not for any parity of wisdom\n(for that were something reasonable), but out of a female pride! 'I\nsuffer not,' saith Saint Paul, 'the woman to usurp authority over the\nman.' If the Apostle could not suffer it, into what mould is he mortified\nthat can? Solomon saith that 'a bad wife is to her husband as rottenness\nto his bones, a continual dropping: better dwell in a corner of the\nhouse-top, or in the wilderness, than with such a one: whoso hideth her\nhideth the wind, and one of the four mischiefs that the earth cannot\nbear.' If the Spirit of God wrote such aggravations as these, and, as it\nmay be guessed by these similitudes, counsels the man rather to divorce\nthan to live with such a colleague, and yet, on the other side, expresses\nnothing of the wife's suffering with a bad husband, is it not most likely\nthat God in his Law had more pity towards man thus wedlocked than towards\nthe woman that was created for another?\" [Footnote: This passage occurs\nin the second edition. There is but the germ of it in the first sentence,\n\"If Divorce were granted ... senseless cruelty.\" The inference is that\nMilton, when he wrote the first edition, was rather pleased with the idea\nof Beza and Par\u00e6us that divorce had been given for the relief of the\nwife, and that his dissatisfaction with the idea, as promoting the woman\ntoo much at the man's expense, came afterwards.] Here was doctrine with a\nvengeance. Man being the superior being, and therefore with the greater\ncapacity of being pained or injured, God had pitied him, if unhappily\nmarried, more than the woman similarly situated. For him, therefore, and\nnot for the woman, there had been provided the right of divorce! This is\nnot positively asserted, but it seems to be implied. The woman's relief,\nin the case of a marriage unhappy for her, consisted apparently,\naccording to Milton, not in her power to cut the knot, but in the\nlikelihood that her husband, finding the marriage unhappy also for him,\nwould desire for his own sake to cut the knot, or might be driven by her\nmanagement to that extremity. In short, we have here, as another\nconsequence of Milton's unfortunate marriage, the beginning of that\npeculiarly stern form of the notion of woman's natural and essential\ninferiority to man which ran with visible effects through his whole\nsubsequent life. If not his ideal of woman, at least his estimate of what\nwas to be expected from actual women, and what was on the average to be\naccorded to them, had been permanently lowered by a bad first experience.\n\nAll this while, what of the poor girl whose hard fate it was to occasion\nthis experience in the life of a man too grandly and sternly her\nsuperior? One is bound to think also of her, and to remember, in so\nthinking, how young she was at the time when her offended husband first\ntheorized his feeling of her defects, and published his theorizings, with\nher image and memory, though not with her name, involved in them, to the\ntalkative world. She had not been seventeen years and a half old when she\nhad married Milton; she was of exactly that age when she left him, and\nthe first edition of his Divorce Treatise was ready; she was just\neighteen when the second and fuller edition appeared. Surely, but for\nthat fatal visit back to Forest Hill, contrived by her or her relatives,\nmatters would have righted themselves. As it was, things could not be\nworse. Restored to her father's house at Forest Hill, amid her unmarried\nbrothers and sisters, and all the familiar objects from which she had\nparted so recently on going to London, the young bride had, doubtless,\n_her_ little pamphlets to publish in that narrow but sympathising\ncircle. In particular, her grievances would be poured into the confiding\nears of her mother. That lady, as we can see, at once takes the lead in\nthe case. Never with her will shall her daughter go back to that dreadful\nman in Aldersgate Street! Mr. Powell acquiesces; brothers and sisters\nacquiesce; Oxford Royalism near at hand acquiesces, so far as it is\nconsulted; the bride herself acquiesces, happy enough again in the\nroutine of home, or perhaps beginning to join bashfully again in such\ngaieties of officers' balls, and the like, as the proximity of the King's\nquarters to Forest Hill made inevitable. And is not the King's cause on\nthe whole prospering, and is not that in itself another reason for being\nat least in no hurry to make it up with Milton? What if it never be made\nup with him? It is some time since his letters to Forest Hill by the\ncarrier ceased entirely, and since the foot-messenger he sent down\nexpressly all the way from London with his final letter was met at the\ngate by Mrs. Powell and told her mind in terms which were doubtless duly\nreported. And now, they hear, he is going about London as usual, and\nvisiting at Lady Margaret Ley's, and giving his own version of his\nmarriage story, and even printing Tracts in favour of Divorce! People\ngenerally, they say, are not agreeing with him on that subject; but there\nis at least one respectable English family that _is_ tempted to\nagree with him and to wish him all success!\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II.\n\nMARCH 1644-MARCH 1645.\n\n_HISTORY_:--THE YEAR OF MARSTON MOOR: CIVIL WAR, LONG PARLIAMENT,\nAND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED--STRUGGLE OF INDEPENDENCY WITH\nPRESBYTERIANISM: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY: ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES--\nPRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--MILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES: HIS SECOND DIVORCE\nPAMPHLET, _TRACT ON EDUCATION_, _AREOPAGITICA TETRACHORDON_,\nAND _COLASTERION_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nINACTIVITY OF THE SCOTTISH AUXILIARIES--SPREAD OF INDEPENDENCY AND\nMULTIPLICATION OF SECTS--VISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE--\nBATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR--FORTNIGHT'S VACATION OF THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY\n(JULY 23-AUGUST 7, 1644).--PRINCIPLE OF TOLERATION AND STATE OF THE\nTOLERATION CONTROVERSY: SYNOPSIS OF ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES IN 1644.-\n-RESUMPTION OF ASSEMBLY'S PROCEEDINGS: DENUNCIATION OF PICKED SECTARIES\nAND HERETICS--CROMWELL'S INTERFERENCE FOR INDEPENDENCY: ACCOMMODATION\nORDER OF PARLIAMENT--PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED--ESSEX BEATEN AND THE\nWAR FLAGGING: SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE AND NEW MODEL OF THE ARMY--\nPARLIAMENTARY VENGEANCES.\n\n\nThe English Parliamentarians hoped great things from the Scottish\nauxiliary army. The Royalists, on the other hand, were both angry and\nalarmed. In anticipation, indeed, of the coming-in of the Scots, the King\nhad ventured on a very questionable step. He had summoned what may be\ncalled an ANTI-PARLIAMENT to meet him at Oxford on the 22nd of January\n1643-4, to consist of all members who had been expelled from the two\nHouses in Westminster, and all that might be willing, in the new crisis,\nto withdraw from those rebellious Houses. On the appointed day,\naccordingly, there had rallied round the King at Oxford 49 Peers and 141\nCommoners; which was not a bad show against the 22 Peers and 280\nCommoners who met on the same day in the two Houses at Westminster. But\nlittle else resulted from the convocation of the ANTI-PARLIAMENT. In\nfact, many who had gone to it had done so with a view to negotiations for\npeace. Such negotiations were at least talked of. In addition to vehement\ndenunciations of the doings of the Parliament, there were some abortive\nattempts at friendly intercourse. All which having failed, the ANTI-\nPARLIAMENT was prorogued April 16, 1644, after having sat nearly three\nmonths. Parliaments, even when they were loyalist Parliaments, were not\nthe agencies that Charles found pleasantest. He trusted rather to the\narbitrament of the field.\n\nINACTIVITY OF THE SCOTTISH AUXILIARY ARMY: SPREAD OF INDEPENDENCY IN\nENGLAND: MULTIPLICATION OF SECTS.\n\nNo sudden blow was struck by the Scots. They had fastened themselves, in\nproper military fashion, on the north of England, and their presence\nthere was useful; but that was all. It was a great disappointment to\nBaillie. He had expected that the appearance of his dear countrymen in\nEngland would put an end to the mere military \"tig-tagging,\" as he had\ncalled it, of Essex and Waller, and quicken immediately the tramp of\naffairs. His belief all along had been that what was needed in England\nwas an importation of Scottish impetuousness to animate the heavy\nEnglish, and teach them the northern trick of carrying all things at the\ndouble with a hurrah and a yell. It was a sore affliction, therefore, to\nthe good man that, from January 1643-4, on through February, March,\nApril, May, and even June, the 21,000 Scots under Leslie should be in\nEngland, and yet be stirring so little. Instead of fighting their way\nsouthwards into the heart of the country, they were still squatting in\nthe Northumbrian coal-region, and sticking there, not without some bad\nbehaviour and disorder. Doubtless, it was all right in strategy, and\nLeslie knew what he was about; but oh, that it could have been otherwise!\nFor of what use a great Scottish victory would have been at that time to\nthe cause of Presbyterianism? Faster, more massively, more resistlessly\nthan all the argumentations of Henderson, Gillespie, and Rutherford,\naided by those of the Smectymnuans, with Vines, Palmer, Burges, and the\nrest of the English Presbyterians, such a victory would have crushed down\nthe contentiousness of the Five Dissenting Brethren, and swept the\npropositions of complete Scottish Presbytery through the Westminster\nAssembly. Parliament, receiving these propositions, would have passed\nthem with alacrity; and what could the English nation have done but\nacquiesce? But, alas! as things were! The Five Dissenting Brethren and\nthe other \"thraward wits\" in the Assembly could still persevere in their\nstruggle with the Presbyterian majority, debating every proposition that\nimplied a surrender of Congregationalism, and conscious that in so\nimpeding a Presbyterian settlement they were pleasing a growing body of\ntheir fellow-countrymen. What, though London was staunchly and all but\nuniversally Presbyterian? Throughout the country, and, above all, in the\nArmy, the case was different. The inactivity of the Scots was affording\ntime for the spirit of Independency to spread, and was giving rise to\nawkward questions. It began actually to be said of the Westminster\nAssembly, that it \"did cry down the truth with votes, and was an Anti-\nChristian meeting which would erect a Presbytery worse than Bishops.\" In\nthe Army especially such Anti-Presbyterian sentiments, and questionings\nof the infallibility of the Scots, had become rife. \"The Independents\nhave so managed matters,\" writes Baillie, April 26, \"that of the officers\nand sojers in Manchester's army, certainly also in the General's\n(Essex's), and, as I hear, in Waller's likewise, more than two parts are\nfor them, and these of the far most resolute and confident men for the\nParliament party.\" As regarded Essex's army and Waller's, Baillie\nafterwards found reason to think that this was a great exaggeration; but\nit appears to have been true enough respecting Manchester's. By that time\nthere was no doubt either who was at the head of these Army Independents.\nIt was Cromwell--now no longer mere \"Colonel Cromwell,\" but \"Lieutenant-\ngeneral Cromwell,\" second in command in the Associated Counties under\nManchester. As early as April 2 Baillie speaks of him as \"the great\nIndependent.\" With such a man to look up to, and with patrons also in the\ntwo Houses of Parliament, little wonder that the Independents in the Army\nbegan to feel themselves strong, and to regard the drift of the\nWestminster Assembly and the Londoners towards an absolute\nPresbyterianism as a movement innocent enough while it consisted in talk\nonly, but to be watched carefully and disowned in due time.\n\nAll might be retrieved, however! What hope there might yet be in a great\nScottish success! With this idea Baillie still hugged himself. \"We are\nexceeding sad and ashamed,\" he had written, April 19, \"that our army, so\nmuch talked of, has done as yet nothing at all.\" But again, May 9, \"We\ntrust God will arise, and do something by our Scots army. We are\nafflicted that, after so long time, we have gotten no hit of our enemy;\nwe hope God will put away that shame. Waller, Manchester, Fairfax, and\nall, gets victories; but Leslie, from whom all was expected, as yet has\nhad his hands bound. God, we hope, will loose them, and send us matter of\npraise also.\" The victories of Waller, Manchester, and Fairfax, here\nreferred to by Baillie, had been nothing very considerable--mere fights\nin their several districts, heard of at the time, but counting for little\nnow in the history of the war; but they contrasted favourably with what\ncould be told of the Scots. What was that? It was that they had summoned\nNewcastle to surrender, but had advanced beyond that town, leaving it\nuntaken. When Baillie wrote the last-quoted passage, however, they were\nmore hopefully astir. Fairfax, with his northern-English force, had\njoined them at Tadcaster in Yorkshire; the Earl of Manchester had been\nsummoned northwards to add what strength he could bring from the\nAssociated Counties; and the enterprise on which the three conjoined\nforces were to be engaged--the Scots, Fairfax's men, and Manchester's--\nwas the siege of York. It was a great business on all grounds; and on\nthis amongst others, that the Marquis of Newcastle was shut up in the\ncity. Might not the Scots retrieve their character in this business? It\nwas Baillie's fervent prayer. But a dreadful doubt had occurred to him.\nWhat if the Scots, mixed as they now were with the English\nParliamentarian soldiers before York, and in contact with the\nIndependents among them under Manchester and Cromwell, should themselves\ncatch the prevailing distemper? Writing, May 19, to his friend Mr. Blair,\na chaplain in the Scottish army, Baillie gives him a warning hint on the\nsubject. \"We hear,\" he says, \"that their horse and yours are conjoined,\nand that occasions may fall out wherein more of them may join to you. We\nall conceive that our silly simple lads are in great danger of being\ninfected by their company; and, if that pest enter in our army, we fear\nit may spread.\" [Footnote: Baillie, Vol. II. from p. 128 to p. 197.]\n\nHere there must come in an explanation:--The Army-Independency which was\nalarming the Presbyterians, and of which they regarded Cromwell as the\nhead, was a thing of much larger dimensions, and much more composite\nnature, than the mild Independency of Messrs. Goodwin, Burroughs, Nye,\nSimpson, and Bridge, within the Westminster Assembly. The Independency of\nthese five Divines consisted simply in their courageous assertion of the\nCongregationalist principle of church-organization in the midst of the\noverwhelming Presbyterianism around them, and in their claim that, should\ntheir reasonings for Congregationalism prove in vain, and should the\nPresbyterian system be established in England, there should be at all\nevents \"an indulgence\" under that system, for themselves and their\nadherents, \"in some lesser differences.\" The \"lesser differences\" for\nwhich they thus prospectively craved an indulgence had not been\nspecifically stated; but it is pretty clear that they were not, to any\ngreat extent, differences of theological belief, but were rather those\ndifferences which would arise from the conscientious perseverance of a\nminority in Congregationalist practices after a Presbyterian rule had\nbeen established nationally. \"You know that we do not differ from you in\ntheological doctrines\" is what the Five Dissenting Brethren virtually\nsaid to the Presbyterians; \"your teaching is our teaching, and what you\ncall errors we call errors: our difference lies wholly, or all but\nwholly, in the fact that _we_ hold every particular congregation of\nChristians to be a church within itself, whereas _you_ maintain the\ninterconnectedness of congregations, and the right of courts of office-\nbearers from many congregations to review and control what passes within\neach: now, as you, being undoubtedly in the majority, are about to\nestablish Presbytery in England, but as we cannot in conscience abandon\nour Congregationalism, could you not manage at least to allow in the new\nnational system such a toleration of Congregationalist practices as would\nsatisfy us, the minority, and prevent us from going again into exile?\"\nSuch was the Independency of the Dissenting Five in the Westminster\nAssembly. But, as we know, from our previous survey of the history of\nIndependency in England, in Holland, and in America, the word\n\"Independency\" had come to have a much larger meaning than that in which\nit had originated. It had come to mean not merely the principle of\nCongregationalism, or the Independency of Congregations, but also all\nthat had in fact arisen from the action of that principle, in England,\nHolland, or America, in the shape of miscellaneous dissent and\nheterodoxy. It had come to mean the Congregationalist principle\n_plus_ all its known or conceivable consequences. From policy it was\nin this wide sense that the Presbyterians had begun to use the term\nIndependency. \"You are certainly Independents,\" the Presbyterians of the\nAssembly virtually said to Messrs Goodwin, Burroughs, and the rest of the\nFive; \"but you are the best specimens of a class of which the varieties\nare legion: were all Independency such as yours, and were Independency to\nend with you, we might see our way to such a toleration as you demand--\nwhich, on personal grounds, we should like to do: but the principle of\nCongregationalism has already generated on the earth--in England, in\nHolland, and in America--opinions beyond yours, and some heresies at\nwhich even you stand aghast; and it is of these, as well as of you, that\nwe are bound to think when we are asked to tolerate Independency.\" Now it\nwas of this larger and more terrible Independency that the Presbyterians\nhad begun to see signs in the Parliamentary Army and through England\ngenerally. In other words, sects and sectaries of all sorts and sizes had\nbegun to be heard of--some only transmissions or re-manifestations of\noddities of old English Puritanism, others importations from Holland and\nNew England, and others products of the new ferment of the English mind\ncaused by the Civil War itself. In especial, it was believed,\n_Anabaptists_ and _Antinomians_ had begun to abound. Now, though, in\npoliteness, the Presbyterians were willing occasionally to distinguish\nbetween the orthodox Independents and the miscellaneous Sectaries, yet,\nas the Congregationalist principle, which was the essence of\nIndependency, was credited with the mischief of having generated all the\nsects, and as it was for this Congregationalist principle that toleration\nwas demanded, it was quite as common to huddle all the Sects and the\northodox Congregationalists together under the one name of Independents.\nNor could the Congregationalists of the Assembly very well object to\nthis. True, they might disown the errors and extravagancies of the sects,\nand declare that they themselves were as little in sympathy with them as\nthe Presbyterians. They might also argue, as indeed they anxiously did,\nthat due uniformity in the essentials of Christian belief and practice\nwould be as easily maintained in a community organized ecclesiastically\non the Congregationalist principle as in one organized in the\nPresbyterian mariner. Still, in arguing so, they must have had some\nlatitude of view as to the amount of uniformity desirable. If every\ncongregation were to be independent within itself, and if moreover\ncongregations might be formed on the principle of elective affinities, or\nthe concourse of like-minded atoms, it was difficult to see why\nCongregationalism should not be expected to evolve sects, and why\ntherefore this progressive evolution of sects should not be accepted as a\nlaw of religious life. Had not the Five Independents of the Assembly\navowed it as one of their principles that they would not be too sure that\nthe opinions they now held would remain always unchanged? Reserving this\nliberty of going farther for themselves, how could they refuse toleration\nfor those who had already gone farther? Claiming for themselves a\ntoleration in all such differences as did not affect their character as\ngood subjects, they could not but extend the benefit of the same plea to\nat least a proportion of the Sectaries. But to what proportion? Where was\ntoleration to stop? At what point, in the course of religious dissent,\ndid a man become a \"bad subject?\" To these questions no definite answers\nwere given by the Five Dissentients of the Assembly; but they could not\nbut entertain the questions. Hence their Independency, though mild and\nmoderate so far as they were themselves concerned, was really in organic\nconnexion with the larger Independency that had begun to manifest itself\nin the Army and elsewhere. \"The Congregationalist principle and Liberty\nof Religious Difference to a certain extent,\" said the Independents of\nthe Assembly. \"Yes, Liberty of Religious Difference!\" said the Army\nIndependents, simplifying the formula.\n\nThroughout the first half of 1644, therefore, we are to think of the\nPresbyterian majority in the Westminster Assembly as not only fighting\nagainst the Independency or Congregationalism proper which was\nrepresented within the walls of the Assembly by men whom they could not\nbut respect, though complaining of their obstinacy, but also bent on\nsaving England from that more lax or general Independency, nameable as\nArmy-Independency, which they saw rife through the land, and which\nincluded toleration not merely of Congregationalism, but also of\nAnabaptism, Antinomianism, and other nondescript heresies. Baillie's\ngroanings in spirit over the multiplication of the sectaries, and the\ngrowth of the Toleration notion, are positively affecting. \"Sundry\nofficers and soldiers in the army,\" he writes, April 2, \"has fallen from\ntheir way [_i.e._ from Independency proper] to Antinomianism and\nAnabaptism.\" Again, later in the same month, \"The number and evil humour\nof the Antinomians and Anabaptists doth increase;\" and more fully, on the\n19th, \"They [the Independents] over all the land are making up a faction\nto their own way, the far most part whereof is fallen off to Anabaptism\nand Antinomianism: sundry also to worse, if worse needs be--the mortality\nof the soul, the denial of angels and devils; and cast off all\nsacraments; and many blasphemous things. All these are from New England.\"\nBy May 9 he had begun to despair of the English altogether: \"The humour\nof this people is very various and inclinable to singularities, to differ\nfrom all the world, and one from another, and shortly from themselves: no\npeople had so much need of a Presbytery.\" According to Baillie, it was\nprecisely owing to the absence of a well-organized Presbyterian system in\nEngland that all those wild growths of opinion had been possible; and,\nwhile they increased the difficulty of establishing Presbyterianism in\nEngland, they were the best demonstration of its necessity. Therefore, he\nwould not despair. There was yet a faint hope that the Independent\nDivines in the Assembly might be made ashamed of the tag-rag of\nAnabaptists, Antinomians, and what not, that hung to their skirts, and so\nmight be brought to an accommodation with the Presbyterians. But, failing\nthat, the Presbyterians must stand firm, must face Independency and all\nits belongings both in Parliament and in the Army, and try at length to\nbeat them down.--Of course, Baillie and his Scottish brethren were doing\ntheir best to assist the English Presbyterians in this labour. Anti-\nToleration pamphlets had appeared, and more were in preparation. But help\nwas particularly desired from the Reformed Churches abroad, and most\nparticularly from Holland. Had not Holland nursed this very Independency\nwhich was troubling England, and was not the example of Holland the\ngreatest argument with the Independents and others for a toleration of\nsects? Representing all this to his correspondent, William Spang,\nScottish preacher at Campvere, Baillie urges him again and again to do\nwhat he can to get any eminent Dutch divines of his acquaintance to write\ntreatises against Independency, Heresy, and Toleration. He names several\nsuch, as likely to do this great service if duly importuned. There could\nbe no more helpful service to England--except one! Oh if there could yet\nbe a great Scottish victory on English soil! _That_ would be worth\nall the pamphlets in the world! [Footnote: Baillie, II. 146, 157, 168,\n177, 179, 181, 183-4, 191-2, 197, &c.--Several manifestoes against\nIndependency, such as Baillie wanted, did come, in due time, from Divines\nin Holland and elsewhere on the Continent, and were much made of by the\nPresbyterians of the Assembly, and put in circulation through England.]\n\n\nVISITATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE: BATTLE OF MARSTON MOOR.\n\nNotwithstanding all this anarchy of ecclesiastical opinion, the practical\nor political mastery of affairs remained in the hands of Parliament, and\nwas firmly exercised by Parliament in a direction satisfactory to the\nWestminster Assembly as a whole. For, whatever might be the ultimate\nsettlement between Independency and Presbyterianism, there was a certain\ngeneral course of \"Reformation\" to which meanwhile all were pledged,\nIndependents and Sectaries no less than Presbyterians; and on this course\nall could advance unanimously, even while battling with each other on the\necclesiastical questions which the Independents desired to keep open. For\nexample, during those very months of 1644 in which Independency had been\ntaking such increased dimensions, there had been fully executed that\ngreat Visitation and purgation of the University of Cambridge which had\nbeen entrusted to the Earl of Manchester by Parliamentary Ordinance in\nJanuary.\n\nThe Earl, going to Cambridge in person in February 1643-4, with his two\nchaplains, Messrs. Ashe and Good, had been engaged in the work through\nthe months of March and April, summoning refractory Heads of Colleges and\nFellows before him, examining complaints against them, and putting them\nin most cases to the test of the Covenant. The result, when complete\n(which it was not till 1645), was the ejection, on one ground or another,\nof about one half of the _Fellows_ of the various Colleges of\nCambridge collectively, and of eleven out of the sixteen _Heads of\nHouses_, and the appointment of persons of Parliamentarian principles\nto the places thus made vacant.--Of the crowd of those who were turned\nout of Cambridge _Fellowships_, and the crowd of those who were put\nin to succeed them, we can take no account in this History. Yet a process\nwhich presents us with the vision of about 150 rueful outgoers from\ncomfortable livelihoods in one University, met at the doors by as many\nradiant comers-in, can have been no unimportant incident, even in a\nnational revolution. What became of all the rueful outgoers is a question\nthat might interest us yet. It interested Fuller ten years after the\nevent. Even then he could give no other answer, he said, than that\nproverbial one which the survivors of Nicias's unfortunate expedition\nagainst the Sicilians used to give at Athens when they were asked about\nthe fate of such or such a comrade who had never returned, [Greek: \"E\ntethn\u00e6ken h\u00e6 didaskei grammata\"] \"He is either dead or teaching a school\nsomewhere.\" Schoolmastering, according to Fuller, was the refuge of most\nof the ejected Cambridge Fellows of 1644-5.--More conspicuous persons,\nand with resources that probably exempted them from the prospect of so\npainful a fate, were the ejected _Heads of Houses_. Most of these\nwere ejected at once in March and April 1644; and, apart from our\nacquired interest in Cambridge University, there are reasons for\nremembering them individually, and noting those who came in their\nplaces:--Of the sixteen Heads of Houses, it is to be premised, one--Dr.\nRichard Love, of Bennet or Corpus Christi--was a member of the Assembly,\nand therefore all right; while four others managed, by taking the\nCovenant, or by other \"wary compliance\" during the Visitation, to stay\nin. Among these four, it does not surprise us to learn, was Dr. Thomas\nBainbrigge of Christ's, Milton's old _durus magister_, with whom he\nhad had that never-forgotten tiff in his under-graduateship (Vol. I. pp.\n135-141); the others were Dr. Eden of Trinity Hall, Dr. Rainbow of\nMagdalen, and Dr. Batchcroft of Caius. The ejections were as follows:--\n\nTRINITY COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. THOMAS CUMBER (_ob._ 1654);\nMaster put in, Mr. THOMAS HILL, one of the Assembly Divines.\n\nST. JOHN'S COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. WILLIAM BEALE (died at Madrid,\n1651); Master put in, Mr. JOHN ARROWSMITH, one of the Assembly Divines.\n\nEMANUEL COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. RICHARD HOLDSWORTH (_ob._\n1649); Master put in, Dr. ANTHONY TUCKNEY, one of the Assembly Divines.\n\nQUEEN'S COLLEGE:--There was a complete sweep of this College, not a\nFellow or Foundationer of any kind being left. President ejected, Dr.\nEDWARD MARTIN (survived the Restoration and was made Dean of Ely);\nPresident put in, Mr. HERBERT PALMER, one of the Assembly Divines.\n\nCLARE HALL:--Master ejected, Dr. THOMAS PASKE (survived the Restoration\nand had his reward); Master put in, RALPH CUDWORTH, B.D., afterwards the\ncelebrated author of the \"Intellectual System.\" He was of Somersetshire\nbirth, and, though now only 27 years of age, had acquired a high\nCambridge reputation, as Fellow and Tutor of Emanuel College, where he\nhad been educated.\n\nPETERHOUSE:--Master ejected, Dr. JOHN COSINS (already under the ban of\nParliament and a refugee in France: he survived the Restoration and\nbecame Bishop of Durham); Master put in, Mr. LAZARUS SEAMAN, one of the\nAssembly Divines.\n\nPEMBROKE COLLEGE;--Master ejected, Dr. BENJAMIN LANEY (survived the\nRestoration and held several Bishoprics in succession); Master put in,\nMr. RICHARD VINES, one of the Assembly Divines.\n\nKING'S COLLEGE;--Provost ejected, Dr. SAMUEL COLLINS (see Vol. I. pp. 92,\n93); Provost put in, Mr. BENJAMIN WHICHCOT, _\u00e6tat._ 34. He had been\na Fellow of Emanuel College, and was a friend of Cudworth's. A\npeculiarity in his case was that he was dispensed from taking the\nCovenant on his appointment, and succeeded, by his interest with the\nruling powers, in obtaining a like dispensation for most of the Fellows\nof the College. He survived the Restoration, conformed then, and is still\nremembered as one of the chiefs of the English Latitudinarians.\n\nSIDNEY-SUSSEX COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. SAMUEL WARD (see Vol. I. p.\n95); Master put in, Mr. RICHARD MINSHULL, a Fellow of the College,\nregularly elected to the Mastership by the other Fellows. He survived the\nRestoration, conformed then, and retained the Mastership till his death.\n\nJESUS COLLEGE:--Master ejected, Dr. RICHARD STERNE (great-grandfather of\nLaurence Sterne, the novelist). He was a strong Laudian and Royalist, and\nhad already been in prison on that account. He lived in retirement till\nthe Restoration; after which he was made successively Bishop of Chester,\nand (1664) Archbishop of York. Master put in, Mr. THOMAS YOUNG, one of\nthe Assembly Divines, Milton's old preceptor, and the chief of the\n\"Smectymnuans.\" It was a special compliment to Young that he, not an\nEnglish University man at all, but a naturalized Scot, had been chosen\nfor a Cambridge Mastership.\n\nCATHERINE HALL:--Master ejected (not till 1645, however, and then on a\nfresh occasion), Dr. RALPH BROWNRIGGE, nominal Bishop of Exeter since\n1642 (_ob._ 1659); Master put in, Mr. WILLIAM SPURSTOW, one of the\nAssembly Divines, and one of the \"Smectymnuans.\" [Footnote: Authorities\nfor this account of Manchester's Visitation of Cambridge and its results\nare Fuller's History of the University of Cambridge (edit 1340), pp. 233-\n239, and Neal's Puritans, III. 107-119.]\n\nThus began, in 1644, a new era in the history of Cambridge University,\nwhich extended to the Restoration. Episcopalian principles were\ndischarged out of the government of the University; and, under the five\nretained Masters and the eleven new ones, there was inaugurated a system\nof rule and teaching in accordance, more or less in the different\nColleges, with the ascendant State-policy of the Puritans. With the\nexception of Cudworth, Whichcot, and Minshull, it will have been noted,\nall the newly-appointed Masters were members of the Westminster Assembly,\nand leading men among the Presbyterian majority of that body. They do not\nappear to have ceased attendance on the Assembly in consequence of their\nappointments, but only to have divided their time thenceforward as well\nas they could between the Assembly and Cambridge. It is also to be noted\nthat some of them, including Thomas Young, retained their former livings\nalong with their new Masterships. [Footnote: The following is a note\nfurnished to Mr. David Laing by the Rev. John Struthers of Prestonpans,\none of an acting Committee recently appointed by the Church of Scotland\nfor transcribing and editing the original Minutes of the Westminster\nAssembly, preserved in Dr. William's Library, London:--\"1643-4, March\n15.--A letter read from the Earl of Manchester, stating that he cast out\nDrs. Beale, Cosins, Sterne, Martin, Laney, masters, from their\nMasterships in Cambridge University, and, subject to the Assembly's\napproval, nominated Mr. Palmer, Mr. Arrowsmith, Mr. Vines, Mr. Seaman,\nand Mr. Young in their places. The Assembly offered their\ncongratulations, but desired that their brethren should meanwhile not be\nwithdrawn from the Assembly.\" Mr. Struthers adds that, though Dr.\nLightfoot, in his Notes of the Assembly, states that Mr. Vines and Mr.\nYoung desired to be excused from the new appointments, there is no notice\nof any such declinature in the MS. minutes.--See _Biographical Notices\nof Thomas Young, S.T.D., Vicar of Stowmarket, Suffolk_, by Mr. David\nLaing (Edin. 1870), p. 39.--These accurate and valuable \"Notices\" of a\nman who figures so interestingly in Milton's Biography had not appeared\ntill Vol. II. of this work was quite printed, or they might have saved me\nsome research for that volume as well as for its predecessor. Prefixed to\nthem Mr. Laing gives a portrait of Young, after a photograph taken from\nthe original picture long preserved in the Vicarage of Stowmarket, but\nnow in the possession of H. C. Mathew, Esq. of Felixstow, near Ipswich.\nThe portrait represents Young with hair not at all of the short Puritan\ncut, but long, and flowing fully on both sides to his shoulders; and the\nface is really fine, with handsome features, and a rich and mild look.\nAnother interesting insertion in Mr. Laing's little volume is a facsimile\nof Young's handwriting, from a Latin inscription in a presentation copy\nof his _Dies Dominica_, still extant. The hand is neat and careful;\nand, what is rather curious, it has a resemblance to Milton's.] There\nwere similar instances of retention of livings among those appointed to\nFellowships, and to other offices throughout the country under the\npatronage of the Parliament. The excuse was the dearth for the time of\nfully qualified ministers of the right Parliamentarian strain; but the\nfact did not escape comment. Was Plurality one of the very few\ninstitutions of Prelacy which Presbyterian godliness was willing to\npreserve?\n\nFresh from his energetic Visitation of Cambridge, the Earl of Manchester\nwas away, as we have seen, in May 1644, with his Lieutenant-general,\nCromwell, to add the force of the Associated Eastern Counties to the\nforces of the Scots and Fairfax, then about to besiege the Marquis of\nNewcastle in York. The joint forces, numbering some 25,000 men in all,\nwere hopefully conducting the siege when the approach of Prince Rupert\nout of Lancashire, with a Royalist army of over 20,000, compelled them to\nraise it, in order to oppose him (June 30). He avoided them, relieved\nYork, and then, having added the Marquis's garrison to his own force,\nrisked all for a great victory. The result was the BATTLE OF MARSTON\nMOOR, about seven miles to the west of York, fought on the evening of\nJuly 2, 1644. It was \"the bloodiest battle of the whole war,\" the number\nactually slain on the field on both sides in three hours being no fewer\nthan 4,150. But of these by far the most were on the King's side, and the\nbattle was a disastrous rout for that side, and a victory for the\nParliamentarians incalculably greater than any they had yet had. Rupert,\nwith a shred of his army, escaped southwards; the Marquis of Newcastle,\nmaking his way to the sea-coast, embarked for the Continent, with his two\nsons, his brother Sir Charles Cavendish, General King, Lord Fauconberg,\nthe Earl of Carnwath, Bishop Bramhall, and about eighty other Royalists\nof distinction, and was no more seen in England till the Restoration.\nYork surrendered to the victors, July 5; and, save that Newcastle and\nsome other towns remained to be taken, the whole North of England was\nlost to the King and brought within the sway of Parliament. Seldom had\nthere been such consequences from a battle of three hours. [Footnote:\nClar. Hist. 490-492; Parl. Hist. III. 277, 278; Carlyle's Cromwell, I.\n151-154; Markham's Fairfax, 151-178, for a detailed modern account.]\n\nWhen the news of the battle reached London (July 5), there was nothing\nbut joy. Within a few days, however, the joy passed into a question\nbetween the Independents and the Presbyterians, or at least the Scots\namong them. Which part of the conjoint army had behaved best in the\nbattle, and to which general did the chief honours of the day belong?\nGlad would Baillie have been to welcome Marston Moor as at last that\ngreat success of the Scots for which he had been longing and praying. No\nsuch pleasure could he have. More and more, as detailed accounts of the\nbattle arrived, it became clear that the Scots could claim only a little\nof the merit of the victory--that the mass of them had behaved rather\nill; that the luck or the generalship of Field-marshal Leven had deserted\nhim, and he had been carried far away in a ruck of fugitives; and that,\nin fact, with the exception of David Leslie, the Scottish Major-general,\nwho really did good service, no Scot in command had shown much head, or\nbeen of any considerable use, at Marston Moor. But, worse and worse for\nBaillie's feelings, not only did it appear that the victory had been\ngained by the English of the joint army rather than by the Scottish\ncontingent, but gradually the rumour was confirmed, which had been first\nborne to London on the wings of the wind, that the Englishman by whose\nconduct, if by that of any one man, the fate of the battle had been\ndecided, was Lieutenant-general Cromwell. \"The left wing, which I\ncommanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all\nthe Prince's horse. God gave them as stubble to our swords. We charged\ntheir regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged.\" These\nsentences of Cromwell's own, written on the third day after the battle in\na letter to his brother-in-law, Colonel Valentine Walton, are his private\nstatement of the truth which became public. In vain it was represented in\nLondon that Cromwell's paramount prowess in the battle was a fiction of\nhimself and the Independents; in vain did the Presbyterians try to\ndistribute the merit among Fairfax, David Leslie, and Major-general\nCrawford--another Scot, not in the Scottish contingent, but serving in\nManchester's army as next in command under Cromwell, and already known as\nrepresenting Presbyterianism in that army in opposition to Cromwell's\nIndependency; in vain did this Crawford, when he came to London,\nasseverate that Cromwell, having been slightly wounded in the neck, had\nretired before the crisis, and that the real work in Cromwell's part of\nthe battle had devolved on David Leslie and himself. It was a comfort to\nBaillie to believe all this; but London was persuaded otherwise. For\nLondon and for all England Cromwell stood forth as the hero of Marston\nMoor. The victory to which Baillie had looked forward as a triumph for\nPresbyterianism had been gained mainly by the \"great Independent\" of the\nEnglish army, and went to the credit of Independency. [Footnote: Baillie,\nII. 201, 203-4, 209, and 211; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 152-3 and 146-150;\nFuller's Worthies, _Yorkshire_; Holles's Memoirs (1699), 15-17.]\n\nThree weeks after the battle of Marston Moor (July 23, 1644) the\nWestminster Assembly, with permission of Parliament, adjourned for a\nfortnight's vacation. We will share this vacation, and make it the\nopportunity for some farther inquiry, on our own account, into the two\nsubjects which were of paramount interest at that moment. They were the\nsubjects, if I may so say, that had for some time past been chalked up on\nthe black board for the consideration of all England, and to the\ndiscussion of which the Assembly and the Parliament were to address\nthemselves with fresh fervour when the Assembly came together again after\ntheir vacation. These were:--\n\nI. The Principle of Toleration.\n\nII. The English Sects and Sectaries.\n\n\nTHE PRINCIPLE OF TOLERATION: STATE OF THE TOLERATION CONTROVERSY IN 1644.\n\nThe history of the modern idea of TOLERATION could be written completely\nonly after a larger amount of minute and special research than I am able\nhere to bestow on the subject. Who shall say in the heads of what stray\nand solitary men, scattered through Europe in the sixteenth century,\n_nantes rari in gurgite vasto_, some form of the idea, as a purely\nspeculative conception, may have been lodged? Hallam finds it in the\n\"Utopia\" of Sir Thomas More (1480-1535), and in the harangues of the\nChancellor l'Hospital of France (1505-1573); [Footnote: Hallam's Const.\nHist. (10th edit.), T. 122, Note.] and there may have been others. But\nthe history of the idea, as a practical or political notion, lies within\na more precise range. Out of what within Europe in the sixteenth and\nseventeenth centuries was the practical form of the idea bred? Out of\npain, out of suffering, out of persecution: not pain inflicted constantly\non one and the same section of men, or on any two opposed sections\nalternately; but pain revolving, pain circulated, pain distributed till\nthe whole round of the compass of sects had felt it in turn, and the only\nprinciple of its prevention gradually dawned on the common consciousness!\nIn every persecuted cause, honestly conducted, there was a throe towards\nthe birth of this great principle. Every persecuted cause claimed at\nleast a toleration for itself from the established power; and so, by a\nkind of accumulation, the cause that had been last persecuted had more of\na tendency to toleration in it, and became practically more tolerant,\nthan the others. This, I think, might be proved. The Church of England\nwas more tolerant than the Church of Rome, and Scottish Presbyterianism\nor Scottish Puritanism was more tolerant (though the reverse is usually\nasserted) than the Church of England prior to 1640. Not to the Church of\nEngland, however, nor to Scottish Presbyterianism, nor to English\nPuritanism at large, does the honour of the first perception of the full\nprinciple of Liberty of Conscience, and its first assertion in English\nspeech, belong. That honour has to be assigned, I believe, to the\nIndependents generally, and to the Baptists in particular.\n\nThe principle of religious liberty is almost logically bound up with the\ntheory of the Independency of particular churches. Every particular\nchurch being a voluntary concourse of like-minded atoms, able to declare\nthemselves converts or true Christians, it follows that the world, or\ncivil society, whether called heathen or professedly Christian, is only\nthe otherwise regulated medium or material in which these voluntary\nconcourses or whirls take place. It follows that there must be large\nexpanses or interspaces of the general material always unabsorbed into\nthe voluntary concourses, and that for the secular power, which governs\nthe general medium, to try to stimulate the concourses, or to bring all\ninto them, or to control any part of the procedure of each or any of\nthem, would be a mingling of elements that are incompatible, of necessary\nworldly order with the spiritual kingdom of Christ. And so it was\nmaintained, against the Roman Catholics, and against the Confessions of\nall the various established Protestant Churches, that there could be, and\nought to be, no Imperial or National Church. This being the principle of\nsome of the early Protestant movements that went beyond Luther,\nZuinglius, or Calvin, and perplexed these Reformers, little wonder that\nflashes of the fullest doctrine of Liberty of Conscience should be found\namong the records of those movements, whether on the Continent or in\nEngland.[Footnote: See notices of such flashes, among English Baptists of\nthe reign of Henry VIII., and among the continental Anabaptists, in Mr.\nEdward Bean Underhill's \"Historical Introduction\" to the Reprint of Old\nTracts on _Liberty of Conscience_ by the \"Hanserd Knollys Society\"\n(1846). Mr. Underhill writes as a zealous Baptist, but with judgment and\nresearch.] Little wonder, either, that the principle of Toleration should\nbe discernible in the writings of Robert Brown, the father of the crude\nEnglish Independency of Elizabeth's reign. [Footnote: Baillie\n(_Dissuasive_, Part I. 31) expressly makes it a reproach against\nBrown that he held the Toleration doctrine.]\n\nBut it is one thing to hold a principle vaguely or latently as implicated\nin a principle already avowed, and another thing to extricate the implied\nprinciple and kindle it, as on the top of a lighthouse, on its own\naccount. It is found, accordingly, that the early English Separatists\ncollectively were much slower in this matter than Brown himself had been.\nThey wanted toleration for themselves, and perhaps a general mildness in\nthe administration of religious affairs; but they could not rid\nthemselves of the notion, held alike by all the established churches,\nwhether Prelatic or Presbyterian, that it is the duty of the prince, or\nthe civil power, in every state to promote true religion and suppress\nfalse. Passages which we have already had occasion to quote (Vol. II.\n569, 570) from the writings of Barrowe, Greenwood, and even of the\nliberal Robinson, the father of Congregationalism proper, prove beyond\nall dispute that these chiefs of the Separatists and Semi-Separatists who\nfollowed Brown in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign and in the reign\nof James had not worked out Toleration into a perfect or definite tenet.\nThey did want something that they called a Toleration; but it was a\nlimited and ill-defined Toleration.--There was, however, _one_ body\nor band of Separatists in James's reign who had pushed farther ahead, and\ngrasped the idea of Liberty of Conscience at its very utmost. Strangely\nenough, as it may seem at first sight, they were the Separatists of the\nmost intense and schismatic type then known, the least conciliatory in\ntheir relations to other churches and communions. They were the poor and\ndespised Anglo-Dutch Anabaptists who called John Smyth (Vol. II. 539,540)\ntheir leader. In a Confession, or Declaration of Faith, put forth in 1611\nby the English Baptists in Amsterdam, just after the death of Smyth, this\narticle occurs: \"The magistrate is not to meddle with religion, or\nmatters of conscience, nor compel men to this or that form of religion;\nbecause Christ is the King and Lawgiver of the Church and Conscience.\" It\nis believed that this is the first expression of the absolute principle\nof Liberty of Conscience in the public articles of any body of\nChristians. Contact with the Dutch Arminians may have helped Smyth's\npeople to a perception of it; and it certainly did not please the English\nP\u00e6dobaptist Independents of Holland when it appeared among them.\nRobinson, for example, objected to it, as he was bound to do by the views\nof the civil magistrate's power which he maintained. He attributed the\ninvention of such an article to the common inability of ignorant men to\ndistinguish between the use of an ordinance and its abuse. In other\nwords, he thought the remnant of Smyth's Baptists had been rather silly\nin leaping to the conclusion that, because there had been much abuse of\nthe interference of the civil power in matters of religion, and it had\nled to all sorts of horrors, there was nothing left but to set up the\nprinciple of absolute non-interference.\n\nThe principle of the Anglo-Dutch Baptists, with the same exact difference\nbetween the Baptists and the rest of the Independents on the Toleration\npoint, was imported into England. It is supposed that the person who had\nthe chief hand in drawing up the Confession of the English Baptists of\nAmsterdam, after Smyth's death, was Smyth's successor in the Baptist\nministry there, Thomas Helwisse (Vol. II. 540-544). Now, this Helwisse,\nreturning to England shortly after 1611, drew round him, as we saw, the\nfirst congregation of General or Arminian Baptists in London; and this\nobscure Baptist congregation seems to have become the depositary for all\nEngland of the absolute principle of Liberty of Conscience expressed in\nthe Amsterdam Confession, as distinct from the more stinted principle\nadvocated by the general body of the Independents. Not only did\nHelwisse's folk differ from the Independents generally on the subject of\nInfant Baptism and Dipping; they differed also on the power of the\nmagistrate in matters of belief and conscience. It was, in short, from\ntheir little dingy meeting-house, somewhere in Old London, that there\nflashed out, first in England, the absolute doctrine of Religious\nLiberty. \"_Religious Peace: or, A Plea for Liberty of Conscience_\"\nis the title of a little tract first printed in 1614, and presented to\nKing James and the English Parliament, by \"Leonard Busher, citizen of\nLondon.\" This Leonard Busher, there is reason to believe, was a member of\nHelwisse's congregation; and we learn from the tract itself that he was a\npoor man, labouring for his subsistence, who had had his share of\npersecution. He had probably been one of Smyth's Amsterdam flock who had\nreturned with Helwisse. The tract is, certainly, the earliest known\nEnglish publication in which full liberty of conscience is openly\nadvocated. It cannot be read now without a throb. The style is simple and\nrather helpless; but one comes on some touching passages. Thus:--\n\n\"May it please your Majesty and Parliament to understand that by fire and\nsword to constrain princes and peoples to receive that one true religion\nof the Gospel is wholly against the mind and merciful law of Christ.\"\n\"Persecution is a work well pleasing to all false prophets and bishops,\nbut it is contrary to the mind of Christ, who came not to judge and\ndestroy men's lives, but to save them. And, though some men and women\nbelieve not at the first hour, yet may they at the eleventh hour, if they\nbe not persecuted to death before. And no king nor bishop can or is able\nto command faith. That is the gift of God, who worketh in us both the\nwill and the deed of his own good pleasure. Set him not a day, therefore,\nin which, if his creature hear not and believe not, you will imprison and\nburn him.... As kings and bishops cannot command the wind, so they\ncannot command faith; and, as the wind bloweth where it listeth, so is\nevery man that is born of the Spirit. You may force men to church against\ntheir consciences, but they will believe as they did before when they\ncome there.\"\n\n\"Kings and magistrates are to rule temporal affairs by the swords of\ntheir temporal kingdoms, and bishops and ministers are to rule spiritual\naffairs by the word and Spirit of God, the sword of Christ's temporal\nkingdom, and not to intermeddle one with another's authority, office, and\nfunction.\"\n\n\"I read that Jews, Christians, and Turks are tolerated in Constantinople,\nand yet are peaceable, though so contrary the one to the other. If this\nbe so, how much more ought Christians not to force one another to\nreligion! And how much more ought Christians to tolerate Christians,\nwhenas the Turks do tolerate them! Shall we be less merciful than the\nTurks? or shall we learn the Turks to persecute Christians? It is not\nonly unmerciful, but unnatural and abominable, yea monstrous, for one\nChristian to vex and destroy another for difference and questions of\nreligion.\"\n\nBusher's tract of 1614 was not the only utterance in the same strain that\ncame from Helwisse's conventicle of London Baptists. In 1615 there\nappeared in print \"_Objections answered by way of Dialogue, wherein is\nproved, by the Law of God, by the Law of our Land, and by His Majesty's\nmany testimonies, that no man ought to be persecuted for his Religion, so\nhe testifie his allegeance by the oath appointed by Law._\" The\nauthor, or one of the authors, of this Dialogue, which is even more\nexplicit in some respects than Busher's tract, is pretty clearly\nascertained to have been John Murton, Helwisse's assistant (Vol. II.\n544,581). Helwisse himself is not heard of after 1614, and appears to\nhave died about that time. But his Baptist congregation maintained itself\nin London side by side with Jacob's congregation of Independents,\nestablished in 1616 (Vol. II. 544). As if to signalize still farther the\ndiscrepancy of the two sets of Sectaries on the Toleration point, there\nwas put forth, as we saw, in that very year, by Jacob and the\nIndependents, a Confession of Faith, containing this article: \"We believe\nthat we, and all true visible churches, ought to be overseen and kept in\ngood order and peace, and ought to be governed, under Christ, both\nsupremely and also subordinately, by the civil magistrate; yea, in causes\nof religion, when need is.\"\n\nThe year 1616 was the year of Shakespeare's death. Who that has read his\nSonnet LXVI. can doubt that he had carried in his mind while alive some\nprofound and peculiar form of the idea of Toleration? In Bacon's brain,\ntoo, one may detect some smothered tenet of the kind; and even in the\ntalk of the shambling King James himself there had been such occasional\nspurts about Liberty of Conscience that, though he had burnt two of his\nsubjects for Arianism, Helwisse's poor people were fain, as we have just\nseen, to cite \"His Majesty's many testimonies\" for the Toleration they\ncraved. And yet not to any such celebrity as the king, the philosopher,\nor the poet, had the task of vindicating for England the idea of Liberty\nof Conscience been practically appointed. To all intents and purposes\nthat honour had fallen to two of the most extreme and despised sects of\nthe Puritans. The despised Independents, or semi-Separatists of the\nschool of Robinson and Jacob, and the still more despised Baptists, or\nthorough Separatists of the school of Smyth and Helwisse, were groping\nfor the pearl between them; and, what is strangest at first sight, it was\nthe more intensely Separatist of these two sects that was groping with\nmost success. How is this to be explained? Partly it may have been that\nthe Baptists were the sect that had been most persecuted--that they were\nthe ultimate sect, in the English world, in respect of the necessary\nqualification of pain and suffering accumulated in their own experience,\nwhile the Hobinsonian Independents might rank as only the penultimate\nsect in this respect. But there is a deeper reason. Paradoxical as the\nstatement may seem, there was a logical connexion between the extreme\nSeparatism of the Baptists, the tightness and exclusiveness of their own\nterms of communion, and their passion for religious freedom, This\nrequires elucidation:--It was on the subject of the Baptism of Infants\nthat the ordinary Congregationalists and the Baptist Congregationalists\nmost evidently stood aloof from each other. There had been vehement\ncontroversies between them on the subject. Independent congregations had\nejected and excommunicated such of their members as had taken to the\ndoctrine of Antip\u00e6dobaptism; and Smyth's rigid Baptists, in turn, would\nnot hold communion with P\u00e6dobaptist Independents. We are apt now to dwell\non the narrow-mindedness, the unseemliness, of those bickerings of the\ntwo sects over the one doctrine on which they differed. It is to be\nobserved, however, that even here they illustrated their faith in the\nprinciple which was the essence of their common Congregationalism: to\nwit, that the true security for sound faith and good government in the\nChurch of Christ lay in the power lodged in every particular congregation\nof judging who were fit to belong to it, and of constant spiritual\nsupervision of each of the members of it by all, so that the erring might\nbe admonished, and the unfit ejected. It was the supreme virtue, the all-\nsufficient efficacy, of this power of merely spiritual censure, as it\nmight be exercised by congregations or particular churches, each within\nitself, that both sects were continually trying to demonstrate to\nPrelatists and Presbyterians. Their very argument was that truth and\npiety would prosper best in a system of Church-government which trusted\nall to the vigilance of the members of every particular congregation over\neach other, their reasonings among themselves, their practice of mutual\nadmonition, and, in last resort, their power of excommunicating the\nunworthy. Hence perhaps even the excess of the controversial activity of\nthe two sects against each other, and the frequency of their mutual\nexcommunications, are not without a favourable significance. Here,\nhowever, it was the Baptists, rather than the Independents collectively,\nthat had pushed their theory of the all-sufficiency of congregational\ncensure to its finest issue. To both sects the world or civil society\npresented itself as a medium in which there might be Christian vortices,\nconcourses of true Christian souls, that should constitute, when numbered\ntogether and catalogued unerringly in the books of heaven, the Church or\nKingdom of Jesus. To both sects it seemed a thing to be striven for that\nas much of civil society as possible should be brought into these\nvortices or concourses; nay, the aspiration of both was that the whole\nworld should be Christianized. But, looking about them, they knew, in\nfact, that the vortices or concourses did and could involve but a small\nproportion of the society in which they occurred. They knew that there\nmust be large tracts of unbelief, profanity, and false worship in every\nso-called Christian nation, left utterly unaffected by any of the true\nassociations of Christ's real people; besides the huge wilderness of\nheathenism and idolatry lying all round in the dark lands of the world.\nIt was on the platform of this contemplation that the Independents\ngenerally and the Baptist section of them had parted company. The\nIndependents generally held that it was the duty of the civil power in a\nState to promote the formation of churches in that State, and to see, in\nsome general way, that the churches formed were not wrong in doctrine or\nin practice. They held that the civil authority might lawfully compel all\nits subjects to some sort of hearing of the Gospel with a view to their\nbelonging to churches or congregations, and might even assist the\npreacher by some whip of penalties on those who remained obstinate after\na due amount of hearing. They held, in fact, that every State is bound to\nuse its power towards Christianizing all its subjects, and may also\ninstitute missions for the propagation of true Christianity in idolatrous\nor heathen lands. To all this the Baptists, or some of their leaders, had\nlearnt to oppose an emphatic \"No.\" They held that the world, or civil\nsociety, and the Church of Christ, were distinct and immiscible. They\nheld that the sword of the Temporal Power must never, under any\ncircumstances, aid the sword of the Spirit. They held that the formation\nof churches in any State must be a process of the purest spontaneity.\nThey held that, while every person in a civilized State is a subject of\nthat State in all matters of civil order, it ought to be at the option of\nthat person, and of those with whom he or she might voluntarily consort,\nto determine whether he or she should superadd to this general character\nof subject the farther character of being a Christian and a member of\nsome particular church. The churches formed spontaneously in any State\nwere to be self-subsisting associations of like-minded units, believing\nand worshiping, arid inflicting spiritual censures among themselves,\nwithout State-interference; and Christianity was to propagate itself\nthroughout the world by its own spiritual might and the missionary zeal\nof apostolic individuals. [Footnote: Among my authorities for this sketch\nof the history of the idea of Toleration as far as 1616, I ought to\nmention Hanbury's _Historical Memorials relating to the\nIndependents_, Vol. I., and more particularly Chapters XIII,--XV.;\nFletcher's _History of Independency in England_ (1848), Vol. III.,\nChapters I. and II.; and the Reprint of Old Tracts on _Liberty of\nConscience_ by the Hanserd Knollys (Baptist) Society, with the\nIntroductory Notices there prefixed to Busher's tract and Murton's by Mr.\nEdward Bean Underhill.]\n\nFrom 1616 onwards this Baptist form of the idea of Liberty of Conscience\nhad been slumbering somewhere in the English heart. Even through the\ndreadful time of the Laudian terrorism it might be possible for research\nto discover half-stifled expressions of it. Other and less extreme forms\nof the Toleration idea, however, were making themselves heard. Holland\nhad worked out the speculation, or was working it out, through the\nstruggle of her own Arminians for equal rights with the prevailing\nCalvinists; and it was the singular honour of that country to have, at\nall events, been the first in Europe to exhibit something like a\npractical solution of the problem, by the refuge and freedom of worship\nit afforded to the religious outcasts of other nations. Then among the\nso-called Latitudinarian Divines of the Church of England--Hales,\nChillingworth, and their associates--there is evidence of the growth,\neven while their friend Laud was in power, of an idea or sentiment of\nToleration which might have made that Prelate pause and wonder. Not, of\ncourse, the Baptist idea; but one which might have had a greater chance\npractically in the then existing conditions of English life. Might there\nnot be a Toleration _with_ an Established or State Church? While it\nmight be the duty of the civil magistrate, or at least a State-\nconvenience, to set up one Church as the Church of the nation, and so to\nafford to all the subjects the means of instruction in that theology and\nof participation in that worship which the State thought the best, might\nnot State-interference with religion stop there, and might not those who\nrefused to conform be permitted to hold their conventicles freely outside\nthe Established Church, and to believe and worship in their own way? Some\nsuch idea of Toleration, but still with perplexing limitations as to the\n_amount_ of deviation that should be tolerated, was, I believe, the\nidea that had dawned on the minds of men like the loveable Hales and the\nhardy Chillingworth. It is much the sort of Toleration that accredits\nitself to the average British mind yet. But how greatly the history of\nthe Church of England might have been altered had such a Toleration been\nthen adopted by the Church itself! As it was, it remained the half-\nuttered _irenicon_ of a few speculative spirits. Nowhere on earth\nprior to 1640, unless it were in Holland, was Toleration in any effective\nform whatsoever anything more than the dream of a few poor persecuted\nsectaries or deep private thinkers. Less even than in the Church of\nEngland is there a trace of the idea in the Scottish Presbyterianism that\nhad then re-established itself, or in the English Presbyterianism that\nlonged to establish itself. Scottish Presbyterianism might indeed plead,\nand it did plead, that it was so satisfactory a system, kept the souls of\nits subjects in such a strong grip, and yet without needing to resort,\nexcept in extreme cases, to any very penal procedure, that wherever\n_it_ existed Toleration would be unnecessary, inasmuch as there\nwould be preciously little error to tolerate. Personally, I believe,\nHenderson was as moderate and tolerant a man as any British ecclesiastic\nof his time. In no Church where he bore rule could there, by possibility,\nhave been any approach to the tetchy repressiveness, or the callous\nindifference to suffering for the sake of conscience, that characterized\nthe English Church-rule of Laud. But Henderson, though the best of the\nPresbyterians, was still, _par excellence,_ a Presbyterian; and\ntherefore the Toleration that lay in his disposition had not translated\nitself into a theoretical principle. As for the English Presbyterians,\nwhat _they_ wanted was toleration for themselves, or the liberty of\nbeing in the English Church, or in England out of the Church, without\nconforming; or, if some of them went farther, what _they_ wanted was\nthe substitution of Presbytery for Prelacy as the system established with\nthe right to be intolerant. Finally, even in the New England colonies,\nwhere Congregationalism was the rule, there were not only spiritual\ncensures and excommunications of heretics, but whippings, banishments,\nand other punishments of them, by the civil power. [Footnote: Hallam's\naccount of the rise and progress of the Toleration idea in England (Hist,\nof Europe, 6th ed. II. 442, &c.) is very unsatisfactory. He actually\nmakes Jeremy Taylor's \"Liberty of Prophesying\" (1647), the first\nsubstantial assertion of Liberty of Conscience in England--an injustice\nto a score or two of preceding champions of it, and to one or two entire\ncorporate denominations.]\n\nAnd so we arrive at 1640. Then, immediately after the meeting of the Long\nParliament, Toleration rushed into the air. Everywhere the word\n\"Toleration\" was heard, and with all varieties of meanings. A certain\nboom of the general principle runs through Milton's Anti-Episcopal\npamphlets, and through other pamphlets on the same side. But this is not\nall. The principle was expressly argued in certain pamphlets set forth in\nthe interest of the Independents and the Sectaries generally, and it was\nargued so well that the Presbyterians caught the alarm, foresaw the\ncoming battle between them and the Independents on this subject of\nToleration, and declared themselves Anti-Tolerationists by anticipation.\nIt was in May 1641, for example, that Henry Burton published his\nanonymous pamphlet called _The Protestation Protested_ (Vol. II.\n591-2). The main purpose of the pamphlet was to propound Independency in\nits extreme Brownist form, as refusing any National or State Church\nwhatever; but, on the supposition that this theory was too much in\nadvance of the opinion of the time, and that some National Church must\ninevitably be set up, a toleration of dissent from that Church was prayed\nfor. \"The Parliament now being about a Reformation,\" wrote Burton, \"what\ngovernment shall be set up in this National Church, the Lord strengthen\nand direct the Parliament in so great and glorious a work. But let it be\nwhat it will, so as still a due respect be paid to those congregations\nand churches which desire an exemption, and liberty of enjoying Christ's\nordinances in such purity as a National Church is not capable of.\" This\nis the Toleration principle as it had been transmitted among the\nIndependents generally, or perhaps it is an advance on that. Such as it\nwas, however, Burton's plea for Toleration roused vehement opposition. It\nwas attacked ferociously, as we saw, by an anonymous Episcopal\nantagonist, believed to be Bishop Hall (Vol. II. p. 593). It was attacked\nalso by Presbyterians, and notably by their champion, Mr. Thomas Edwards,\nin his maiden pamphlet called \"_Reasons against the Independent\nGovernment of particular Congregations_\" (Vol. II. p. 594). But\nEdwards did not go unpunished. His pamphlet drew upon him that thrashing\nfrom the lady-Brownist, Katharine Chidley, which the reader may remember\n(Vol. II. p. 595). This brave old lady's idea of Toleration outwent even\nBurton's, and corresponded more with that absolute idea of Toleration\nwhich had been worked out among the Baptists. For example, Edwards having\nupbraided the Independents with the fact that their Toleration principle\nhad broken down even in their own Paradise of New England, what is Mrs.\nChidley's answer? \"If they have banished any out of their Patents that\nwere neither disturbers of the peace of the land, nor the worship\npractised in the land, I am persuaded it was their weakness, and I hope\nthey will never attempt to do the like.\" Clearly, from whomsoever in 1641\nthe Parliament and the people of England heard a stinted doctrine of\nToleration, they heard the full doctrine from Mrs. Chidley. The\nParliament, however, was very slow to be convinced. Petitions of\nIndependent congregations for toleration to themselves were coolly\nreceived and neglected; the Presbyterians more and more saw the\nimportance of making Anti-Toleration their rallying dogma; more and more\nthe call to be wary against this insidious notion of Toleration rang\nthrough the pulpits of England and Scotland. [Footnote: Hanbury's\n_Historical Memorials relating to the Independents_, Vol. II. pp.\n68-ll7; where ample extracts from the pamphlets mentioned in this\nparagraph are given. Fletcher gives a good selection of them in his\n_History of Independency_, Vol. III. Chap. VI.]\n\nThe debates in 1643 and 1644 between the five Independent or Dissenting\nBrethren of the Westminster Assembly and the Presbyterian majority of the\nAssembly brought on a new stage of the Toleration controversy. A notion\nwhich might be scorned or ridiculed while it was lurking in Anabaptist\nconventicles, or ventilated by a she-Brownist like Mrs. Chidley, or by\npoor old Mr. Burton of Friday Street, could compel a hearing when\nmaintained by men so respectable as Messrs. Goodwin, Burroughs, Bridge,\nSimpson, and Nye, whom the Parliament itself had sent into the Assembly.\nThe demand for Toleration which these men addressed to the Parliament in\ntheir famous _Apologetical Narration_ of January 1643-4 gave sudden\ndignity and precision to what till then had been vulgar and vague. It put\nthe question in this form, \"What amount of Nonconformity is to be allowed\nin the new Presbyterian Church which is to be the National Church of\nEngland?\"; and it distinctly intimated that on the answer to this\nquestion it would depend whether the Apologists and their adherents could\nremain in England or should be driven again into exile. Care must be\ntaken, however, not to credit the Apologists at this period with any\nnotion of absolute or universal Toleration. They were far behind Mrs.\nChidley or the old Baptists in their views. They were as yet but learners\nin the school of Toleration. Indulgence for _themselves_ \"in some\nlesser differences,\" and perhaps also for some of the more reputable of\nthe other sects in _their_ different \"lesser differences,\" was the\nsum of their published demand. They too, no less than the Presbyterians,\nprofessed disgust at the extravagances of the Sectaries. It was not so\nmuch, therefore, the Toleration expressly claimed by the Five Dissenting\nBrethren for themselves, as the larger Toleration to which it would\ninevitably lead, that the Presbyterians continued to oppose and denounce.\nAs far as the Five Brethren and other such respectable Dissentients were\nconcerned, the Presbyterians would have stretched a point. They would\nhave made arrangements. They would have patted the Five Dissenting\nBrethren on the back, and said, \"It shall be made easy for _you_; we\nwill yield all the accommodation _you_ can possibly need; only don't\ncall it Toleration.\" The Dissenting Brethren were honest enough and\nclear-headed enough not to be content with this personal compliment. Nor,\nin fact, could the policy have been successful. For there were now\nchampions of the larger Toleration with voices that resounded through the\nland and were heard over those of the Five Apologists. Precisely that\nmiddle of the year 1644 at which we have stopped in our narrative was the\ntime when the principle of absolute Liberty of Conscience was proclaimed,\nfor the benefit of all opinions whatsoever, in tones that could never\nmore be silenced.\n\nAbout the middle of 1644 there appeared in London at least three\npamphlets or books in the same strain. One of these, \"_The Compassionate\nSamaritan unbinding the Conscience_,\" need be remembered by its name\nonly; but the other two must be associated with their authors. One bore\nthe striking title \"_The Bloudy Tenent_ [i. e. _Bloody Tenet] of\nPersecution for cause of Conscience, discussed in a Conference between\nTruth and Peace_,\" (pp. 247); the other bore, in its first edition, the\nsimple title, \"_M. S. to A.S._,\" and, in its second edition, in the same\nyear, this fuller title \"_A Reply of Two of the Brethren to A.S., &c.;\nwith a Plea for Liberty of Conscience for the Apologists' Church-way,\nagainst the Cavils of the said A. S_.\" Though both were anonymous, the\nauthors were known at the time. The author of the first was that\nAmericanized Welshman, ROGER WILLIAMS, whose strange previous career,\nfrom his first arrival in New England in 1631, on to his settlement among\nthe Narraganset Bay Indians in 1638, and his subsequent vagaries of\nopinion and of action, has already been sketched (Vol. II. 560-563, and\n600-602). He had been over in England, it will be remembered, since June\n1643, in the capacity of envoy or commissioner from the Rhode Island\npeople, to obtain a charter for erecting Rhode Island and the adjacent\nProvidence Plantation into a distinct and independent colony. He had been\ngoing about England a good deal, but had been mostly in London, in the\nsociety of the younger Vane, and in frequent contact with other leading\nmen in Parliament and in the Westminster Assembly. The _Bloody Tenent_\nwas an expression, in printed form, of opinions he had been ventilating\nfrankly enough in conversation, and was intended as a parting-gift to\nEngland before his return to America. The title must have at once\nattracted attention to it and given it an advantage over the other tract.\nThe author of that other tract was our other well-known friend Mr. JOHN\nGOODWIN, Vicar of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, whom the Presbyterians\nhad put in their black books as an Arminian, Socinian, and what not (Vol.\nII. 582-584). Goodwill's piece may have been out first, for it is heard\nof as in circulation in May 1644, while Williams's book is not heard of,\nI think, till June or July. But, on all grounds, Williams deserves the\npriority. [Footnote: For statements in this paragraph authorities are--\n_Apologetic Narration_ (1644); Hanbury's Historical Memorials, II. 341\n_et seq._; Reprint of _The Bloody Tenent_ by the Hanserd Knollys Society\n(1848), with Mr. Underhill's \"Biographical Introduction,\" pp. xxiii.-iv.;\nJackson's _Life of John Goodwin_, p. 114 _et seq._; Baillie's Letters,\nII. 180,181, and 211, 212, and Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.]\n\nWell may the Americans be proud of Roger Williams. His _Bloody\nTenent_ is of a piece with all his previous career. It is a rapid,\nhurried book, written, as it tells us, during the author's stay in\nEngland, \"in change of rooms and corners, yea sometimes in variety of\nstrange houses, sometimes in the fields in the midst of travel.\" One\nparticularly notes the frequent \"&c.\" in its sentences, as if much\ncrowded on the writer's mind from moment to moment which he could\nindicate only by a contraction. But there is dash in the book, the\nkeenest earnestness and evidence of a mind made up, and every now and\nthen a mystic softness and richness of pity, yearning towards a\nvoluptuous imagery like that of the Song of Solomon. The plan is\nstraggling. First there is a list of twelve positions which the book\nproves, or heads under which its contents may be distributed. Then there\nis an address or dedication to \"the Right Honourable Both Houses of the\nHigh Court of Parliament,\" followed by a separate address \"To every\nCourteous Reader.\" Then there comes a copy of\" Scriptures and Reasons\nwritten long since by a Witness of Jesus Christ, close prisoner in\nNewgate, against Persecution in cause of Conscience\"--in fact, an extract\nfrom a tract on Liberty of Conscience by Murton, or some other London\nBaptist, in 1620. A copy of those Scriptures and Reasons against\nPersecution had, it seems, been submitted in 1635 to Mr. Cotton of Boston\nfor his consideration; and Mr. Cotton had drawn up a Reply, defending\nfrom Scripture, past universal practice, and the authority of Calvin,\nBeza, and others of the Reformers, the right of the civil magistrate to\nprosecute and punish religious error. This Reply of Cotton's in favour of\npersecution is printed at length by Williams; and the first part of the\nreal body of his own book consists of a Dialogue between Truth and Peace\nover the doctrine which so respectable a New England minister had thus\nespoused. When this Dialogue is over; there ensues a second Dialogue of\nTruth and Peace over another New England document in which the same\n\"bloody tenet\" of persecution had been defended-to wit a certain \"Model\nof Church and Civil Power\" drawn up by some New England ministers in\nconcert, and in which Mr. Cotton had had a hand, though Mr. Richard\nMather appears to have been the chief author. [Footnote: Some particulars\nin this description of the treatise are from Mr. Underhill's Introduction\nto the Hanserd Knolly's Society's Reprint of it, but the description in\nthe main is from the _Bloody Treatment_ itself.]\n\nThe texture of Williams's treatise, it will be thus seen, is loose and\ncomposite. But a singular unity of purpose and spirit runs through it.\nHere is the opening of the first Dialogue:--\n\n_Truth_. In what dark corner of the world, sweet Peace, are we two\nmet? How hath this present evil world banished me from all the coasts and\ncorners of it! And how hath the righteous God in judgment taken thee from\nthe earth: Rev. vi. 4.\n\n_Peace_. It is lamentably true, blessed Truth: the  foundations of\nthe world have long been out of course; the gates of Earth and Hell have\nconspired together to intercept our joyful meeting and our holy kisses.\nWith what a wearied, tired wing have I flown over nations, kingdoms,\ncities, towns, to find out precious Truth!\n\n_Truth_. The like inquiries in my flights and travels have I made\nfor Peace, and still am told she hath left the Earth and fled to Heaven.\n\n_Peace_. Dear Truth, what is the Earth but a dungeon of darkness,\nwhere Truth is not?\n\n_Truth_. And what is the Peace thereof but a fleeting dream, thine\nape and counterfeit?\n\n_Peace_. Oh! where is the promise of the God of Heaven, that\nRighteousness and Peace shall kiss each other?\n\n_Truth_. Patience, sweet Peace! These Heavens and Earth are growing\nold, and shall be changed like a garment: Psalm cii. They shall melt\naway, and be burnt up with all the works that are therein; and the Most\nHigh Eternal Creator shall gloriously create new Heavens and new Earth,\nwherein dwells righteousness: 2 Pet. iii. Our kisses then shall have\ntheir endless date of pure and sweetest joys. Till then both thou and I\nmust hope, and wait, and bear the fury of the Dragon's wrath, whose\nmonstrous lies and furies shall with himself be cast into the lake of\nfire, the second death: Rev. xx.\n\n_Peace_. Most precious Truth, thou knowest we are both pursued and\nlaid for. Mine heart is full of sighs, mine eyes with tears. Where can I\nbetter vent my full oppressed bosom than into thine, whose faithful lips\nmay for these few hours revive my drooping, wandering spirits, and here\nbegin to wipe tears from mine eyes, and the eyes of my dearest children.\n\n_Truth_. Sweet daughter of the God of peace, begin.\n\nAnd so Truth and Peace hold their long discourse, evolving very much that\ndoctrine of the absolute Liberty of Conscience, as derivable from, or\nradically identical with, the idea of the utter distinctness of the\nChurch of Christ from the world or civil society, which had been\npropounded first by the Brownists and Baptists, and had come down as a\ntradition from them. But it is evolved by Williams more boldly and\npassionately than by any before him. There is a fine union throughout of\nwarmth of personal Christian feeling with intellectual resoluteness in\naccepting every possible consequence of his main principle. Here are a\nfew phrases from the marginal summaries which give the substance of the\nDialogue, page after page:--\"The Church and civil State confusedly made\nall one\"; \"The civil magistrates bound to preserve the bodies of their\nsubjects, and not to destroy them for conscience sake\"; \"The civil sword\nmay make a nation of hypocrites and anti-Christians, but not one\nChristian\"; \"Evil is always evil, yet permission of it may in case be\ngood\"; \"Christ Jesus the deepest politician that ever was, and yet he\ncommands a toleration of anti-Christians\"; \"Seducing teachers, either\nPagan, Jewish, Turkish, or anti-Christian, may yet be obedient subjects\nto the civil laws\"; \"Christ's lilies may flourish in his Church,\nnotwithstanding the abundance of weeds in the world permitted\"; \"The\nabsolute sufficiency of the sword of the Spirit\"; \"A National Church not\ninstituted by Christ Jesus\"; \"The civil commonweal and the spiritual\ncommonweal, the Church, not inconsistent, though independent the one on\nthe other\"; \"Forcing of men to godliness or God's worship the greatest\ncause of breach of civil peace\"; \"Master of a family under the Gospel not\ncharged to force all under him from their consciences to his\"; \"Few\nmagistrates, few men, spiritually and Christianly good: yet divers sorts\nof goodness, natural, artificial, civil, &c.\"; \"Persons may with less sin\nbe forced to marry whom they cannot love than to worship where they\ncannot believe\"; \"Christ Jesus never appointed a maintenance of ministers\nfrom the unconverted and unbelieving: [but] they that compel men to hear\ncompel men also to pay for their hearing and conversion\"; \"The civil\npower owes _three_ things to the true Church of Christ--(l)\nApprobation, (2) Submission [i.e. interpreted in the text to be personal\nsubmission of the civil magistrate to church-membership, if he himself\nbelieves], (3) Protection\"; \"The civil magistrate owes _two_ things\nto false worshippers--(1) Permission, (2) Protection.\"--Whoever has read\nthis string of phrases possesses the marrow of Williams's treatise. At\nthe end of it there is an interesting discussion of the question whether\nonly church-members, or \"godly persons in a particular church-estate,\"\nought to be eligible to be magistrates. To Williams, who was a pure\ndemocrat in politics, and was founding the new State of Rhode Island on\nthe basis of the equal suffrages of all the colonists, this was an\nimportant practical question. He decides it with great good sense, and\nclearly in the negative. Without denying that the appointment of godly\npersons to civil offices was a thing to be prayed for, and, wherever\npossible, peaceably endeavoured, he points out that the principle that\nonly Christian persons should be entrusted with civil rule is practically\npreposterous. Five-sixths of the world had never heard of Christ, and yet\nthere were lawful enough civil states in those parts of the world. Then,\nin a Christian monarchy, what a convulsion, what a throwing away of the\nbenefits of hereditary succession, if it had to be inquired, whenever the\nthrone became vacant, whether the next heir was of the right sort\nreligiously. Finally, in any Christian colony or town, would it not be a\nturning of everything upside down, and a premium upon hypocrisy, to make\nchurch-membership a necessary qualification for magistracy, and so, when\na magistrate lapsed into what was thought religious error, and had to be\nexcommunicated by his church, to have to turn him out of his civil office\nalso?\n\nWilliams, it is to be remembered, had held these views while he was yet\nonly a Congregationalist generally, and before he had become a Baptist.\nThough he found them among the Baptists, therefore, he may be said to\nhave recovered them for Independency at large, and to have been the first\nto impregnate modern \"Independency\" with them through and through. Nay,\nas he had himself gone out of the camp of the mere Baptist\nCongregationalists when he published his treatise,--as he had begun to\nquestion whether there was any true Visible Church in the world at all,\nany perfect pastorate in any nation, anything else under the sun of a\nChristian kind than a chance-medley of various preaching and effort into\nwhich God might sooner or later send new shafts of light and direction\nfrom heaven--in the view of all this, Williams has to be regarded as the\nfather of a speculation that cannot be contained within the name of\nIndependency, even at its broadest. If we were forced to adopt a modern\ndesignation for him, we should call him. the father of all that, since\nhis time, has figured, anywhere in Great Britain, or in the United\nStates, or in the British Colonies, under the name of _Voluntaryism_.\nThis involves a restriction on the one hand. Since his time, there has\nbeen an abundance of speculation in the world as to the true duties and\nlimits of the power of a State even in civil matters; and the prevailing\neffect of these speculations has been to hand over more and more of the\ncare of human well-being and human destinies, in everything whatsoever,\nto the liberty of individuals, the pressure of their competing desires,\nand their powers of voluntary association, and so to reduce the function\nof the magistrate or any power of corporate rule to a thing becoming\nsmall by degrees and beautifully less. Of late, this tendency, victorious\nalready in many matters, has tried to assert itself in the question of\nEducation. It has been maintained that there should be no attention on\nthe part of the State to the education of the citizens, but that, in the\nmatter of learning to read and write and of all farther learning or\nmental training, the individuals horn into a community should be left to\ntheir hereditary chances, the discretion or kindness of those about them,\nand their own power of gradually finding out what they need, and buying\nit or begging it. Now with this direction of modern speculation the\nintentions of Roger Williams had nothing to do. He was a democrat in\npolitics, and, as such, he might have gone on to new definitions of what,\nin secular matters, should be left to the individual, and what should be\nstill regulated by the majority; but what these definitions would have\nbeen must be left to inference from the records of his farther political\nlife in Rhode Island. Respecting Schools and Universities he did, indeed,\nhold that they were not to be regarded as the nurseries of a clergy, the\nappendages of a Church, or the depositaries and supports of any religious\ncreed. \"For any depending of the Church of Christ on such schools,\" he\nwrote, \"I find not a tittle in the Testament of Christ Jesus.\" He would\ncertainly, therefore, have been for no expenditure of public money on the\n_religious_ education of the young, and he would have been for the\nextraction of all theological teaching out of existing schools and\nuniversities. But he \"honoured schools,\" he says,\" for tongues and arts,\"\nand I have found no trace in him of a notion that State support of\nschools and universities for such secular learning is illegitimate. His\n_Voluntaryism_, so far as it was declared, or, I believe, intended, was\nwholly Voluntaryism in the matter of Church and Religion. In that sphere,\nhowever, his Voluntaryism was absolute, and went as far as anything\ncalling itself Voluntaryism that has since been heard of in the English-\nspeaking world.\n\nWilliams's _Bloody Tenent_, as I have said, was his parting gift to the\nEnglish nation before his return to America. It was out in June or July\n1644; and in September of the same year Williams, after a stay of about\nfifteen months in and near London, was on his way back to New England. He\nhad succeeded in the immediate object of his mission. For, during his\nstay in England, the management of the Colonies, till then in the hands\nof Commissioners under the Crown, was transferred (Nov. 2, 1643) to a\nParliamentary Commission of Lords and Commoners, at the head of which was\nthe Earl of Warwick as Lord High Admiral, and among the members of which\nwere Lord Saye and Sele, Pym, the younger Vane, Sir Arthur Haselrig, and\nOliver Cromwell. Before such Commissioners, with Vane as his personal\nfriend. Williams had had little difficulty in making out his case; and he\nhad obtained from them a Patent, dated March 14, 1643-4, associating \"the\ntowns of Providence, Portsmouth, and Newport,\" into one body-politic by\nthe name of \"the Incorporation of Providence Plantations in Narraganset\nBay in New England.\" This Patent gave a _carte blanche_ to the colonists\nto settle their own form of government by voluntary consent, or vote,\namong themselves; and, having it in his pocket, Williams might hope, on\nhis return to America, to set up, in the polity of Rhode Island and its\nadjacencies, such an example of complete civil democracy combined with\nabsolute religious individualism as the world had never yet seen. The\n_Bloody Tenent_ might be left in England as an exposition of his theory\nin the sphere of Religion until this practical Transatlantic example of\nit should be ready! He had shrewdly taken care, however, to have the\nPatent in his pocket before issuing the _Bloody Tenent_. Had that book\nbeen out first, he might have had some difficulty in obtaining the Patent\neven from such Commissioners for the Colonies as he had to deal with.\nPossibly, however, they granted it with full knowledge of Williams, and\nwere willing, through him, to try a bolder experiment in the American\nwilds than it was possible to promote or to announce in England.\n[Footnote: Palfrey's New England, I. 633-4, and II. 215; and Gammell's\nLife of Williams, 119, 120.]\n\nWhile we have been so long with Roger Williams, his colleague in the\nToleration heresy, John Goodwill, has been waiting. He was fifty-one\nyears of age, or six or seven years older than Williams. Rather late in\nlife, he had begun to find himself a much-abused man in London. For,\nthough he had sided with the Parliamentarians zealously from the first,\nand had even, it appears, taken the Covenant, [Footnote: That Goodwin had\ntaken the Covenant appears from words of his own in a tract of 1646\nquoted in Fletcher's Hist, of Independency, IV. 47.] his theology was\nthought to be lax, [Footnote: The suspicion of Goodwin's Socinianism was\nas early as November 1613, when he got into trouble with the Assembly on\nthat and other grounds (see Baillie's Letters, II. III, and Lightfoot's\nNotes, Nov. 8 and 9, 1643).] and the interpretation he was putting on the\nCovenant was not the common one. He thought that the oath to seek\n\"reformation of religion\" and to \"endeavour to bring the Church of God in\nthe three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity,\" did not\nnecessarily imply acceptance of the Presbyterian system which the\nAssembly were bent upon bringing in. Therefore, when the Five Dissenting\nBrethren of the Assembly appealed to Parliament in their _Apologetical\nNarration_, they found a champion outside in Goodwin. His championship\ntook the form of that answer to \"A. S.\" (_i.e._ the Scotsman, Adam\nSteuart, author of the first printed attack on the _Apologetic\nNarration_) which we have mentioned as appearing with the brief title _M.\nS. to A. S._, and again, in a second edition, with the fuller title _A\nReply of Two of the Brethren to A. S., &c.; with A Plea for Liberty of\nConscience, &c_. As the second title implies, Goodwill had associates in\nthe work; but it was principally his, and the part on Toleration wholly\nhis. So far as the tract concerns itself with the question between\nPresbytery and Congregationalism, Goodwin avows himself a\nCongregationalist. And yet he was not at one in all points with the five\nAssembly-men. \"I know I am looked upon,\" he afterwards wrote, \"by reason\npartly of my writings, partly of my practice, as a man very deeply\nengaged for the Independents' cause against Presbytery. But the truth is,\nI am neither so whole for the former, nor yet against the latter, as I\nam, I believe, generally voted in the thoughts of men to be.\" [Footnote:\nQuoted, from the Preface to Goodwin's _Anapologesiastes Anapologias_, by\nFletcher, IV. 46.] This was written in 1616; but even in 1644 he fought\nso much for his own hand that the Independents of the Assembly may have\nbut half liked his partnership. His Toleration doctrine, at all events,\nthough uttered in their behalf, was too strong doctrine even for them.\nHear what Baillie writes to his friend Spang, at Campvere, in Holland,\njust after the appearance of Goodwin's tract for the Independents: \"_M.S.\nagainst A.S._, is John Goodwin of Coleman Street: he names you expressly,\nand professes to censure the letter of Zeeland. He is a bitter enemy to\nPresbytery, and is openly for a full liberty of conscience of all sects,\neven Turks, Jews, Papists, and all to be more openly tolerate than with\nyou [_i.e._ than even in Holland].\" [Footnote: Baillie, II. 180, 181.\nGoodwin's mention of Spang, referred to by Baillie, is as follows:--\n\"There is a Scottish Church, of which one Spang is a very busy agent, at\nTrevere [Campvere]... whence the Letter [_i.e._ the Zeeland Letter in\nfavour of Presbytery] came.\"] Baillie's representation of Goodwin's\nToleration doctrine is fair enough. It is not so deep, so exceptionless,\nand so transcendentally reasoned as Roger Williams's; and indeed there\nwas none of the sap and mystic richness of nature in Goodwin that we find\nin Williams, but chiefly clear courage, and strong cool sense. For most\npractical purposes, however, Goodwin's Toleration was thorough. He was\nfor tolerating not merely the orthodox Congregationalists and such more\nheterodox sects as might be thought respectable, but all religions,\nsects, and schisms whatsoever, if only the professors of them were\notherwise peaceable in the State. Not, of course, that they were not to\nbe reasoned with and proved false publicly; or that heretics in\ncongregations were not to be admonished, and, if obdurate,\nexcommunicated; or that a whole church tainted with a great heresy ought\nnot to be put under a ban by all other churches, and communion with it\nrenounced. All this was assumed in the theory of Church-Independency\nwhich was common to Goodwin and Williams. True, Williams, now that he had\npassed beyond the Baptists and saw no true Church anywhere on earth, must\nhave begun to doubt also the efficacy and validity of even spiritual\ncensures, as exercised by the so-called churches, to regard as a mere\nagency of troublesome moonshine that incessant watchfulness of each\nother's errors on which Independency relied, and so to luxuriate in a\nmood of large charity, sighing over all, and hoping more from prayer and\nlonging and pious well-doing all round than from censures and\ndisputations. To Goodwin, on the other hand, troubled with no such\nvisionary ideas, and fully convinced that a very good model of a Church\nhad been set up in Coleman Street, the right and efficacy of disputation\nagainst error, and of ministerial vigilance against error in particular\nchurches, seemed more important, or at least more worth insisting on in a\npublic plea for Toleration. Williams and Goodwill did not differ\ntheoretically, but only practically, over this item in the exposition of\ntheir doctrine. The sole difference, of theoretical import, was that\nGoodwin, in dwelling on the duty of disputation by Christian ministers\nagainst false religions and dangerous opinions in society round about\nthem, and of vigilance against minor heresies in their own congregations,\ntalked vaguely of a right on the part of the civil magistrate to admonish\nministers in this respect should they be negligent or forgetful of their\nduty. This, as we know, would have grated on Williams. Perhaps, however,\nGoodwin, even here, was only throwing a sop to Cerberus. At all events,\nhe comes out finally a thorough Tolerationist. Whatever minister or\nmagistrate may do towards confuting and diminishing error, there is a\npoint at which they must both stop. There is not to be a suppression of\nfalse religions, sects and schisms, by fining, imprisoning,\ndisfranchising, banishment, death, or any civil punishment whatsoever;\nand, when it comes to that, they are all to be tolerated. [Footnote:\nJackson's Life of Goodwin. pp. 110, 117; Hanbury's Memorials, II. 341-\n365.]\n\nWe are now prepared to classify the various forms in which the Toleration\nDoctrine was urged on the English mind in the year 1644. There were three\ngrades of the doctrine:--\n\nI. _Absolute Liberty of Conscience, and No National Church, or State-\ninterference with Religion, of any kind whatsoever._ This was, in\nfact, more than Toleration, and Toleration is hardly the fit name for it.\nThe advocates of this idea were Roger Williams, perhaps the Baptists\ngenerally, also Burton in a certain way; but, above all, Roger Williams.\nHe did not think there could be Liberty of Conscience, in the perfect and\nabsolute sense, where there was a National Church, even if free dissent\nwere allowed from that Church. For, by the establishment of a Church, he\nheld, a substantial worldly premium was put on certain religious beliefs,\nand an advantage conferred on a portion of the community at the expense\nof all; and to be compelled to pay for, or even to acknowledge\npolitically, a Church which one did not approve, was in itself\ninconsistent with true Liberty of Conscience, whatever freedom of\nnonconformity might be left to individuals. Accordingly, if Roger\nWilliams, at that crisis, had been a statesman of England, instead of a\nmere commissioner from an infant colony in America, his advice would have\nbeen in this strain:--\"It is agreed that the Episcopal or Prelatic\nChurch, called hitherto the Reformed Church of England, is no longer to\nexist. That is settled; and the question is, What Church Reformation\nshall there now be? My answer is sweeping and simple. Let there be no\nNational Church, no Church of England, at all, of any kind or form\nwhatsoever. Let England henceforth be a civil State only, in which\nChristianity shall take care of itself, and all forms of Christianity and\nall other religions shall have equal rights to protection by the police.\nConfiscate for the use of the State all the existing revenues of the\ndefunct Church and its belongings, giving such compensation for life-\ninterests therein as may seem reasonable; but create no new Church, nor\nstump of a Church, round which new interests may gather. Do not even\nimplicate the State so far in the future of Religion as to indicate to\nthe subjects any form of Church as esteemed the best, or any range of\noption among Churches as presumably the safest. Leave the formation and\nthe sustentation of Christ's Church in the English realm, and everywhere\nelse, entirely to the unseen power of the Spirit, and the free action of\nthose whom the Spirit may make its instruments.\"--For nothing like this\nwas the Long Parliament, or any other legislature in the world, then\nprepared; and Williams knew it. But he had faith in the future of his\nspeculation. In America, whither he was to carry it back, he hoped to be\nable to exhibit it in practice on a small scale in the new colony he was\nfounding; and there could be no harm, he thought, in leaving the leaven\nto ferment in the denser society of England.\n\nII. _Unlimited Toleration round an Established National Church._ So\nwe may express a form of Tolerationism in which there was a concurrence\nof persons, and perhaps of bodies of persons, who yet differed from each\nother in the motives for their concurrence. Williams, of course, accepted\nthis form of Tolerationism, as next best to his own absolute\nVoluntaryism, Individualism, and universal Liberty of Conscience. \"If\nthere is to be in England a National or State Church of some kind (which\nI think wrong, and so wrong that I will take no part in the debate what\nkind of National Church would be best, whether a Prelatic, Presbyterian,\nor any other), at least, when you have set up such a Church, let there be\na perfect toleration for all subjects of the realm round about that\nChurch, no compulsion on any of them to belong to that Church, no pains\nand penalties for any profession of belief or disbelief, or any form of\nworship or no-worship, out of that Church.\" These are not Williams's own\nwords, but they exactly express his meaning; and, in fact, he intended\nhis _Bloody Tenent_ to be a plea for toleration in this practical\nsense, if it should fail in winning people to his higher and more\npeculiar idea of real Liberty of Conscience. And a most eloquent plea it\nwas. He insists again and again on the necessity that there should be no\nlimits to the toleration of Religious Difference in a state. He argues\nexpressly that not only orthodox or slightly heterodox dissenters should\nhave the benefit of such toleration, but all kinds of dissentients\nwithout exception, Papists, Jews, Mohammedans, Pagans, or Infidels. He\nknew what a hard battle lie was fighting. \"I confess I have little hope,\"\nhe said, \"till those flames are over, that this discourse against the\ndoctrine of persecution for cause of conscience should pass current, I\nsay not amongst the wolves and lions, but even amongst the sheep of\nChrist themselves. Yet, _liberavi animam meam_: I have not hid\nwithin my breast my soul's belief.\" He trusted, doubtless, that his\ntreatise might have some effect, if not for its highest purpose, at least\nas a practical plea for unlimited toleration round the new National\nChurch of England that was to be. And here most of the Baptists were in\nthe same predicament with Williams. They would have preferred no National\nChurch at all; but, as there was to be a National Church, they wanted the\namplest toleration round it. Burton also was pretty nearly in the same\ncategory. He too doubted the lawfulness of a State Church of any kind,\nbut was earnest that, if such must be established, it should not be\ncoercive. He did not formally demand unlimited toleration, and indeed\nconceded something in words to the effect that in cases of \"known heresy,\nor blasphemy, or idolatry,\" offenders would have to be \"obnoxious to the\nCivil Power;\" but I rather think that the concession was prudential, and\nthat his heart did not go with it. I will retain him therefore among the\nUnlimited Tolerationists. Far outshining him in this class, however, was\nJohn Goodwin.--Well, but were the advocates of unlimited toleration in\nconnexion with an Established Church exclusively persons who would have\nprevented the formation of such a Church if they could, or doubted its\nrighteousness and propriety, and who only insisted on Toleration\n_with_ such a Church as a practical necessity to which they were\ndriven? Were there no theorists in that time who positively desired an\nEstablished Church on its own account, and for the general good of the\ncommunity, but who had worked out the conclusion that such a Church might\nconsist, and ought to consist, with universal Religious Toleration, or\nthe freest liberty of Nonconformity and Dissent? In view of the fact that\nthis is the theory of Establishments evolved by some of the best\necclesiastical spirits in our own later times, the question is\ninteresting. My researches do not enable me to give a very precise answer\nto it applicable to the exact year 1644. If there were such theorists,\nhowever, they were, I should say, among those wiser and younger sons of\nthe Episcopal Church of England who would fain have preserved that\nEpiscopal Church, but had privately made up their minds that Laud's basis\nfor that Church was untenable, and that a very different basis must be\nsubstituted. One thinks of Chillingworth, Hales, and the rest of that\n\"Latitudinarian\" brotherhood; one thinks of Jeremy Taylor; one thinks of\nthe candid Fuller; one thinks even of the Calvinistic Usher.\nChillingworth had died at Chichester, Jan. 30, 1643-4, at the age of\nforty-one, an avowed Royalist, and indeed a Royalist prisoner-at-war,\ntended on his death-bed by Presbyterians. [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 93,\n94; and Life of Chillingworth prefixed to the Oxford edition of his\nWorks.] Whatever hardy cogitations had been in his mind, pointing to a\nrevived Episcopal Church of England with an ample toleration within it\nand round about it, had gone prematurely to the grave. The others were\nstill alive, also pronounced Royalists, and acting or suffering more or\nless on that side; and whatever thoughts they had in the direction under\nnotice were irrelevant to their immediate duty and opportunities, and had\nto wait for utterance at a more convenient season. [Footnote: Yet there\n_had_ been one recent utterance of Hales relating to the idea of\nToleration. It was in the form of _A Tract concerning Schism and\nSchismatics_, which he had prepared in 1636, partly for the use of his\nfriend Chillingworth then engaged on his \"Religion of Protestants,\" but\nwhich, in deference to Laud's private objections and remonstrances, he\nhad kept unpublished. In 1642, when Laud was in prison and the state of\nthings wholly changed, the Tract was brought out at the Oxford University\nPress. It is vague in its conception and expression; but that it is\ndecidedly in favour of toleration and free inquiry will appear from the\nopening sentences: \"Heresy and Schism, as they are in common use, are two\ntheological [Greek: Mosmos], or scarecrows, which they who uphold a party\nin religion use to fright away such as, making inquiry into it, are ready\nto relinquish and oppose it if it appear either erroneous or suspicious.\nFor, as Plutarch reports of a painter who, having unskilfully painted a\ncock, chased away all cocks and hens, that so the imperfection of his art\nmight not appear by comparison with nature, so men, willing for ends to\nadmit of no fancy but their own, endeavour to hinder an inquiry into it,\nby way of comparison of somewhat with it, peradventure truer, that so the\ndeformity of their own might not appear.\" Wood's Ath. III. 413, 414, and\nTract itself with letter to Laud, Vol. I. pp. 114-144 of \"The Works of\nthe ever memorable Mr. John Hales,\" Glasgow, 1765.] On the whole,\nhowever, I judge that any such thoughts in their minds (even in Jeremy\nTaylor's as yet) fell considerably short of the Unlimited Toleration\nadvocated by Williams and John Goodwin, and, if they could have been\nascertained and measured, would have referred their owners rather to the\nnext category than to the present.\n\nIII. _A Limited Toleration round an Established National Church._\nThis would probably have sufficed the thoughtful Anglicans of whom we\nhave just been speaking. Their ideal probably was a revived Episcopal\nChurch of England, liberally constituted within itself, and with a\ntoleration of all respectable forms of Dissent round about itself, but\nstill with a right reserved for the Civil Power of preventing and\npunishing gross errors and schisms. We are more concerned, however, with\nanother set of Limited Tolerationists, then much more conspicuous in\nEngland. They were those who had given up all thoughts of the retention\nof a Prelatic Establishment, and who indeed regarded the deliverance of\nEngland from such an Establishment as the noblest accomplished fact of\nthe time. What they were anxious about was the nature of the new National\nChurch, if any, that was to be substituted, and especially the degree of\nconformity to that Church that was to be required. The chief\nrepresentatives of this state of feeling in its more moderate form were\nthe Five Independent Divines of the Assembly, Messrs. Thomas Goodwin,\nBridge, Nye, Simpson, and Burroughs. They were not, I think, distinctly\nadverse to a National Church on theoretical grounds, as Williams and\nBurton were; and probably what they would have liked best would have been\na National Church on the Congregationalist principle, like that of New\nEngland. For, though Congregationalism and a National Establishment of\nReligion may seem radically a contradiction in terms, yet in fact the\ncase had not been quite so in America. There may be a State Church\nwithout public endowments, or rather there may be endowments and\nprivileges that are not pecuniary. The New England Church, though\nconsisting of a few scores of congregations, mutually independent, self-\nsupporting, and scattered stragglingly over an extensive territory, was\nreally a kind of State Church collectively, inasmuch as the State\nrequired, by rule or by custom, membership of some congregation as a\nqualification for suffrage and office, and also kept some watch and\ncontrol over the congregations, so as to be sure that none were formed of\na very heretical kind, and that none already formed lapsed into decided\nheresy. How had Mr. Cotton of Boston, the great light of the New England\nChurch, expounded its principle in respect of the power of the civil\nmagistrate in matters of Religion? \"We readily grant you,\" he had\nwritten, \"liberty of conscience is to be granted to men that fear God\nindeed, as knowing they will not persist in heresy or turbulent schism\nwhen they are convinced in conscience of the sinfulness thereof. But the\nquestion is whether an heretic, after once or twice admonition, and so\nafter conviction, or any other scandalous and heinous offender, may be\ntolerated, either in the Church without excommunication, or in the\nCommonwealth without such punishment as may preserve others from\ndangerous and damnable infection.\" [Footnote: From Cotton's Answer to the\nold Tract of \"Scriptures and Reasons against Persecution\" (see\n_ant\u00e8_, p. 114). The Answer is printed by Williams in his _Bloody\nTenent_: See Hanserd Knollys Society edition (1848), p. 30.]\n\nClearly, with such a principle, and with all the particulars of practice\nwhich it implied, the Congregationalist Church of New England was, after\nall, a State Church, and a pretty strict State Church too. Now, it was\nprobably such a National Congregationalist Church, but with an allowance\nof toleration somewhat larger than Cotton's, that the Five Independents\nof the Assembly would have liked to see set up in England. That, however,\nbeing plainly out of the question, and the whole current of dominant\nopinion in Parliament and the Assembly being towards a Presbyterian\nsettlement, what remained for the Five? In the first place, to delay the\nPresbyterian settlement as long as they could, and to criticise its\nprogramme at every stage so as to liberalize its provisions as much as\npossible; in the second place, to put in a plea for Toleration for\nDissent under the settlement when it should be enacted. They had\nperformed, and were performing, both duties. They were fighting the\npropositions of strict Presbytery inch by inch in the Assembly, if not\nwith success, at least so as to impede progress; and in their\n_Apologetical Narration_ (Jan. 1643-4) they had lodged with\nParliament and the country a demand for Toleration under the coming\nPresbytery. What they had thus expressed in print they had continued to\nexpress in speech and in every other possible way. They were, in a\ncertain sense, the most marked Tolerationists of the time; Toleration was\nidentified with them. And yet it was but a limited Toleration, a very\nlimited Toleration, that they demanded. Indulgence for themselves in\nCongregationalist practices after Presbytery should be established, and\nindulgence for other respectable sects and persons in \"lesser\ndifferences:\" that was all. Nothing like Williams's or John Goodwill's\ntoleration: no liberty, or at least none avowedly, for such glaring\nheresies as Antinomianism, Socinianism, and Arianism, not to mention open\nInfidelity. Here, I believe, they represented the mass of the ordinary\nIndependents. Whatever more a few strong spirits among the Independents,\nand especially among the lay Independents, desired, the mass of them were\ncontent for the present to be Limited Tolerationists.\n\nSuch were the three forms of the Toleration Doctrine in England in 1644.\nThey were of unequal strengths and confusedly mixed, but constituted\ntogether a powerful and growing force of opinion. And what was the\nopposition? ANTI-TOLERATION, OR ABSOLUTE AND ENTIRE CONFORMITY OF THE\nWHOLE NATION TO THE ONE ESTABLISHED CHURCH: this was the category of the\nopposition.\n\nIn this category, now that Prelacy was done with, and it was certain that\nthe new National Church was to be on the Presbyterian model, the\nPresbyterians had succeeded the Laudians. As a body, the Presbyterians of\n1644 and subsequent years were absolute Anti-Tolerationists. The proofs\nare so abundant, collectively they make such an ocean, that it passes\ncomprehension how the contrary could ever have been asserted. From the\nfirst appearance of the Presbyterians in force after the opening of the\nLong Parliament, it was their anxiety to beat down the rising idea of\nToleration; and, after the meeting of the Westminster Assembly, and the\npublication of the _Apologetical Narration_ of the Independents, the\none aim of the Presbyterians was to tie Toleration round the neck of\nIndependency, stuff the two struggling monsters into one sack, and sink\nthem to the bottom of the sea. In all the Presbyterian literature of the\ntime,--Baillie's Letters, Rutherford's and Gillespie's Tracts, the\npamphlets of English Presbyterian Divines in the Assembly, the pamphlets\nof Prynne, Bastwick, and other miscellaneous Presbyterian\ncontroversialists out of the Assembly,--this antipathy to Toleration,\nlimited or unlimited, this desire to pinion Independency and Toleration\ntogether in one common death, appears overwhelmingly. Out of scores of\nsuch Presbyterian manifestoes, let us select one, interesting to us for\ncertain reasons apart.\n\nOf all the Divines in London, not members of the Assembly, none had come\nto be better known for his Presbyterian acrimony than the veteran Mr.\nThomas Edwards, of whose maiden pamphlet of 1641, called _Reasons\nagainst the Independent Government_, with Mrs. Chidley's Reply to the\nsame, we have had occasion to take notice (_ant\u00e8_, p. 110). The spirited\nverbosity, as we called it, of that pamphlet of Edwards had procured him\na reputation among the Presbyterians, which he felt himself bound to\njustify by farther efforts. The appearance of the _Apologetical\nNarration_ of the Five Independents in Jan. 1643-4 gave him a famous\nopportunity. Various answers were at once or quickly published to that\nIndependent manifesto--not only that by _A. S._ or Adam Steuart (_ant\u00e8_,\np. 25), but various others. When it became known, however, that Mr.\nEdwards also was preparing an Answer, it was expected to beat them all.\nThere was a flutter of anticipation of it among the Presbyterians; but it\nwas rather slow in coming. \"There is a piece of 26 sheets, of Mr.\nEdwards, against the Apologetick Narration, near printed, which will\npaint that faction [the Independents] in clearer colours than yet they\nhave appeared,\" writes Baillie, June 7, 1644; in a later letter, July 5,\nhe says it is expected \"within two or three days,\" but \"excresced to near\n40 sheets;\" and it is not till Aug. 7 that he speaks of it as fairly out:\n\"Mr. Edwards has written a splendid confutation of all the Independents'\nApology.\" [Footnote: Baillie, II. 190, 201-2, and 215.] In fact, it\nappeared in the end of July, just at the time when the Assembly adjourned\nfor their fortnight's vacation, and almost contemporaneously with John\nGoodwin's _M. S. to A. S._ and Williams's _Bloody Tenent_. Baillie's\nmeasure of \"sheets\" must have been different from ours, or he had been\nunder some mistake; for the treatise, though long enough, consisted but\nof 367 small quarto pages, with this title: \"_Antapologia: or, A Full\nAnswer to the Apologetical Narration of Mr. Goodwin, Mr. Nye, Mr.\nSimpson, Mr. Burroughs, Mr. Bridge, members of the Assembly of Divines.\nWherein many of the controversies of these times are handled: viz. [&c.].\nHumbly also submitted to the Honourable Houses of Parliament. By Thomas\nEdwards, Minister of the Gospel_.\" [Footnote: Hanbury's Memorials, II.\n366. Mr. Hanbury gives a summary of the _Antapologia_ with extracts (366-\n385); but I have before me the book itself in a reprint, of 1646, \"by\nT.R. and E.M. for Ralph Smith, at the signe of the Bible in Cornhill neer\nthe Royall Exchange.\" It consists of 259 pages of text, besides\nintroductory epistle, and table of contents at the end.]\n\nIt was a most remarkable treatise, and ran through London at once. For\nthe style, though slovenly, was fluent and popular, and Edwards, having\nplenty of time on his hands, and having a taste for personalities, had\nmade minute inquiries into the antecedents of the Five Independents in\nHolland and in England, and had interwoven the results of these inquiries\nwith his arguments against Independency itself. The Five, he tells us in\na preliminary epistle, were among his personal acquaintances. \"I can\ntruly speak it,\" he says, \"that this present _Antapologia_ is so far\nfrom being written out of any malice or ill-will to the Apologists that I\nlove their persons and value them as brethren, yea some of them above\nbrethren; and, besides that love I bear to them as saints, I have a\npersonal love, and a particular love of friendship for some of them; and\nI can truly speak it, that I writ not this book, nor any part of it, out\nof any personal quarrel, old grudge, or former difference (for to this\nday there never was any such difference or unkindness passed between us);\nbut I have writ it with much sorrow, unwillingness, and some kind of\nconflict.\" This explanation was certainly necessary; for Mr. Edwards does\nnot spare his friends. He tells all he has found out about them; he\nquotes their conversations with himself; he gives them the lie direct,\nand appeals to their consciences whether he is not right in doing so.\n_They_ martyrs! _they_ poor exiles in Holland, and now whining to\nParliament that they would have to go into exile again if Presbyterianism\nwere established without a Toleration! Why, they had been in clover in\nHolland; they had been living there \"in safety, plenty, pomp, and ease,\"\nleaving the genuine Puritans at home to fight it out with Prelacy; and,\nafter the battle was won, they had slunk back to claim the rewards they\nhad not earned, to become pets and \"grandees\" in English society, to\nsecure good appointments and assume leading parts, and to be elected\nmembers of the venerable Westminster Assembly! They had not even had the\ncourage to go to New England, though some of them had talked of doing so!\nAnd then their prate of this emigration to New England, which they had\nthemselves declined, as the greatest undertaking for the sake of pure\nReligion, next to Abraham's migration out of his own country, that the\nworld had ever seen! Why, the emigration to New England was no such great\naffair after all! There had been mixed motives in it; all New England\nwould not make a twentieth part of London; it had but two or three\nDivines in it worth naming in the same breath with the worthies of Old\nEngland, and was on the whole but a kind of outlandish mess; the\n\"Reformation in Church-government and worship\" then going on in Old\nEngland would be a wonder \"to all generations to come far beyond that of\nNew England!\" But in Holland, where the cowardly Apologists had preferred\nto stay, what had they been doing? Quarrelling among themselves, going\ninto all kinds of conceits, anointing people with oil, and the like;\nrespecting all which Edwards had obtained from Rotterdam and Arnheim a\nbudget of information! Then that lie of the Apologists, that they had,\nsince their return to England, been careful not to press their peculiar\nCongregationalist opinions, or endeavour to make a party, but had waited\nin patience to see what course affairs would take! Not press their\npeculiar opinions--not endeavour to make a party! Why, Mr. Edwards could\naver (and cite dates, places, and witnesses to prove it) that they had\nbeen doing nothing else, since they came to England, than press their\npeculiar opinions and endeavour to make a party! \"Suffer me to deal\nplainly with you: I am persuaded that, setting aside the Jesuits' acting\nfor themselves and way, you Five have acted for yourselves and way, both\nby yourselves and by your instruments, both upon the stage and behind the\ncurtain, considering circumstances and laying all things together, more\nthan any five men have done in so short a time this sixty years. And, if\nit be not so, whence have come all these swarms and troops of\nIndependents in Ministry, Armies, City, Country, Gentry, and amongst the\nCommon People of all sorts, men, women, servants, children?\"\n\nSo, on and on, Edwards goes, decidedly more readable than most\npamphleteers of the time, because he writes with some spirit, and mixes a\ncontinual pepper of personalities with his arguments against the tenets\nof the Independents. With these arguments we shall not meddle. Their\npurpose was to hold up \"a true glass to behold the faces of Presbytery\nand Independency in, with the beauty, order, strength, of the one, and\nthe deformity, disorder, and weakness of the other.\" In other words, the\npamphlet is a digest of everything that could be said against\nIndependency and in favour of Presbyterianism. But the grand tenet of\nPresbyterianism in which Mr. Edwards revels with most delight, and which\nhe exhibits as the distinguishing honour of that system, and its fitness\nbeyond any other for grappling with the impiety of men in general and the\ndisorderliness of that age in particular, is its uncompromising Anti-\nToleration. Throughout the whole pamphlet there runs a vein of\ndeclamation to this effect; and at the close some twenty pages are\nexpressly devoted to the subject, in connexion with that claim for a\nLimited Toleration which the Apologists had advanced. Eight Reasons are\nstated and expounded why there should not be even this Limited\nToleration, why even Congregationalist opinions and practice should not\nbe tolerated in England. It would be against the rule of Scripture as to\nthe duty of the civil magistrate; it would be against the Solemn League\nand Covenant; it would be against the very nature of a national\nReformation, for \"a Reformation, and a Toleration are diametrically\nopposite;\" it would be \"against the judgment of the greatest lights in\nthe Church, both ancient and modern;\" it would be an invitation and\ntemptation to error and \"an occasion of many falling who otherwise never\nwould;\" &c. &c. Wherever Presbytery and strict Anti-Toleration had\nprevailed since the Reformation had there not been a marvellous\norderliness and freedom from error and heresy? All over the map of Europe\nwould it not be found that error and heresy had been rank precisely in\nproportion to the deviation of a country from Presbytery or to the\nrelaxation of its grasp where it was nominally professed? What, in\nparticular, had made Scotland the country it was, pure in faith, united\nin action, and with a Church \"terrible as an army with banners\"? What but\nPresbytery and Anti-Toleration? O then let Presbytery and Anti-Toleration\nreign in England as well! And, while they were proceeding to the great\nwork of establishing Presbytery, let them beware of such an inconsistency\nas granting the least promise beforehand of a Toleration! On this point\nMr. Edwards addresses the Parliament in his own name, telling them that\nToleration is the device of the Devil. \"I humbly beseech the Parliament,\"\nhe says, \"seriously to consider the depths of Satan in this design of a\nToleration; how this is now his last plot and design, and by it would\nundermine and frustrate the whole work of Reformation intended. 'Tis his\nmasterpiece for England; and, for effecting it, he comes and moves, not\nin Prelates and Bishops, not in furious Anabaptists, &c., but in holy\nmen, excellent preachers; moderate and fair men, not for a toleration of\nheresies and gross opinions, but an 'allowance of a latitude to some\nlesser differences with peaceableness.' This is _Candidus ille Diabolus_\n[that White Devil], as Luther speaks, and _meridianus Diabolus_ [mid-day\nDevil], as Johannes Gersonius and Beza express it, coming under the\nmerits of much suffering and well-deserving, clad in the white garments\nof innocency and holiness. In a word, could the Devil effect a\nToleration, he would think he had gained well by the Reformation and made\na good exchange of the Hierarchy to have a Toleration for it. I am\nconfident of it, upon serious thoughts, and long searching into this\npoint of the evils and mischief of a Toleration, that, if the Devil had\nhis choice whether the Hierarchy, Ceremonies, and Liturgy should be\nestablished in this kingdom, or a Toleration granted, he would choose and\nprefer a Toleration before them.\"\n\nDid Mr. Thomas Edwards in all this represent the whole body of the\nPresbyterians of his time? I am afraid he did. In _his_ very sense,\nwith the same vehemency, and to the same extent, they were all Anti-\nTolerationists.\n\nWas there no exception? Had no one Presbyterian of that day worked out,\nin the interest of Presbytery, a conclusion corresponding to that which\nwe have seen reason to think some of the wiser Anglicans then within the\nRoyalist lines were quietly working out in the interest of Episcopacy, in\ncase Episcopacy should ever again have a chance? Was no one Presbyterian\nprepared to come forth with the proposal of a Toleration in England,\neither limited or unlimited, round an Established National Church on the\nPresbyterian model? That there may not have been some such person among\nthose Erastian laymen who favoured Presbytery on the whole for general\nand political reasons, one would not assert positively. None such,\nhowever, is distinctly in historical view; and it is certain that among\nthe real or dominant Presbyterians, the _jure divino_ Presbyterians,\nEnglish or Scottish, there was no one upon whom the idea in question had\nclearly dawned or who dared to divulge it. Perhaps it was the belief in\nthe absolute _jus divinum_ of Presbytery that made the idea impossible to\nthem. Yet why should it have been impossible in consistency even with\nthat belief? It may be _jure divino_ that the square on the hypothenuse\nof a right-angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the\nsides, that he is a blockhead who believes otherwise, and that a\npermanent apparatus should be set up in every land for teaching this\nmathematical faith; and yet it may be equally _jure divino_ that no one\nshall be compelled to avail himself of that apparatus, or be punished for\ndoubting or denying the proposition. But the Presbyterians of 1644 did\nnot so refine or argue. They stood stoutly to the necessary identity of\nPresbyterianism and absolute Anti-Toleration. And so Presbyterianism\nmissed the most magnificent opportunity she has had in her history. Had\nher offer to England been \"Presbytery with a Toleration,\" who knows what\na different shaping subsequent events might have assumed? What if\nHenderson, in whose natural disposition one sees more of room and\naptitude for the idea than in that of any other Presbyterian leader, had\nactually become possessed with the idea and had proclaimed it? Would he\nhave carried the mass of the Presbyterians with him? or would they have\ndeposed him from the leadership? It is useless to inquire. The idea never\noccurred even to Henderson; and that it did not occur to him constituted\nhis unfitness for leadership, out of Scotland, in the complex crisis\nwhich had at last arrived, and was the one weakness of his career near\nits close.\n\n\nMULTIPLICATION OF HERESIES: SYNOPSIS OF ENGLISH SECTS AND SECTARIES IN\n1644.\n\nIt was all very well, the Presbyterians argued, to propound the principle\nof Toleration in the abstract. Would its advocates be so good as to think\nof its operation in the concrete? The society of England was no longer\ncomposed merely of the traditional PAPISTS, PRELATISTS, PRESBYTERIANS,\nand CONGREGATIONALISTS or ORTHODOX INDEPENDENTS. Beyond these last,\nthough sheltering themselves under the unfortunate principle of Church-\nIndependency, there was now a vast chaos of SECTS and SECTARIES, some of\nthem maintaining the most dangerous and damnable heresies and\nblasphemies! Would the Tolerationists, and especially the Limited\nTolerationists, take a survey of this chaos, and consider how their\nprinciple of Toleration would work when applied to _its_ ghastly\nbulk and variety?\n\nThis matter, of the extraordinary multiplication of Sects and Heresies in\nEngland, had been in constant public discussion since the opening of the\nLong Parliament. It had figured constantly in messages and declarations\nof the King; who had first charged the fact of the sudden appearance and\nboldness of the Sects and Sectaries to the abrogation of his Kingly\nprerogative and Episcopal government by the Parliament, and had then\nattributed the origin of the Civil War to the lawless machinations of\nthese same Sects and Sectaries. It had figured no less, though with very\ndifferent interpretations and comments, in the proceedings and appeals of\nthe Parliament. Now, however, the SECTS and SECTARIES had become the\nobjects of a more purely scientific curiosity. Without a survey and study\nof _them_ as well as of the PAPISTS, the PRELATISTS, the PRESBYTERIANS,\nand the ORTHODOX INDEPENDENTS, there could, it was argued, be no complete\nNatural History of Religious Opinion in England in the year 1644. The\nPresbyterians, for reasons of their own, were earnest for such a survey\nand study; and they recommended it ironically to the Orthodox\nIndependents in their character of Tolerationists. Not the less did the\nPresbyterians, with some Prelatists among them, undertake it themselves.-\n-Coming after these authorities, and availing myself of their inquiries,\nbut with other authorities to aid me, and as much of fresh investigation,\nand of criticism of my authorities, as I can add, I shall attempt what,\neven for our own forgetful and self-engrossed time, ought to be a not\nuninteresting portion of the history of bygone English opinion.\n\nThis is a case in which the authorities should be mentioned formally at\nthe outset. They are numerous. They include the Lords and Commons\nJournals, Lightfoot's Notes of the Assembly, Baillie's Letters, Pamphlets\nof the time _passim_, and even the Registers of the Stationers'\nCompany. Certain particular publications, however (all of the year 1645\nor the years immediately following), are of pre-eminent interest, as\nbeing attempts at a more or less complete survey of the huge medley or\ntumult of opinions on religious subjects that had by that time arisen in\nEnglish society, with some classification of its elements.\n\nThe reader will remember Dr. DANIEL FEATLEY, Rector of Lambeth and Acton,\nthe veteran Calvinist who had persisted in attending the Assembly in\nspite of his disapproval of the Covenant and his adhesion to the theory\nof a modified Episcopacy, but who had at length (Sept. 30, 1643) been\nejected for misdemeanour. His misdemeanour had consisted in maintaining a\ncorrespondence with Usher, reflecting on the Assembly and the Parliament,\nand divulging secrets in the King's interest. For this he had not only\nbeen ejected from the Assembly by the Commons, and sequestered from his\ntwo livings, but also committed to custody in \"the Lord Petre's house in\nAldersgate Street,\" then used by Parliament as a prison for such\nculprits. To beguile his leisure here, he had occupied himself in\nrevising his notes of a dispute he had held, in Oct. 1642, with a\nConventicle of Anabaptists in Southwark, where he had knocked over a\ncertain \"Scotchman\" and one or two other speakers for the Conventicle.\nBut this revision of his notes of that debate had suggested various\nextensions and additions; so that, in fact, he had written in prison a\ncomplete exposure of Anabaptism. It was ready in January 1644-5, and was\npublished with this title: \"_The Dippers Dipt; or, The Anabaptists Duck'd\nand Plung'd over Head and Ears_,\" &c. It is a virulent tractate of about\n186 pages, reciting the extravagances and enormities attributed to the\nGerman Anabaptists, and trying to involve the English Baptists in the\nodium of such an original, but containing also notices of the English\nBaptists themselves, and their varieties and ramifications. It became at\nonce popular, and passed through several editions. [Footnote:  Commons\nJournals, Sept. 30 and Oct 3, 1613; Wood's Athen\u00e6, III. 156 _et seq._;\nand Featley's Epistle Dedicatory to his treatise. The copy of the\ntreatise before me at present is one of the sixth edition, published in\n1651, six years after the authors death. It contains a portrait of\nFeatley by W. Marshall, and, among other illustrations, a coarse _ad\ncaptandum_ print by the same engraver, exhibiting the \"dipping\" of men\nand women naked together in a river.]\n\nA well-known personage in London, of humbler pretensions than Featley,\nwas a certain EPHRAIM PAGET (or PAGIT), commonly called \"Old Father\nEphraim,\" who had been parson of the church of St. Edmund in Lombard\nStreet since 1601, and might therefore have seen, and been seen by,\nShakespeare. Besides other trifles, he had published, in 1635, a book\ncalled \"_Christianographia_\" or a descriptive enumeration of the\nvarious sorts of Christians in the world out of the pale of the Roman\nCatholic Church. Perhaps because he had thus acquired a fondness for the\nstatistics of religious denominations, it occurred to him to write, by\nway of sequel, a \"_Heresiography; or, A Description of the Hereticks\nand Sectaries of these latter times_.\" It was published in 1645, soon\nafter Featley's book, from which it borrows hints and phrases. There is\nan Epistle Dedicatory to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City of\nLondon, very senile in its syntax and punctuation, and containing this\ntouching appeal: \"I have lived among you almost a jubilee, and seen your\ngreat care and provision to keep the city free from infection, in the\nshutting up the sick and in carrying them to your pest-houses, in setting\nwarders to keep the whole from the sick, in making of fires and perfuming\nthe streets, in resorting to your churches, in pouring out your prayers\nto Almighty God, with fasting and alms, to be propitious to you. The\nplague of Heresy is greater, and you are now in more danger than when you\nburied five thousand a week.\" Then, after an Epistle to the Reader,\nsigned \"Old Ephraim Pagit,\" there follows the body of the treatise in\nabout 160 pages. The Anabaptists are taken first, and occupy 55 pages;\nbut a great many other sects are subsequently described, some in a few\npages, some in a single paragraph. There is an engraved title-page to the\nvolume, containing small caricatures of six of the chief sorts of\nSectaries--Anabaptism being represented by one plump naked fellow dipping\nanother, much plumper, who is reluctantly stooping down on all fours. The\nbook, like Featley's, seems to have sold rapidly. In the third edition of\nit, however, published in 1646, there is a postscript in which the poor\nold man tells us that it had cost him much trouble. The sectaries among\nhis own parishioners had quarrelled with him on account of it, and\nrefused to pay him his tithes; nay, as he walked in the streets, he was\nhooted at and reviled, and somebody had actually affirmed \"Doctor\nFeatley's devil to be transmigrated into Old Ephraim Paget.\" This seems\nto have cut him to the quick, though he avows his sense of inferiority in\nlearning to the great Doctor. In short, we can see Father Ephraim as a\ngood old silly body, of whom people made fun. [Footnote: Wood's Athen\u00e6,\nIII. 210 _et seq._; and Paget's own treatise.]\n\nAnother writer against the Sectaries was the inexhaustible WILLIAM\nPRYNNE,\n\n  That grand scripturient paper-spiller,\n  That endless, needless, margin-filler,\n  So strangely tossed from post to pillar.\n\nThere was, indeed, something preternatural in the persistent vitality and\nindustry of this man. Only forty years of age when the Long Parliament\nreleased him from his second imprisonment and restored him to society, a\nghoul-like creature with a scarred and mutilated face, hiding the loss of\nhis twice-cropped ears under a woollen cowl or nightcap, and mostly\nsitting alone among his books and papers in his chamber in Lincoln's Inn,\ntaking no regular meals, but occasionally munching bread and refreshing\nhimself with ale, he had at once resumed his polemical habits and mixed\nhimself up as a pamphleteer with all that was going on. As many as thirty\nfresh publications, to be added to the two-and-twenty or thereabouts\nalready out in his name, had come from his pen between 1640 and 1645,\nbringing him through about one-fourth part of the series of some 200\nbooks and pamphlets that were to form the long ink-track of his total\nlife. In these recent pamphlets of his he had appeared as a strenuous\nParliamentary Presbyterian, an advocate of the Scottish Presbyterianism\nwhich was being urged in the Assembly, but with more of Erastianism in\nhis views than might have pleased most of his fellow-Presbyterians. No\nman more violent against Independency of all sorts, and the idea of\nToleration. And so, after various other pamphlets against Independency in\ngeneral, and this or that Independent in particular, there came from him,\nin July 1645, [Footnote: Date from my notes from  Stationer's Registers.]\na quarto of about 50 pages, with this title: \"_A Fresh Discovery of some\nProdigious new Wandering-Blazing-Stars and Firebrands, styling themselves\nNew Lights, firing our Church and State into new Combustions._\" The\npamphlet was dedicated to Parliament; and its purpose was to exhibit all\nthe monstrous things that lay in the bosom of what called itself\nIndependency. Hence \"Independency\" is used by Prynne as a common name for\nall the varieties of Sectarians as well as for the Congregationalists\nproper; and his plan is to shock the public and rouse Parliament to\naction, by giving a collection of specimens, culled from pamphlets of the\nday, of the \"scurrilous, scandalous, and seditious\" views put forth, with\nimpunity hitherto, by some of the \"Anabaptistical Independent Sectaries\nand new-lighted Firebrands,\" Accordingly his tract contains a jumble of\nthe most wild and extravagant sayings against the Assembly, the Scots,\nand the Parliament itself, that Prynne could pick out from the\ncontemporary pamphlets of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries.[Footnote:\nWood's Athen\u00e6, III. 844 _et seq._; Aubrey's Lives (for a notice of\nPrynne's habits); and the _Fresh Discovery_ itself. The edition before me\nis the second, dated 1646, and swollen by added matter at the end to over\n80 pages.]\n\nMuch cleverer and more spirited than Featley, old Ephraim Paget, or\nPrynne, as a describer and opponent of the Sectaries, was our friend, Mr.\nThomas Edwards, of the _Antapologia_ (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 130-135). That\n\"splendid confutation\" of Independency and Tolerationism had so increased\nMr. Edwards's fame that the Presbyterians of London had erected a weekly\nlectureship for him at Christ Church in the heart of the City, that he\nmight \"handle these questions and nothing else before all that would come\nto hear.\" Thus encouraged, he ranged beyond Independency proper, and\nemployed himself in collecting information respecting the English\nSectaries generally; and in about eighteen months, or before the end of\n1645, he had ready a treatise (his third in order) entitled \"_Gangr\u00e6na:\nor, a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errors, Heresies,\nBlasphemies, and Pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this time_.\"\nThis treatise, consisting of more than 60 pages, he dedicated to\nParliament, in an Epistle of twelve pages, hinting at the remissness of\nParliament in its dealings with the Sectaries up to that time, and\nreminding it of its duty. There is all Edwards's fluency of language in\nthe pamphlet, and some real literary talent; so that not only was\nEdwards's _Gangr\u00e6na_ a popular Presbyterian book at the time, but it is\nstill valued by bibliographers and antiquarians. As it has come down to\nus, however, it is not a pamphlet merely, but a concretion of pamphlets.\nFor it was enlarged by the author, in the course of 1646, to eight or\nnine times its original bulk, by the addition of a Second Part and then a\nThird Part, containing \"New and Farther Discoveries\" of the Sectaries,\nand their opinions and practices. This was because Mr. Edwards had\nsolicited fresh information from all quarters, and it was poured in upon\nhim superabundantly by Presbyterian correspondents. The First Part, as\nthe skimming of the cream by Mr. Edwards himself, is perhaps the richest\nessentially. The others consist mainly of verifications and additional\ndetails, rumours, and anecdotes. Altogether, the Three Parts of Edwards's\n_Gangr\u00e6na_ are a curious Presbyterian repertory of facts and scandals\nrespecting the English Independents and Sectaries in and shortly after\nthe year of Marston Moor. The impression which they leave of Mr. Edwards\npersonally is that he was a fluent, rancorous, indefatigable,\ninquisitorial, and, on the whole, nasty, kind of Christian. [Footnote:\nWood's Fasti, I. 413; Baillie's Letters, II. 180, 193, 201, 215, 251: and\n_Gangr\u00e6na_ itself--the copy of which before me consists of the third\nedition of Parts I. and II. (1646) and the first edition of Part III,\n(1646) bound in two volumes.]\n\nWith Featley, Paget, Prynne, and Edwards, as authorities full of detail,\nthough also full of prejudice on the subject of the English Sects and\nSectaries of 1644, we may finally name Baillie. We name him now, however,\nnot on account of his \"Letters,\" but on account of two publications of\nhis dealing expressly with this subject. One of these, published in\nNovember 1645, in a quarto of 252 pages, was his \"_Dissuasive from the\nErrours of the Time: wherein the Tenets of the Principall Sects,\nespecially of the Independents, are drawn together in one Map, for the\nmost part in the words of their own Authors_;\" the other, published in\nDecember 1646, in about 180 pages quarto, and intended as a Second Part\nof the \"Dissuasive,\" was entitled \"_Anabaptism, the True Fountain of\nIndependency, Brownisme, Antinomy, &c_.\" In both publications, but\nespecially in the former, we see Baillie's characteristic merits. He\nwrites, of course, polemically and with strong Presbyterian prejudice;\nbut in clearness of arrangement and statement he is greatly superior to\neither the senile Paget, or the fluent and credulous Edwards. His\n_Dissuasive_, indeed, is, in its way, a really instructive\nbook.[Footnote: Both the _Dissuasive_ and its continuation were published\nin London (by \"Samuel Gellebrand at the Brazen Serpent in Paul's\nChurchyard\"), and dedicated to \"The Right Honourable the Earle of\nLauderdaile, Lord Metellane\"--_i.e._ to Baillie's Scottish colleague in\nthe Assembly, Lord Maitland, then become Earl of Lauderdale.]\n\nThe information from these and other sources may be summed up, from the\nPresbyterian point of view, under two headings, as follows:--\n\nI. MISCELLANEOUS BLASPHEMIES AND ENTHUSIASMS.--The very air of England,\nit seemed, was full of such. There had broken loose a spirit of inquiry,\na spirit of profanity and scoffing, and a spirit of religious ecstasy and\ndreaming; and the three spirits together were producing a perfect Babel\nof strange sayings, fancies, and speculations. From a catalogue of no\nfewer than 176 miscellaneous \"errors, heresies, and blasphemies\"\ncollected by Edwards, and which he professes to give as nearly as\npossible in the very words in which they had been broached by their\nauthors in print, or in public or private discourse, take the following\nsamples:--\n\n\"That the Scriptures are a dead letter, and no more to be credited than\nthe writings of men.\"\n\n\"That the holy writings and sayings of Moses and the Prophets, of Christ\nand his Apostles, and the proper names, persons, and things contained\ntherein, are allegories.\"\n\n\"That the Scriptures of the Old Testament do not concern nor bind\nChristians\" (in which belief, says Edwards, some Sectaries had ceased to\nread the Old Testament, or to bind it with the New).\n\n\"That right Reason is the rule of Faith.\"\n\n\"That God is the author not of those actions alone in and with which sin\nis, but of the very pravity, ataxy, atomy, irregularity, and sinfulness\nitself, which is in them.\"\n\n\"That the magistrate may not punish for blasphemies, nor for denying the\nScriptures, nor For denying that there is a God.\"\n\n\"That the soul dies with the body, and all things shall have an end, but\nGod only.\"\n\n\"That there is but one Person in the Divine Nature.\"\n\n\"That Jesus Christ is not very God: no otherwise may he be called the Son\nof God but as he was man.\"\n\n\"That we did look for great matters from one crucified at Jerusalem 1600\nyears ago, but that does us no good; it must be a Christ formed in us:\nChrist came into the world to live 32 years, and do nothing else that he\n[Thomas Webb, of London, \u00e6tat. 20] knew.\"\n\n\"That the Heathen who never heard of Christ by the Word have the Gospel,\nfor every creature, as the sun, moon, and stars, preach the Gospel to\nmen.\"\n\n\"That Christ shall come and live again upon the earth, and for a thousand\nyears reign visibly as an earthly monarch over all the world.\"\n\n\"That the least truth is of more worth than Jesus Christ himself.\"\n\n\"That the Spirit of God dwells not nor works in any; it is but our\nconceits and mistakes to think so; 'tis no spirit that works but our\nown.\"\n\n\"That a man baptized with the Holy Ghost knows all things even as God\nknows all things; which point is a deep mystery and great ocean, where\nthere is no casting anchor, nor sounding the bottom.\"\n\n\"That, if a man by the Spirit knew himself to be in the state of grace,\nthough he did commit murder or drunkenness, God did see no sin in him.\"\n\n\"That the guilt of Adam's sin is imputed to no man.\"\n\n\"That the moral law is of no use at all to believers.\"\n\n\"That there ought to be no fasting days under the Gospel.\"\n\n\"That the soul of man is mortal as the soul of a beast, and dies with the\nbody.\"\n\n\"That Heaven is empty of the Saints till the resurrection of the dead.\"\n\n\"That there is no resurrection at all of the bodies of men after this\nlife, nor no Heaven nor Hell after this life, nor no Devils.\"\n\n\"That there shall be in the last day a resurrection from the dead of all\nthe brute creatures, all beasts and birds that ever lived upon the\nearth.\"\n\n\"That many Christians in those days have more knowledge than the\nApostles.\"\n\n\"That there ought to be in these times no making or building of churches,\nnor use of church-ordinances; but waiting for a church, being in a\nreadiness upon all occasions to take knowledge of any passenger, of any\nopinion or tenet whatsoever: the Saints, as pilgrims, do wander as in a\ntemple of smoke, not able to find Religion, and therefore should not\nplant it by gathering or building a pretended supposed House.\"\n\n\"That, in points of Religion, even in the Articles of Faith and\nprinciples of Religion, there's nothing certainly to be believed and\nbuilt on; only that all men ought to have liberty of conscience and\nliberty of prophesying.\"\n\n\"That 'tis as lawful to baptize a cat, or a dog, or a chicken, as to\nbaptize the infants of believers.\"\n\n\"That the calling and making of ministers are not _jure divino_, but\na minister comes to be so as a merchant, bookseller, carter, and such\nlike.\"\n\n\"That all settled certain maintenance for ministers of the Gospel is\nunlawful.\"\n\n\"That all days are alike to Christians, and they are bound no more to the\nobservation of the Lord's day, or first day of the week, than of any\nother.\"\n\n\"That 'tis lawful for women to preach; and why should they not, having\ngifts as well as men?\" (\"And some of them,\" adds Edwards, \"do actually\npreach, having great resort to them.\")\n\n\"That there is no need of humane learning, nor of reading authors, for\npreachers; but all books and learning must go down: it comes from the\nwant of the Spirit that men writ such great volumes.\"\n\n\"That 'tis unlawful to preach at all, sent or not sent, but only thus: a\nman may preach as a waiting disciple, _i.e._ Christians may not\npreach in a way of positive asserting and declaring things, but all they\nmay do is to confer, reason together, and dispute out things.\"\n\n\"That all singing of Psalms is unlawful.\"\n\n\"That the gift of miracles is not ceased in these times.\"\n\n\"That all the earth is the Saints', and there ought to be a community of\ngoods.\"\n\n\"That 'tis unlawful to fight at all, or to kill any man, yea to kill any\nof the creatures for our use, as a chicken, or on any other occasion.\"\n[Footnote: _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. pp. 15-31.]\n\nFrom this little enumeration it will be seen that we have not, even in\nthe nineteenth century, advanced so far as perhaps we had thought beyond\nEnglish notions of the seventeenth. But there must be added a\nrecollection of the scurrilities against the Covenant, the Assembly as a\nbody, its chief Presbyterian members, and the whole Scottish nation and\nits agents. These had not reached their height at the time with which we\nare at present concerned (Aug. 1644); so that the richest specimens of\nthem have to be postponed. But already there were popular jokes about\n\"Jack Presbyter\" the \"black coats\" of the Assembly, and their four\nshillings a day each for doing what nobody wanted; and already a very\nrude phrase was in circulation, expressing the growing feeling among the\nEnglish Independents and Sectaries that England might have managed her\nReformation better without the aid of the Scots and their Covenant. Had\nEngland come to such a pass, it was asked, that it was necessary to set\nup a Synod in her, to be \"guided by the Holy Ghost sent in a cloak-bag\nfrom Scotland\"? The author of this profanity, according to Prynne, was a\npamphleteer named Henry Robinson. It was, in fact, an old joke,\noriginally applied to one of the Councils of the Catholic Church; and\nRobinson had stolen it. [Footnote: Prynne's _Fresh Discovery_, p.27\nand p.9; and _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. p.32]\n\nII. RECOGNISED SECTS AND THEIR LEADERS.--In the general welter or anarchy\nof opinion there were, of course, vortices round particular centres,\nforming sects that either had, or might receive, definite names. Edwards,\nwhen systematizing his chaos of miscellaneous errors and blasphemies,\napportions them among sixteen recognisable sorts of Sectaries; but old\nEphraim Paget, who had preceded Edwards had been much more hazy. By\njumbling the English Sectaries with all he could recollect of the German\nSectaries of the Reformation and all he could hear of the Sects of New\nEngland, he had made his list of Sects and subdivisions of Sects mount up\nto two or three scores. Using Edwards and old Ephraim, with hints from\nFeatley, Prynne, and Baillie, but trying to ascertain the facts for\nourselves, we venture on the following synoptical view of English Sects\nand Sectaries in 1644-5:--\n\nBAPTISTS, OR ANABAPTISTS:--These were by far the most numerous of the\nSectaries. Their enemies (Featley, Paget, Edwards, Baillie, &c.) were\nfond of tracing them to the anarchical German Anabaptists of the\nReformation; but they themselves claimed a higher origin. They\nmaintained, as Baptists do still, that in the primitive or Apostolic\nChurch the only baptism practised or heard of was that of adult\nbelievers, and that the form of the rite for such was immersion in water;\nand they maintained farther that the Baptism of Infants was one of those\ncorruptions of Christianity against which there had been a continued\nprotest by pure and forward spirits in different countries, in ages prior\nto Luther's Reformation, including some of the English Wycliffites,\nalthough the protest may have been repeated in a louder manner, and with\nwild admixtures, by the German Anabaptists who gave Luther so much\ntrouble. Without going back, however, upon the Wycliffites, or even on\nthe Anabaptists that were scattered through England in the reigns of\nHenry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, one may date the Baptists\nas we have now to do with them from the reign of James.----The first\nLondon congregation of _General Baptists_, or Baptists who favoured\nan Arminian theology, had been formed, as we have seen (Vol. II. p. 544),\nin 1611 out of the wrecks of John Smyth's English congregation of\nAmsterdam or Leyden, brought back into their native land by Smyth's\nsuccessor Thomas Helwisse, assisted by John Murton. Although there are\ntraces of this congregation for several years after that date, it seems\nto have melted away, or to have been crushed into extinction by the\npersecution of its members individually; so that the Baptists of whom we\nhear as existing in London, or dispersed through England, after the\nopening of the Long Parliament, appear to have been rather of the kind\nknown as _Particular Baptists_, holding a Calvinistic theology, and\ngenerated out of the Independent congregations that had been established\nin London and elsewhere after Helwisse's and on different principles\n(Vol. II. pp. 544 and 585). In some of these congregations, including\nthat taught by a certain very popular Samuel Howe, called \"Cobbler Howe\"\nfrom his trade, who died in prison and excommunicated some time before\n1640, P\u00e6dobaptism appears to have become an open question, on which the\nmembers agreed to differ among themselves. On the whole, however, the\ntendency was to the secession of Antip\u00e6dobaptists from congregations of\nordinary Independents, and to the formation of the seceders into distinct\nsocieties. Thus we hear of a Baptist congregation in Wapping formed in\n1633 by a John Spilsbury, with whom were afterwards associated William\nKiffin and Thomas Wilson; of another formed in Crutched Friars in 1639 by\nMr. Green, Paul Hobson, and Captain Spencer; and of a third, formed in\nFleet Street, in 1640, by the afterwards famous Praise-God Barebone:\nthese three congregations being all detachments from Henry Jacob's\noriginal Independent congregation of 1616 during the ministries of his\nsuccessors, Lathorp and Henry Jessey. In spite of much persecution,\ncontinued even after the Long Parliament met, the Baptists of these\ncongregations propagated their opinions with such zeal that by 1644 the\nsect had attained considerably larger dimensions. In that year they\ncounted seven leading congregations in London, and forty-seven in the\nrest of England; besides which they had many adherents in the Army.\nAlthough all sorts of impieties were attributed to them on hearsay, they\ndiffered in reality from the Independents mainly on the one subject of\nBaptism. They objected to the baptism of infants, and they thought\nimmersion, or dipping under water, the proper mode of baptism: except in\nthese points, and what they might involve, they were substantially at one\nwith the Congregationalists, This they made clear by the publication, in\n1644, of a Confession of their Faith in 52 Articles--a document which, by\nits orthodoxy in all essential matters, seems to have shamed the more\ncandid of their opponents. Even Featley was struck by it, and called it\n\"a little ratsbane in a great quantity of sugar,\" and became somewhat\nmore civil in consequence. It was signed for the seven Baptist\ncongregations of London by these seven couples of persons--Thomas Gunn\nand John Mabbit; John Spilsbury and Samuel Richardson; Paul Hobson and\nThomas Goare; Benjamin Cox and Thomas Kilcop; Thomas Munden and George\nTipping; William Kiffin and Thomas Patience; Hanserd Knollys (Vol. II.\n557 and 586) and Thomas Holmes. These fourteen, accordingly, with Praise-\nGod Barebone, were in 1644 the Baptist leaders or chief Baptist preachers\nin London. We hear, however, of other Baptist preachers and pamphleteers\n--John Tombes, B.D. (accounted the most learned champion of the sect, and\nits intellectual head), Francis Cornwall, M.A., Henry Jessey, M.A. (a\nconvert to baptism at last), William Dell, M.A., Henry Denne, Edward\nBarber, Vavasour Powell, John Sims, Andrew Wyke, Christopher Blackwood,\nSamuel Oates, &c. Several of these leading Baptists--such as Tombes,\nCornwall, Jessey, Cox, and Denne--were University men, who had taken\norders regularly; one or two, such as Patience and Knollys, had been\npreachers in New England; but some were laymen who had recently assumed\nthe preaching office, or been called to it by congregations, on account\nof their natural gifts. The Presbyterians laid great stress on the\nilliteracy of some of the Baptist preachers and their mean origin.\nBarebone was a leather-seller in Fleet Street; and, according to Edwards\nor his informants, Paul Hobson was a tailor from Buckinghamshire, who had\nbecome a captain in the Parliamentary Army; Kiffin had been servant to a\nbrewer; Oates was a young weaver; and so on. The information may be\ncorrect in some cases, but is to be received with general caution; as\nalso Edwards's stories of the extravagant practices of the Baptists in\ntheir conventicles and at their river-dippings. Any story of the kind was\nwelcome to Edwards, especially if it made a scandal out of some dipping\nof women-converts by a Baptist preacher. Baillie, who took more trouble\nin sifting his information, and who distinctly allows that the\nAnabaptists, like other people, ought to have the benefit of the\nprinciple \"Let no error be charged upon any man which he truly\ndisclaims,\" and that the errors of some of the sect ought not to be\ncharged upon all, yet maintains that the Confession of the seven Baptist\nChurches of London was but an imperfect and ambiguous declaration of the\nopinions of the English Baptists. He attributes to them collectively the\nfollowing tenets, in addition to those of mere Antip\u00e6dobaptism and rigid\nSeparatism:--\"They put all church-power in the hand of the people;\" \"They\ngive the power of preaching and celebrating the sacraments to any of\ntheir gifted members, out of all office;\" \"All churches must be\ndemolished: they are glad of so large and public a preaching place as\nthey can purchase, but of a steeple-house they must not hear;\" \"All\ntithes and all set stipends are unlawful; their preachers must work with\ntheir own hands, and may not go in black clothes.\" According to Baillie,\nalso, the Baptists outwent even the Brownists in the power in church\nmatters they gave to women. There were many women-preachers among them;\nof whom a Mrs. Attaway, \"the mistress of all the she-preachers in Coleman\nStreet,\" was the chief. [Footnote: Crosby's _History of the English\nBaptists_ (1738), Vol. I. pp. 215-382; Ivimey's _Baptists_, I. 113 _et\nseq._; Featley's _Dippers Dipt_, and _Animadversions on the Anabaptists'\nConfession_; _Gangr\u00e6na passim_; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. p. 47\n_et seq._; Neal's Puritans, III. 147-152, with Toulmin's Supplement to\nthat Vol., 517-530. The Confession of the Baptists is given in Neal;\nAppendix to the whole work; also in Crosby, Appendix to Vol. I]\n\nOLD BROWNISTS:--By this name may be called certain adherents of that\nvehement Independency, more extreme than mere Congregationalism, which\nhad been propagated in Elizabeth's reign by Robert Brown himself. Brown's\nwritings, we learn from Baillie, had totally disappeared in England; so\nthat the so-called _Brownists_ can hardly have been his direct\ndisciples, but must have been persons who had arrived at some of his\nopinions over again for themselves. Briefly, without being Baptists, they\nwere more violent Separatists, more fierce in their rejection of the\ndiscipline, worship, and ordination of the Church of England than the\nIndependents proper. Henry Burton, minister of Friday Street church, now\nbetween fifty and sixty years of age, was one of the chief of them, and\nhis _Protestation Protested_ (Vol. II. 591-2) may be regarded as a\nmanifesto of their views. Even the Independents of the Assembly disowned\nthese views. Mr. Nye had said of the book that \"there was in that book\ngross Brownism which he nor his brethren no way agreed with him in;\" and\nEdwards had heard stories of queer goings-on in Mr. Burton's church, and\nhis quarrel with \"a butcher and some others of his church\" about\nprophesying. Among the Brownists, besides Burton, Edwards names\nprominently \"Katherine Chidley, an old Brownist, and her son, a young\nBrownist, a pragmatical fellow,\" who preached in London, and occasionally\nwent on circuit into the country. Edwards characterizes Mrs. Chidley as\n\"a brazen-faced audacious old woman;\" but we know the motive. He had not\nforgotten the thrashing in print he had received from Mrs. Chidley in\n1641 (Vol. II. 595). [Footnote: Paget's _Heresiography_, pp. 55-82 (a\ngreat deal about the Brownists; but with next to no real information);\nEdwards's _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. pp. 62-64 and Part III. 242-248 (gossip\nabout Burton); and Part III. 170, 171 (about Chidley); Baillie's Letters,\nII. 184 and 192; Hanbury's Historical Memorials, II. 108 _et seq._]\n\nANTINOMIANS:--The origin of this heresy is attributed to Luther\ncontemporary and fellow townsman, John Agricola, of Eisleben in Saxony\n(1492-1566); but the Antinomians of New England, and their chief Mrs.\nHutchinson, had recently been more heard of. The story of poor Mrs.\nHutchinson, the chief of these New England Antinomians, has already been\ntold by us (Vol. II.371-7), as far as to the beginning of 1643, when we\nleft her, a widow with a family of children, including a married daughter\nand that daughter's husband, beyond the bounds of New England altogether,\nand seeking rest for her wearied mind, and a home for her little ones, in\nthe Dutch plantations somewhere near what is now New York. The sad end\nhas now to be told. The Indians and the Dutch of those parts were then at\nfeud; and in September 1643, in an inroad of the Indians into the\nplantation where Mrs. Hutchinson was, she and all her family were\nmurdered, with the exception of a little daughter eight years of age, who\nwas carried into captivity among the Indians, and not recovered till four\nyears afterwards. The news of this tragic end of Mrs. Hutchinson had been\nbrought across the Atlantic, and had added to the interest of pious\nhorror with which her previous career of heresy in Massachusetts had been\nheard of by the orthodox in England. Mrs. Hutchinson and her\nAntinomianism, in fact, were already the subjects of a dreadful popular\nmyth. Here, for example, is old Father Ephraim's account of the New\nEngland Antinomians, as he had compiled it from information received\ndirect from America:--\"Some persons among those that went hence to New\nEngland being freighted with many loose and unsound opinions, which they\ndurst not here, they there began to vent them ... working first upon\nwomen, traducing godly ministers to be and preach under Covenant of\nWorks, dropping their baits by little and little and angling yet further\nwhen they saw them take, and fathering their opinions on those of the\nbest quality in the country; and, by means of Mrs. Hutchinson's double\nweekly lecture at Boston, under pretence of repeating Mr. Cotton's\nsermons, these opinions were quickly dispersed before authority was\naware.\" But at length, when the infant church in America had been thus\n\"almost ruinated,\" the judgments of God overtook the prime fomenters of\nthe heresy in a notorious manner. \"As, first, Mistress Hutchinson, the\nGeneralissimo, the high-priestess of the new religion, was delivered at\none time of 30 monstrous births, or thereabouts, much about the number of\nher monstrous opinions; some were bigger, some less, none of them having\nhuman shape, but shaped like her opinions: Mistress Dyer also, another of\nthe same crew, was delivered of a large--\" [here follows a minute\ndescription of a feminine monster that would have made the fortune of any\ntravelling showman, so complexly-horrible was its physiology]. Thus God\npunished those monstrous \"wretches,\" But the civil authorities of New\nEngland, as we know, had punished them too. \"God put it into the hearts\nof the civil magistrates to convent the chief leaders of them; and, after\nfruitless admonitions given, they proceeded to sentence: some they\ndisfranchised, others they excommunicated, and some they banished. A\nseditious minister, one Mr. Wheelwright, was one, and Mrs. Hutchinson\nanother; who, going to plant herself on an island, called Rhode Island,\nunder the Dutch, where they could not agree, but were miserably divided\ninto sundry sects, removed from thence to an island called _Hell-\ngate_ [_Hebgate_, according to Cotton Mather], where the Indians\nset upon her, and slew her and her daughter, and her daughter's husband,\nchildren, and family.\"--Notwithstanding this dreadful fate of the\nAntinomians in America, the heresy had broken out in England. Nothing was\npublicly said of the younger Sir Henry Vane in connexion with it; though,\non his return from his Massachusetts governorship, he may have brought\nback in his speculative head some of the Hutchinsonian ideas. According\nto Paget, the first Antinomian in London had been \"one Master John\nEaton,\" who had been a scholar of his own (_i.e._ at Trinity College,\nOxford), and was afterwards curate of a parish near Aldgate. In fact, as\nwe learn from Wood, he became a minister in Suffolk, was \"accounted by\nall the neighbouring ministers a grand Antinomian,\" and suffered trouble\naccordingly. But this Eaton had died in 1641, aged about 66, and leaving\nbut an Antinomian book or two, including \"_The Honeycomb of Free\nJustification_;\" and the leading Antinomians were new men. One of them\nwas Mr. John Saltmarsh, a Cambridge graduate, and minister in Kent,\nafterwards well-known as an, army-preacher and pamphleteer; another was\n\"one Randall who preaches about Spittal Yard.\"--The nature of the\nAntinomian doctrines, \"opening such a fair and easy way to heaven,\" made\nthem very popular, it appears, in London and elsewhere. Many ran after\ntheir preachers, \"crowding the churches and filling the doors and\nwindows,\" for \"Oh, it pleaseth people well,\" adds old Father Ephraim, \"to\nhave heaven and their lusts too.\" Notwithstanding this imputation, and\nillustrative scandals in Edwards, it really appears that Antinomianism\ntook itself out in high mystic preaching of justification by faith, the\ndoctrine of assurance, and the privileges of saintship. The wild phrases\nthat came in such preaching were the chief offence. [Footnote: Cotton\nMather's _Magnalia_, Book VII. p. 19; Palfrey's Hist. of New England, I.\n609, Note; Paget, 105-118; Wood's Athen\u00e6, III. 21 (for more about Eaton);\n_Gangr\u00e6na_ in several places, for references to Saltmarsh and Randall.\nBaillie in his _Dissuasive_ (pp. 57-64) has much the same story as Paget\nabout Mrs. Hutchinson and the New England Antinomians, and attributes the\nrise of that heresy to the evil influence of Independency.--The idiotic\nand disgusting myth of the monstrous _accouchements_ of the two\nAntinomian women seems to have found great favour with the orthodox: and\nit figures in many pious books of the time and afterwards. It seems\nactually to have originated in America, and to have been widely believed\nthere, while Mrs. Hutchinson was alive; for Cotton Mather, repeating it,\nwith the most abject good faith, and in great detail, as late as 1702\n(_Magnalia_, VII. 20), quotes a letter of Mr. Thomas Hooker, to the\neffect that at the very time of one of the diabolic _accouchements_, Mrs.\nDyer's (Oct. 17, 1637), the house in which her and his wife were sitting\nwas violently shaken, as if by an earthquake, for the space of seven or\neight minutes. Mather also avers that there was an investigation of the\naffair by the magistrates at the time.]\n\nFAMILISTS:--Probably because there had been a continental sect of this\nname in the sixteenth century, founded by a David George of Delft,\nEdwards includes _Familists_ among his leading English sorts of\nSectaries, and Paget devotes ten pages to them. Paget, however, admits\nthat they were \"so close and cunning that ye shall hardly ever find them\nout.\" If there really was such an English sect, their main principle\nprobably was that every society of Christians should be a kind of family-\nparty, jolly within itself in confidential love-feasts and exchanges of\nsentiment, and letting the general world and its creeds roar around\nunquestioned and unheeded. Baillie, however, in an incidental notice of\nFamilism in the Second Part of his _Dissuasive_, gives a somewhat\ndifferent account. It was, according to him, a wild development of\nAnabaptism, of which not a few once \"counted zealous and gracious\" were\nsuspected--including \"a great man, a peer of the land.\" It had a public\nrepresentative in Mr. Randall, who had \"for some years preached peaceably\nin the Spital\" (already mentioned among the Antinomians), and of whom\nBaillie had heard that he entertained such ideas as these, though\nreserving them probably as esoteric mysteries for the highest class of\nthe Family of Love--\"that all the resurrection and glory which Scripture\npromises is past already, and no other coming of Christ to judgment, or\nlife eternal, is to be expected than what presently in this earth the\nsaints do enjoy; that the most clear historic passages of Scripture are\nmere allegories; that in all things, Angels, Devils, Men, Women, there is\nbut one spirit and life, which absolutely and essentially is God; that\nnothing is everlasting but the life and essence of God which now is in\nall creatures;\" &c. We should now call this a kind of Pantheism; but\nprobably it was coupled with that disposition to privacy, and\nindifference to creeds and controversies, which has been mentioned as the\npeculiarity of Familism. Even the _Familists_, however, it seems,\nhad their subdivisions. One John Hetherington, a box-maker, had been a\nkind of Familist, but had recanted. [Footnote: Paget,  92 102, and\n137,138; _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. 13; Baillie's _Dissuasive_ Part\nII. pp. 99-104]\n\nMILLENARIES OR CHILIASTS:--\"An Heresy,\" says old Father Ephraim,\n\"frequent at this time. This sect look for a temporary [temporal] kingdom\nof Christ, that must begin presently and last 1,000 years. Of this\nopinion are many of our Apocalyptical men, that study more future events\nthan their present only.\" This is substantially all we have from Paget.\nIn fact, however, the Chiliasts or Millenarians were hardly a mere sect.\nThe expectation of a Millennium near at hand was very prevalent, or was\nbecoming very prevalent, among the English Divines of the Assembly\nitself. \"Many of the Divines here,\" wrote Baillie, September 5, 1645,\n\"not only Independents, but others, such as Twisse, Marshall, Palmer, and\nmany more, are express Chiliasts.\" In his _Dissuasive_, however,\nwhere he devotes an entire chapter to this heresy of Chiliasm, he\nattributes the grosser form of the heresy chiefly to the Independents. A\nkind of Chiliasm or Millenarianism, he says, had been held by some former\nEnglish Divines, including Joseph Meade; but it had been reserved for two\nIndependents--\"Mr. Archer and his colleague at Arnheim, T. G.\"\n(_i.e._ Thomas Goodwin)--to invent new dreams on the subject; and\nthese had recently been adopted by Mr. Burroughs. The purport of their\ndoctrine was that in the year 1650, or, at the furthest, 1695, Christ was\nto reappear in human form at Jerusalem, destroy the existing fabric of\nthings in a conflagration, collect the scattered Jews, raise martyrs and\nsaints from their graves, and begin his glorious reign of a thousand\nyears. [Footnote: Paget, 136, 137; Baillie's Letters, II. 313, and\n_Dissuasive_, 224-252.]\n\nSEEKERS:--\"Many have wrangled so long about the Church that at last they\nhave quite lost it, and go under the name of _Expecters_ and _Seekers_,\nand do deny that there is any Church, or any true minister, or any\nordinances; some of them affirm the Church to be in the wilderness, and\nthey are seeking for it there; others say that it is in the smoke of the\nTemple, and that they are groping for it there--where I leave them\npraying to God.\"--So far Old Ephraim; and what he says, combined with one\nof Edwards's miscellaneous blasphemies already quoted, enables us to\nfancy the _Seekers_. They were people, it seems, who had arrived at the\nconclusion that the Supernatural had never yet been featured forth to man\nin any propositions or symbols that could be accepted as adequate, and\nwho were waiting, therefore, for a possible \"Church of the Future;\"\ncontent, meanwhile, to dwell in a Temple of smoke, or (for there is the\nalternative figure) to see visions of the Future Church in the smoke of\nthe present Temple.--\"Mr. Erbury, that lived in Wales,\" (but had come to\nLondon, and then settled in Ely, whence he made excursions,) and \"one\nWalwyn, a dangerous man, a strong head,\" who laboured somewhere else, are\nmentioned by Edwards as men avowing themselves in this predicament.\nBaillie mentions also one Laurence Clarkson, who had passed from\nAnabaptism to Seekerism, and he speaks of Mrs. Attaway, the Baptist\nwoman-preacher, and Mr. Saltmarsh, the Antinomian, as tending the same\nway.----But the chief of the _Seekers_, perhaps the original founder of\nthe Sect, and certainly the bravest exponent of their principles, was a\nperson with whom we are already acquainted. \"One Mr. Williams,\" writes\nBaillie, June 7, 1644, \"has drawn a great number after him to a singular\nIndependency, denying any true Church in the world, and will have every\nman to serve God by himself alone, without any church at all. This man\nhas made a great and bitter schism lately among the Independents.\" Again,\non the 23rd of July, Baillie refers to the same person as \"my good\nacquaintance Mr. Roger Williams, who says there is no church, no\nsacraments, no pastors, no church-officers or ordinance, in the world,\nnor has been since a few years after the Apostles.\" In short, the arch-\nrepresentative of this new religion of Seekerism on both sides of the\nAtlantic was no other than our friend Roger Williams, the Tolerationist\n(Vol. II. 560-3, and _ant\u00e8_, pp. 113-120). Through the variations of this\nman's external adventures we have seen the equally singular series of\nvariations of his mental condition. First an intense Separatist, or\nIndependent of the most resolute type, but conjoining with this\nSeparatism a passion for the most absolute liberty of conscience and the\nentire dissociation of civil power from matters of religion, then a\nBaptist and excommunicated on that account by his former friends in\nAmerica, he had latterly, in his solitude at Providence, outgone Baptism\nor any known form of Independency, and, still retaining his doctrine of\nthe most absolute liberty of conscience, had worked himself into that\nstate of dissatisfaction with all visible church-forms, and of yearning\nquest after unattainable truth, for which the name _Seekerism_ was\ninvented by himself or others. Though he did not propose that preaching\nshould be abandoned, he had gradually settled in a notion which he thus\nexpresses: \"In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a\ndiligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged,\nin city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches,\nin Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God,\nbring in the result of a satisfying discovery that either the begetting\nministry of the apostles or messengers to the nations, or the feeding and\nnourishing ministry of pastors and teachers, according to the first\ninstitution of the Lord Jesus, are yet restored or extant.\" It was while\nhe was in this stage of his mental history that Williams came over on his\nflying visit to England in the matter of the new charter for the Rhode\nIsland plantations. Some whiff of his strange opinions may have preceded\nhim; but it must have been mainly by his intercourse with leading\nLondoners during his stay in England, which extended over more than a\nyear (June 1643--Sept. 1644), that he diffused the interest in himself\nand his Seekerism which we certainly find existing in 1644. He can have\nbeen no stranger to the chief Divines of the Westminster Assembly.\nBaillie, we see, was on speaking terms with him; and it is curious to\nnote in Baillie's and other references to him the same vein of personal\nliking for the man, running through amazement at his heresy, which\ncharacterized the criticisms of him by his New England opponents and\nexcommunicants. Incidents of his visit, not less interesting now, were\ntwo publications of his in London, his \"_Key into the Language of\nAmerica_,\" published in 1643, and his _Bloody Tenent of Persecution_,\npublished in 1644.--At least the name of the sect of \"The Seekers,\" I may\nadd, had struck Cromwell himself, and had some fascination for him,\nwhether on its own account, or from his acquaintance with Williams. \"Your\nsister Claypole,\" he wrote to his daughter Mrs. Ireton, some two years\nafter our present date (Oct. 25,1646), \"is, I trust in mercy, exercised\nwith some perplexed thoughts. She sees her own vanity and carnal mind,\nbewailing it: she seeks after (as I hope also) what will satisfy. And\nthus to be a Seeker is to be of the best sect next after a Finder; and\nsuch an one shall every faithful humble Seeker be in the end. Happy\nSeeker, happy Finder!\" [Footnote: Paget, 150; _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. p. 24,\nand p. 38; _Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. 96, 97 and Notes; Baillie's\nLetters, II. 191-2 and 212; Gammell's _Life of Roger Williams_ (Boston,\n1846), and Memoir of Williams, by Edward B. Underhill, prefixed to the\nrepublication of William's _Bloody Tenent of Persecution_, by the\n\"Hanserd Knollys Society\" (1848); Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 212.]\n\nDIVORCERS:--\"These I term _Divorcers_\" says Old Ephraim, \"that would\nbe quit of their wives for slight occasions;\" and he goes on to speak of\nMILTON as the representative of the sect. Featley had previously\nmentioned Milton's Divorce Tract as one of the proofs of the tendency of\nthe age to Antinomianism, Familism, and general anarchy; and Edwards and\nBaillie followed in the same strain. Milton's Doctrine of Divorce, it\nthus appears, had attracted attention, and had perhaps gained some\nfollowing. Among the six caricatures of notable sects on the title-page\nof Paget's _Heresiography_ is one of \"THE DIVORCER\"--_i.e._ a man, in an\nadmonishing attitude, and without his hat, dismissing or pushing away his\nwife, who has her hat on, as if ready for a journey, and is putting her\nhandkerchief to her eyes. We shall have more to say of Milton in this\nconnexion. [Footnote: Paget, pp. 150, 151, p. 87, and Epistle Dedicatory,\np. 4; Fentley's _Dippers Dipt_, Epistle Dedicatory, p. 3; Edward's\n_Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. p. 29.]\n\nANTI-SABBATARIANS, AND TRASKITES:--These sects, though distinct, may be\nnamed together. The _Anti-Sabbatarians_ were those who denied the\nobligation of any Lord's Day or Sabbath: they were pretty numerous, but\nwere distributed through the other sects. The _Traskites_, on the\nother hand, denied the obligation of the Christian Sunday or Lord's Day,\nbut maintained the perpetual obligation of the Jewish Sabbath on the\nseventh day of the week. They were the followers of one John Traske, a\npoor eccentric who had been well known to Paget, but was now dead, and\nremembered only for his heresy, for which he had been whipt, pilloried,\nand imprisoned, about 1618. His opinions had been revived more ably in\ncertain treatises and discourses, published in 1628 and 1632, by\nTheophilus Brabourne, a Puritan minister in Norfolk. Both Brabourne and\nTraske had been obliged to recant their opinions and return to orthodoxy;\nand indeed Traske had done so in a Tract written against himself, though\nhe again relapsed. Nevertheless the heresy had taken root, and one heard\nin 1644 of Traskites or Sabbatarians dispersed through England. The sect\nis continued still in the so-called \"Seventh Day Baptists.\" [Footnote:\nPaget, pp. 138-141; with more accurate particulars in Cox's _Literature\nof the Sabbath Question_, I. 153-5, 157-8, and 162.]\n\nSOUL-SLEEPERS OR MORTALISTS:--Such was the odd name given to a sect, or\nsupposed sect, represented by the anonymous author of a, Tract called\n_Man's Mortality_. The Tract is now very scarce, if not utterly\nforgotten; but, as it made a great stir at the time, and as we shall hear\nof it and its author rather particularly again in connexion with Milton's\nlife, I may here give some account of it from a copy which I have managed\nto see. The title in full is as follows: \"Man's Mortallitie: or a\nTreatise wherein 'tis proved, both Theologically and Phylosophically,\nthat whole Man (as a rationall creature) is a compound wholy mortall,\ncontrary to that common distinction of Soule and Body; and that the\npresent going of the Soule into Heaven or Hell is a meer fiction; and\nthat at the Resurrection is the beginning of our immortallity, and then\nactual Condemnation and Salvation, and not before: With all doubtes and\nobjections answered and resolved both by Scripture and Reason;\ndiscovering the multitude of Blasphemies and Absurdities that arise from\nthe fancie of the Soule: Also divers other mysteries, as of Heaven, Hell,\nChrist's humane residence, the Extent of the Resurrection, the New\nCreation, &c.: opened and presented to the tryall of better judgments, By\nR. O. Amsterdam: Printed by John Canne, Anno Dom. 1643.\" In the British\nMuseum copy, which is the one I have seen, the word \"Amsterdam\" is erased\nby the collector's pen, and \"London\" substituted, with the date \"Jan. 19\"\nadded; whence I infer that, whatever Canne at Amsterdam had to do with\nthe printing of the tract, it was virtually a London publication, and out\nin January, 1643-4. On the title-page is quoted the text Ecclesiastes\niii. 19, thus--\"That which befalleth the sonnes of men befalleth Beasts;\neven one thing befalleth them all: as the one dyeth so dyeth the other;\nyea they have all one breath, so that man hath no preheminence above a\nBeast; for all is vanity.\" This gives so far the key-note to the 57 pages\nof matter of the Tract itself. It is a queer mixture of a sort of\nphysiological reasoning, such as we should now call Materialism, with a\nmystical metaphysics, and with odd whimsies of the author's own--such as\nthat Christ had ascended into the Sun. The leading tenet, however, is\nthat the notion of a soul, or supernatural and immortal essence, in man,\ndistinct from his bodily organism, is a sheer delusion, contradicted both\nby Scripture and correct physiological thinking, and that from this\nnotion have arisen all kinds of superstitions and practical mischiefs.\n\"The most grand and blasphemous heresies that are in the world, the\nmystery of iniquity and the kingdom of Antichrist, depend upon it.\" So\nsays the Tract itself; and in the first of two pieces of verse prefixed\nto it by an admirer, and entitled \"To His worthy Friend the Author, upon\nhis Booke,\" there occur these lines:--\n\n  \"The hell-hatched doctrine of th' immortal soul\n  Discovered makes the hungry Furies howl,\n  And teare their snakey haire, with grief appaled\n  To see their error-leading doctrine quailed,\n  Hell undermined and Purgatory blown\n  Up in the air.\"\n\nThere are Latin quotations in the Tract; and some of the physiological\narguments by which the author seeks to refute the opinion of \"the\nSoulites,\" as he calls them, are rather nauseous. On the whole, were it\nnot for the appended concession of a Resurrection, or New Creation, and\nan Immortality somehow to ensue thence, the doctrine of the Tract might\nbe described as out-and-out Materialism. Possibly, in spite of the\nconcession, this is what the author meant to drive at. Among some of his\nfollowers, however, a milder version of his doctrine seems to have been\nin favour, not quite denying the existence of a soul, but asserting that\nthe soul goes into sleep or temporary extinction at death, to be re-\nawakened at the Resurrection. [Footnote: Paget, pp. 148, 149; _Gangr\u00e6na_,\nPart I. pp. 22, 23; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 99 and 121; but\nmainly the Tract cited.]\n\nARIANS, SOCINIANS, AND OTHER ANTI-TRINITARIANS:--Since 1614, when Legate\nand Wightman had been burnt for Arianism (Vol. I. p. 46), this and other\nforms of the Anti-Trinitarian heresy had been little heard of in England.\nBut in the ferment of the Civil War they were reappearing. A Thomas Webb,\na young fellow of twenty years of age, had been shocking people in London\nand in country-places by awful expressions against the Trinity; one\nClarke had been, doing the same; one Paul Best had been circulating\nmanuscripts in which there were \"most horrid blasphemies of the Trinity,\nof Christ, and of the Holy Ghost;\" and John Biddle, of Gloucester, master\nof the school there, and of whom, from his career at Oxford, high hopes\nhad been formed, had begun to be \"free of his discourses in a Socinian\ndirection.\" Baillie adds Mr. Samuel Richardson, one of the Baptist\nministers of London, to the number of those whose Trinitarianism was\nquestionable, and charges the Baptists generally with laxity on that\npoint. In short, there was an alarm of Arianism, and other forms of Anti-\nTrinitarianism, as again abroad in England. Mr. Nye, the Independent, had\nbeen heard to say that \"to his knowledge the denying of the Divinity of\nChrist was a growing opinion, and that there was a company of them met\nabout Coleman Street, a Welshman being their chief, who held this\nopinion.\" Coleman Street appears, indeed, to have been a very hotbed of\nheresy. For here it was that JOHN GOODWIN (Vol. II. 582-4, and\n_ant\u00e8_, pp. 120-122) had his congregation. He had not revealed\nhimself fully; but the public had had a taste of him in recent pamphlets.\nBaillie, on rumour, reports him as a Socinian; and Edwards, who came into\nconflict with him in due time, and devotes many consecutive pages of\nBillingsgate to him in the Second Part of his _Gangr\u00e6na_, tells us\nthat he held \"many wicked opinions,\" being \"an Hermaphrodite and a\ncompound of an Arminian, Socinian, Libertine, Anabaptist, & c.\" From the\nsame authority we learn that the Presbyterians had nicknamed him \"the\ngreat Red Dragon of Coleman Street.\" What he really was we have already\nseen in part for ourselves, and shall yet see more fully.[Footnote:\nPaget, 132--136; _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. pp. 21, 22, 26, 33, Part II 19-\n39, and Part III. 111 and 87; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. p.\n98; also Wood's Athen\u00e6, III. 593 (for Biddle); Baillie's Letters, II.\n192, and Jackson's _Life of John Goodwin_ (1822), pp. 3 and 14.]\n\nANTI-SCRIPTURISTS:--\"One wicked sect,\" says Old Ephraim, \"denieth the\nScriptures both of the Old and New Testament, and account them as things\nof nought; yea, as I am credibly informed, in public congregations they\nvent these their damnable opinions.\" He gives no names; but Edwards\nmentions \"one Marshal, a bricklayer, a young man, living at Hackney,\" who\nmade a mock of the Scriptures in his harangues, and asserted that he\nhimself \"knew the mystery of God in Christ better than St. Paul.\" A\ncompanion of this Marshal's told the people that \"the Scripture was their\ngolden calf and they danced round it.\" A Priscilla Miles had been\nspeaking very shockingly of the Scriptures at Norwich. But the most noted\nAnti-Scripturist seems to have been a Clement Wrighter, a Worcester man,\nliving in London, of whom Edwards gives this terrible character--\n\"Sometimes a professor of religion and judged to have been godly, who is\nnow an arch-heretic and fearful apostate, an old wolf, and a subtle man,\nwho goes about corrupting, and venting his errors; he is often in\nWestminster Hall and on the Exchange; he comes into public meetings of\nthe Sectaries upon occasions of meeting to draw up petitions for the\nParliament or other businesses. This man about seven or eight years ago\n(_i.e._ about 1638) fell off from the communion of our churches to\nIndependency and Brownism; from that he fell to Anabaptism and\nArminianism, and to Mortalism, holding the soul mortal (he is judged to\nbe the author, or at least to have had a great hand in the Book of the\n_Mortality of the Soul_). After that he fell to be Seeker, and is\nnow an Anti-Scripturist, a Questionist and Sceptick, and I fear an\nAtheist.\" Specimens of his sayings about the Bible are given; and\naltogether one has to fancy Wrighter as an oldish man, sneaking about in\npublic places in London on soft-soled shoes, and with bundles of papers\nunder his arm. I have seen a little thing printed by him in Feb. 1615-6,\nunder the title of \"_The Sad Case of Clement Writer_,\" in which he\ncomplains of injustice, to the extent of 1,500_l_., done him by the\nlate Lord Keeper Coventry and other judges in some suit that had lasted\nfor twelve years. [Footnote: Paget, 149; _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. pp. 26-\n-28; Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 121.]\n\nSCEPTICS, OR QUESTIONISTS:--They were those who, according to Edwards,\n\"questioned everything in matters of religion, holding nothing positively\nnor certainly, saving the doctrine of pretended liberty of conscience for\nall, and liberty of prophesying.\" Many besides Wrighter had reached this\nstage through their anti-Scripturism, and were free-thinkers of the cold\nor merely rational order, distinct from the devout and enthusiastic\nSeekers. [Footnote: _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. p. 13.]\n\nATHEISTS:--Although Edwards charitably hints his fear that Mr. Wrighter\nhad at last sunk into this extreme category, it is remarkable that\nneither he nor Paget ventures to reckon _Atheists_ among the\nexisting Sects. Probably, therefore, there was no body of persons to\nwhom, with any pretext of plausibility, the name could be applied. But we\nare advised of individuals here and there whom their neighbours suspected\nof Atheism; and, if Edwards is to be believed, there was alive a certain\nJohn Boggis, an apprentice to an apothecary in London, who, though at\npresent only a young Anabaptist preacher, and disciple of Captain Hobson,\nwas to go within a year or two to such unheard-of lengths about Great\nYarmouth that even Wrighter must have disowned him. [Footnote: Ibid. Part\nII. 133, 134; and Baillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. 99.]\n\nSuch were the English Sects and Sectaries that had begun to be talked of\nin 1644. Not that they were bounded off strictly from each other in\ndivisions according with their names. On the contrary, they shaded off\ninto each other; and there were mixtures and combinations of some of\nthem. Moreover, as the chief of them held by the Congregationalist\nprinciple in some form, and hoped to flourish by taking advantage of that\nprinciple, it was not unusual for Presbyterian writers to include these\nalong with the Congregationalists proper in the one lax designation of\nIndependents. At all events, the Sects hung on to the Independents\nthrough that principle of Toleration or Liberty of Conscience which the\nIndependents had propounded, at first mildly, but with a tendency to less\nand less of limitation. All the Sects, less or more, were TOLERATIONISTS;\nthe heresy of heresies in which they all agreed with each other, and with\nthe Independents, was LIBERTY OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n\nRESUMPTION OF PROCEEDINGS BY THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY: DENUNCIATION OF\nPICKED SECTARIES AND HERETICS.\n\nThe foregoing survey of English Sects and Sectaries and of the state of\nthe Toleration Controversy in 1644 has been our employment, the reader\nmust be reminded, during the fortnight's vacation of the Westminster\nAssembly from July 23 to August 7 in that year. Something of the same\nkind was the vacation-employment of the members of that Assembly too, and\nespecially of the Presbyterian majority. For they had been driven out of\ntheir previous calculations by the battle of Marston Moor (July 2). That\nbattle had been won mainly by Cromwell, the head of the Army-\nIndependents, and it went to the credit of Independency. All the more\nnecessary was it for the Presbyterians of the Assembly to bethink\nthemselves of indirect means of argument against the Independents. The\nmeans were not far to seek. Let this horrible Hydra of Sects, all bred\nout of Independency, be dragged into light; and would not respectable\nIndependency itself stand aghast at her offspring? The word\n_Toleration_ had been mumbled cautiously within the Assembly, and\nhad made itself heard with some larger liking in Parliament, and still\ngreater applause among the hasty thousands of the Parliamentary soldiers\nand the populace! Let it be shown what this monstrous notion really\nmeant, what herds of strange creatures and shoals even of vermin it would\npermit in England; and would England ratify the monstrosity, or the\nIndependency consociated with it, even for twenty Cromwells, or ten\nMarston Moors? So, in the fort-night's vacation, reasoned Messrs.\nMarshall, Lightfoot, Calamy, Palmer, Vines, Spurstow, Newcomen, Herle,\nBurges, and other English Presbyterians, incited rather than repressed by\nthe Scottish anxiety of Rutherford, Gillespie, Baillie, and (I am afraid)\nHenderson.\n\nAccordingly, when the Assembly resumed its sittings (Wednesday, Aug. 7,\n1644), its first work was to fall passionately on the Sects and the arch-\nheresy of Toleration. \"The first day of our sitting, after our vacance,\"\nsays Baillie, \"a number of complaints were given in against the\nAnabaptists' and Antinomians' huge increase and insolencies intolerable.\nNotwithstanding Mr. Nye's and others' opposition, it was carried that the\nAssembly should remonstrate it to the Parliament.\" [Footnote: Baillie's\nLetters, II. 218; corroborated by Lightfoot's Notes on the very day (p.\n299).] And they did remonstrate it, without a day's delay. Friday, May 9,\nas we learn from the Lords Journals, it was represented to the House of\nLords, through Mr. Marshall, by order of the Assembly, \"That they have\nbeen informed of the great growth and increase of Anabaptists and\nAntinomians and other Sects; and that some Anabaptists have delivered in\nprivate houses some blasphemous passages and dangerous opinions: They\nhave acquainted the House of Commons therewith; and, &c.\" [Footnote:\nLords Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] Turning to the Commons Journals of the\nsame day we find, accordingly, a column and a half on the same subject,\nwith many details. Dr. Burges and Mr. Marshall had appeared before the\nCommons on the same errand from the Assembly: had told the Honourable\nHouse that many ministers and gentry all through England had long desired\nto petition it \"to prevent the spreading opinions of Anabaptism and\nAntinomianism;\" that they had been persuaded to forbear; but that now\n\"these men have cast off all affection and are so imbitterated\" that\nfarther forbearance would be wrong, and the Assembly cannot but represent\nto the House that \"it is high time to suppress them.\" That the Commons\nmight not be left in the vague, a Mr. Picot in Guernsey, and a Mr.\nKnolles, recently in Cornwall (Hanserd Knollys?), of the Anabaptist sort,\nwith a Mr. Randall, a Mr. Penrose, and a Mr. Simson, as of a worse sort\nstill (see Randall among the Antinomians and Familists in our synopsis),\nwere denounced by name as proper culprits to begin with. What could the\npoor House of Commons do? Agreeing with the Lords, they promised to do\nwhat they could. They would take the whole subject into their grave\nconsideration; they empowered the Committee for Plundered Ministers, with\na certain addition to their number, to arrest and examine the particular\nculprits named; and, to prove their heartiness meanwhile, they resolved,\non that very day, \"That Mr. White do give order for the public burning of\none Mr. Williams his book, intituled, &c., concerning the Tolerating of\nall sorts of Religion.\" [Footnote: Commons Journals, Aug. 9, 1644.] This\n\"one Mr. Williams,\" as the reader will be aware, was Roger Williams, then\non his way back to America; and \"his book\" was _The Bloody Tenent_.\nThere must have been much hypocrisy, and much cowardice, in the English\nHouse of Commons on that day. Where was the younger Sir Harry Vane?\nProbably he was in the House while they passed the order, and wondering\nhow far Roger Williams had got on his voyage, and meditatively twirling\nhis thumbs.\n\nA good stroke of business by the Westminster Assembly in two days after\ntheir vacation! But they followed it up. There were frequent Solemn\nFasts, by Parliamentary order, in those days, when all London was\nexpected to go to church and listen to sermons by divines from the\nWestminster Assembly. Tuesday, the 13th of August, 1644, was one of those\nSolemn Fast-days--an \"Extraordinary Day of Humiliation;\" and the\nministers appointed by the Assembly to preach in chief--_i.e._ to\npreach before the two Houses of Parliament, and the Assembly itself, in\nSt. Margaret's, Westminster--were Mr. Thomas Hill and Mr. Herbert Palmer.\nThese two gentlemen, it seems, did their duty: They satisfied even\nBaillie. \"Mr. Palmer and Mr. Hill,\" he says, \"did preach that day to the\nAssembly two of the most Scottish and free sermons  that ever I heard\nanywhere. The way here of all preachers, even the best, has been to speak\nbefore the Parliament with so profound a reverence as truly took all edge\nfrom their exhortations, and made all applications of them toothless and\nadulatorious. That style is much changed, however: these two good men\nlaid well about them, and charged public and Parliamentary sins strictly\non the backs of the guilty.\" [Footnote: Baillie's Letters, II. 220, 221.]\nAs the sermons themselves remain in print, we have the means of verifying\nBaillie's description. It is quite correct. Not only in the \"Epistle\nDedicatory\" to his sermon when it was printed did Mr. Hill denounce the\nToleration doctrine, and make a marginal reference to Roger Williams's\n\"_Bloody Tenent_\" as a book not too soon burnt; but in the sermon\nitself, the subject of which was the duty of \"advancing Temple-work\"\n(Haggai i. 7, 8), he openly attacked two classes of persons as the chief\n\"underminers of Temple-work.\" First, he said, there were those who would\nallow nothing to be _jure divino_ in the Church, but held that all\nmatters of Church-constitution were to be settled by mere prudence and\nState-convenience--in other words, the Erastians, _They_ are lectured,\nbut are let off more easily than the second sort of underminers: viz.\n\"such who would have a toleration of all ways of Religion in this\nChurch.\" Parliament is reminded that all tendency to this way of thinking\nis unfaithfulness to the Covenant, and is told that \"to set the door so\nwide open as to tolerate all religions\" would be to \"make London an\nAmsterdam,\" and would lead to--in fact, would certainly lead to--\nAmsterdamnation! So far Mr. Hill; but Mr. Palmer was even more bold.\nPreaching on Psalm xcix. 8, this delicate little creature laid about him\nmost manfully. Parliament are rebuked for eluding the Covenant, for too\ngreat tenderness in their dealings with delinquents, and for remissness\nin the prevention and punishment of false doctrine. They are exhorted to\nextirpate heresy and schism, especially Antinomianism and Anabaptism,\nand, are warned at some length against the snare of Toleration. \"Hearken\nnot--I earnestly exhort every one that intends to have any regard at all\nto his solemn Covenant and oath in this second article--to those that\noffer to plead for Tolerations; which I wonder how any one dare write or\nspeak for as they do that have themselves taken the Covenant, or know\nthat _you_ have. The arguments that are used in some books, well worthy\nto be burnt, plead for Popery, Judaism, Turcism, Paganism, and all manner\nof false religions, under pretence of Liberty of Conscience.\" This is\nclearly an allusion to John Goodwin; and in the sequel Mr. Palmer makes\nanother personal allusion of still greater interest. In order to show\nwhat a social chaos would result from toleration of error on the plea of\nLiberty of Conscience, he gives instances of some of the horrible\nopinions that would claim the benefit of the plea, and among these he\nnames Milton's Divorce doctrine, then circulating in a book which the\nauthor had been shameless enough to dedicate openly to Parliament itself.\nThe particulars will be given, and the passage quoted, in due time; the\nfact is enough at present. [Footnote: The title of Hill's sermon is \"_The\nSeason for England's Selfe-Reflection and Advancing Temple-work;\ndiscovered in a Sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament at\nMargaret's, Westminster, Aug. 13, 1614; being an extraordinary day of\nHumiliation. By, &c., London: Printed by Richard Cotes, for John Bellamy\nand Philerion Stephens_ 1644.\"--The title of Palmer's is \"_The Glasse of\nGod's Providence towards his Faithful Ones; Held forth in a Sermon,_ &c.\n[occasion and date as in Hill's]; _wherein is discovered the great\nfailings that the best are liable unto, upon which God is provoked\nsometimes to take vengeance. The whole is applyed specially to a more\ncarefull observance of our late Convenant, and particularly against the\nungodly Toleration pleaded for under pretence of Liberty of Conscience.\nBy, &c., London: Printed by G.M. for Th. Underhill at the Bible in Wood\nStreet,_ 1644.\" Neither sermon impresses one now very favourably in\nrespect of either spirit or ability. I expected Palmer's to be better.]\n\nNot content with direct remonstrance to Parliament on the subject of the\nincrease of sects and heresies, nor with the power of exhorting it on the\nsubject through the pulpit, the Presbyterians of the Assembly, I find,\nresorted to other agencies. They had great influence in the City, and it\noccurred to them, or to some of them, to stir up the Stationers' Company\nto activity in the matter. The Stationers, indeed, had a commercial\ninterest, as well as a religious interest, in the suppression of the\nobnoxious books and pamphlets, most of which were published without the\nlegal formalities of licence and registration. It is without surprise\ntherefore that we find this entry in the Commons Journals for Saturday,\nAug. 24, 1644: \"_Ordered_ that the Petition from the Company of\nStationers be read on Monday morning next,\" followed by this other as the\nminute of the first business (after prayers) at the next sitting,\n(Monday, Aug. 26): \"The humble Petition of the Company of Stationers,\nconsisting of Booksellers, Printers, and Bookbinders, was this day read,\nand ordered to be referred to the consideration of the Committee for\nPrinting, to hear all parties and to state the business, and to prepare\nan Ordinance upon the whole matter and to bring it in with all convenient\nspeed; and they are, to this purpose, to peruse the Bill formerly brought\nin concerning this matter. They are diligently to inquire out the\nauthors, printers, and publishers of the Pamphlets against the\nImmortality of the Soul and _Concerning Divorce_.\" It had been\ndetermined, it seems, that Palmer's denunciation of Milton in his sermon\na fortnight before should not be a _brutum fulmen_. To the incident, as\nit affected Milton himself, we shall have to refer again. Meanwhile it\nbelongs to that stage of the action of the Westminster Assembly on\nEnglish politics which we are now trying to illustrate.\n\nThe Assembly, we have shown, besides still carrying on within itself the\nmain question between Presbyterianism and Congregationalism, had begun a\nwider war against Schism, Sectarianism, the whole miscellany of English\nheresies, and especially the all-including heresy of Toleration. They\nopened the campaign, by private agreement among themselves, in August\n1644; and by the end of that month they had succeeded in rousing\nParliament to some action on the subject, and had directed attention to\nat least nine special offenders, deserving to be punished first of all.\nThese were--the Anabaptists, Picot and Hanserd Knollys; the Antinomians,\nPenrose and Simson; the Antinomian and Familist, Randall; the Seeker and\nTolerationist, Roger Williams; the Independent, semi-Socinian, and\nTolerationist, John Goodwin; the Anti-Scripturist and Mortalist, Clement\nWrighter; and Mr. John Milton of Aldersgate Street, author of a Treatise\non Divorce. For, though the Committee of Parliament had been instructed\nto inquire out the author of the Divorce Treatise, this was but a form.\nThe second edition, dedicated to the Parliament and the Assembly, and\nwith Milton's name to it in full, had been out more than six months. Of\nthe nine persons mentioned, only Clement Wrighter, the Mortalist (if\nindeed the tract on _Man's Mortality_ was from his pen), had to be\nfound out.\n\nWas there to be no check to this Presbyterian inquisitorship? Whence\ncould a check come? The few Independents in the Assembly, just because\nthey were fighting their own particular battle, had to be cautious\nagainst too great an extension of their lines. Not from _them_,\ntherefore, but from the freer Independency of the Army, which was in fact\nby this time a composition of all or many of the sects, could the check\nbe expected. Thence, in fact, it did come. In short, while the\nPresbyterians in London were in the flush of their first success against\nthe Sectaries and the Tolerationists, in walked Oliver Cromwell.\n\n\nCROMWELL'S INTERFERENCE FOR TOLERATION: ACCOMMODATION ORDER OF\nPARLIAMENT.\n\nEvents had been qualifying Cromwell more and more for the task. His\nIndependency, or let us call it Tolerationism, had been long known. As\nearly as March 1643-4, when he had just become Lieutenant-general in the\nEarl of Manchester's army, he had been resolute in seeing that the\nofficers and soldiers in that army should not be troubled or kept down\nfor Anabaptism or the like. This had been the more necessary because the\nnext in command under him, the Scottish Major-general Crawford, was an\nardent and pragmatic Presbyterian. \"Sir,\" Cromwell had written to\nCrawford on one occasion, when an Anabaptist colonel had been put under\ndisgrace, \"the State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of\ntheir opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that\nsatisfies. I advised you formerly to bear with men of different minds\nfrom yourself: if you had done it when I advised you to it, I think you\nwould not have had so many stumbling-blocks in your way. It may be you\njudge otherwise; but I tell you _my_ mind.\" [Footnote: Carlyle,\nCromwell (ed. 1857), I. p. 148.] Ever since that time there had been a\nvital difference between the Presbyterian Major-general Crawford and his\nsuperior, the Lieutenant-general. Gradually, according to Baillie,\nManchester, who was \"a sweet, meek man,\" and greatly led by Cromwell, had\nbeen brought over more to the Presbyterian way by Crawford's reasonings.\nIt had come to be a question, in fact, whether Cromwell and comfort or\nCrawford and precision should prevail in Manchester's army. Marston Moor\n(July 2) had settled that. Cromwell, as the hero of Marston Moor, was not\na man to be farther opposed or thwarted; the Independents, who had mainly\nwon Marston Moor, were not men to submit longer to Presbyterian\nascendancy in the regulation of the army, or to see their large-faced\nEnglish chief pestered and counterworked by a peevish Scot. Yes, but\n_was_ Cromwell the hero of Marston Moor, or _had_ Marston Moor\nbeen won mainly by the Independents? These were the questions which\nCrawford, ever since the battle, had been trying to keep open. He had\nbeen trying, as we have seen, to keep them open in London, though with\nbut small success; and in the Army his tongue had, doubtless, been louder\nand more troublesome. At last Cromwell made up his mind. Either Crawford\nmust cease to be Major-general of Manchester's army, or _he_ must cease\nto be Lieutenant-general. It was on this business that, in September\n1644, he came up to London. There had been letters on the subject before\nfrom both parties in the Army, the Independents pressing for Crawford's\ndismissal, and the Presbyterians for retaining him. But now Manchester,\nCromwell, and Crawford had, all three, come up personally to argue the\nmatter out. Cromwell, it appears, was in one of those moods of\nungovernable obstinacy which always came upon him at the right time. \"Our\nlabour to reconcile them,\" writes Baillie, \"was vain: Cromwell was\nperemptor; notwithstanding the kingdom's evident hazard, and the evident\ndispleasure of our [the Scottish] nation, yet, if Crawford were not\ncashiered, his [Cromwell's] colonels would lay down their commissions.\"\nThere was a plot in all this, Baillie thought. The real purpose of the\nIndependents was to bring Manchester out of the clutches of\nPresbyterianism, or, if that could not be done, to get him to resign, so\nthat Cromwell might succeed to the chief command; in which case the\nIndependents would be able to \"counterbalance\" the Presbyterians, and\n\"overawe the Assembly and Parliament both to their ends.\"--It was a very\nproper plot, too, as every day was proving. What was the last news that\nhad reached London? It was that Essex, the General-in-chief, had been\ntotally beaten by the King in Cornwall (Sept. 1)--Essex himself obliged\nto escape by ship, leaving his army to its fate; the horse, under Sir\nWilliam Balfour, to fight their way out by desperate exertion; and the\nfoot, under Skippon, to think of doing the same, but at last to surrender\nmiserably. Waller's army, also, was by this time nowhere. It had perished\nby gradual desertion. Evidently, it had become a question of some moment\nfor the Parliamentarians _who_ had won Marston Moor, and _who_ should be\nchief in Manchester's army. [Footnote: Baillie's Letters, II. 229, 230;\nRushworth V. 699 _et seq._; Whitlocke (ed. 1853), I. 302, 303; Carlyle's\nCromwell, (ed., 1857), I. 158.]\n\nThe special business which had brought Cromwell to London was, in fact,\nbut a metaphor of the general business then occupying the English nation.\nWhether a pragmatical Presbyterian Scot should regulate the discipline of\nan English Parliamentarian army, and whether the Westminster Assembly\nshould establish a Presbyterian Inquisitorship over the whole mind of\nEngland, were but forms of the same question. Little wonder, then, that\nCromwell, finding himself in London on the smaller form of the business,\nresolved to move also in the larger. And he did. \"This day,\" writes\nBaillie on Friday the 13th of September 1644, \"Cromwell has obtained an\nOrder of the House of Commons to refer to the Committee of both Kingdoms\nthe accommodation or toleration of the Independents--a high and\nunexpected Order!\" Three days afterwards Baillie is still full of the\nsubject. \"While Cromwell is here,\" he says, \"the House of Commons,\nwithout the least advertisement to any of us [Scottish Commissioners], or\nof the Assembly, passes an Order that the Grand Committee of both Houses,\nAssembly, and us, shall consider of the means to unite us and the\nIndependents, or, if that be found impossible, to see how they may be\ntolerate. This has much affected us.\" On turning to the Commons Journals\nwe find the actual words of the Order: \"_Ordered_, That the Committee of\nLords and Commons appointed to treat with the Commissioners of Scotland\nand the Committee of the Assembly do take into consideration the\ndifferences in opinion of the members of the Assembly in point of Church-\ngovernment, and do endeavour a union if it be possible; and, in case that\ncannot be done, do endeavour the finding out some ways how far tender\nconsciences, who cannot in all things submit to the common Rule which\nshall be established, may be borne with, according to the Word, and as\nmay stand with the public peace, that so the proceedings of the Assembly\nmay not be so much retarded.\" Mr. Solicitor St. John appears as the\nreporter of the Order. Cromwell, in fact, had quietly formed a little\nphalanx of the right men to carry the thing through. The younger Vane was\none of them. Even Stephen Marshall, the Presbyterian and Smectymnuan, had\nto some extent aided in the contrivance, without consulting any of his\nbrethren of the Assembly.\n\nThe Order came upon the Presbyterians like a thunder-clap. For, as they\nrightly interpreted, it was nothing less than a design to carry in\nParliament a Toleration-clause to be inserted in the Bill for\nestablishing Presbytery before that Bill was ready to be drafted. Of this\nBaillie and his friends complained bitterly. Was it not unfair to\nPresbyterianism thus to anticipate so ostentatiously that there would be\nmany whom it would not satisfy? Was not this framing of a Toleration-\nclause, to be inserted into a Bill before the Bill itself was in being,\nlike a solicitation to the English people to prefer the clause to the\nbody of the Bill, and so to continue dubious about Presbytery, instead of\ncultivating faith in its merits? So argued Baillie and the Presbyterians.\nBut, indeed, they saw more behind the Accommodation Order. The Toleration\nit sought to provide might seem, from the wording, only a moderate\nToleration in the interest of the Independents of the Assembly and their\nimmediate adherents. From what Baillie says, one infers that Mr.\nSolicitor St. John and Mr. Marshall had been drawing up the Order in this\nmoderate form, and that Cromwell and Vane would fain have had more. \"The\ngreat shot of Cromwell and Vane,\" says Baillie, \"is to have a liberty for\nall religions, without any exceptions.\" And of Vane he distinctly says\nthat he was \"offended with the Solicitor\" for putting only differences\nabout Church-government into the Toleration Ordinance, and not also\ndifferences \"about free grace, including liberty to the Antinomians and\nto all Sects.\" At all events, he had recently, in the presence of the\nScottish Commissioners themselves, been reasoning \"prolixly, earnestly,\nand passionately\" for universal Toleration. Probably Cromwell and Vane\nwere content in the meantime with what the long-headed Solicitor saw he\ncould pass. It could be stretched when necessary. The form was St.\nJohn's, but the deed was Cromwell's. [Footnote: The authorities for the\ninteresting facts related in this paragraph which seem to have slipped\nout of view of most modern writers on the history of the period are\nBaillie, II 226, 229, 231, and 236, 237, and Commons Journal, Sept 13,\n1644.]\n\nAfter the check of this Accommodation Order of Sept. 13, 1644, the\nPresbyterians of the Assembly seem to have proceeded somewhat more\ntemperately. Not that they gave up the fight. Their preachers before\nParliament still followed in the strain of Hill and Palmer. In a Fast-day\nSermon before the two Houses on Sept. 12, the day before the Order, the\nSmectymnuan, Matthew Newcomen, had again had a slap at Toleration; on\nSept. 25 Lazarus Seaman was again at it, and actually named in his sermon\nfour dangerous books for Liberty of Conscience, including Goodwin's and\nWilliams's--the burning of which lest did not seem enough to the Rabbi,\nfor \"the shell is sometimes thrown into the fire when the kernel is\neaten;\" the respected Calamy, also a Smectymnuan, is at it again, Oct.\n22, telling the Parliament that, if they do not put down Anabaptism,\nAntinomianism, and Tolerationism of all religions, then _they_ are\nthe Anabaptists, the Antinomians, the Tolerationists; Spurstow, a third\nof the Smectymnuans, is not done with it on Nov. 5. [Footnote: My notes\nfrom a volume of the Parliamentary Sermons of 1644, kindly lent me by Mr.\nDavid Laing] In the Assembly itself also the question of heresy,\nblasphemy, and their suppression, occasionally turned up. Oct. 17, for\nexample, there was officially before the Assembly the case of a John\nHart, who had been making a reputation for himself in Surrey by this\nhideous joke:--\"Who made you? My Lord of Essex.--Who redeemed you? Sir W.\nWaller.--Who sanctified and preserved you? My Lord of Warwick.\" This led\nto a conversation in the Assembly on the increase of blasphemy, and to a\nnew remonstrance to Parliament on the subject.[Footnote: Lightfoot's\nNotes at date named] Again, on the 22nd of November, there was a report\nto the Assembly of some fresh \"damnable blasphemies,\" more of the\ndoctrinal kind, and savouring of Mortalism and Clement Wrighter.\n[Footnote: Lightfoot's Notes at date named.] Nor had the Assembly agreed\nto let even ordinary Anabaptism and Antinomianism alone; for they had\nagain memorialized Parliament on the subject, and had had a rather\nsatisfactory response from the Commons, Nov. 15, in the form of a promise\nto consider the whole matter, and an order meanwhile that no person\nshould be permitted to preach unless he were an ordained minister in the\nEnglish or some other Reformed Church, or a probationer intending the\nministry and duly licensed by those authorized by Parliament to give such\nlicence. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Nov. 15, 1644.] On the whole,\nhowever, from September 1644 onwards through October and November, to the\nend of the year, there was rather an abatement of the inquisitorial zeal\nof the Assembly.\n\n\nPROGRESS OF THE ASSEMBLY'S MAIN WORK: PRESBYTERIAN SETTLEMENT VOTED BY\nPARLIAMENT.\n\nIn those months, indeed, the Assembly was unusually active over its main\nwork. For, though we have seen chiefly the spray of its miscellaneous\ninterferences with affairs, it must be remembered that it had been called\ntogether for a vast mass of substantial work, and that it had been\nsteadily prosecuting that work, in Committees, Sub-committees, and the\ndaily meetings of the whole body. The work expected by Parliament from\nthe Assembly consisted of (1) the compilation of a _Confession of Faith_,\nor _Articles of Religion_, which should supersede the Thirty-nine\nArticles, and be the Creed of the new National Church of England about to\nbe established; (2) the composition of a _Catechism_ or _Catechisms_,\nwhich should be a manual or manuals for the instruction of the people,\nand especially the young, in the theology of the Articles; (3) the\ndevising of a _Frame of Discipline or Church-government_, to come in lieu\nof Episcopacy, and form the constitution of the new National Church; and\n(4) the preparation of a _Directory of Worship_, which should supplant\nthe Liturgy, &c., and settle the methods and forms to be adopted in\nworship, and on such occasions as baptisms, marriages, and funerals. Here\nwas a mass of work which, at the ordinary rate of business in\necclesiastical councils, might well keep the Assembly together for two or\nthree years. What amount of progress had they made at the date at which\nwe have now arrived?\n\nNaturally, on first meeting, they had begun with the business of the new\nArticles, or Confession of Faith. The particular form in which, by the\norder of Parliament, they had addressed themselves to this business, was\nthat of a careful revision of the Thirty-nine Articles. With tolerable\nunanimity (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 5, 6 and 18,19), they had gone on in this\nlabour for three months, or till Oct. 12,1643; by which time they had\nCalvinized fifteen of the Articles. [Footnote: Whoever wants to compare\nthe Westminster Assembly's Calvinized Version of the first fifteen\nArticles with the original Articles will find the two sets printed\nconveniently in parallel columns in _History of the Westminster\nAssembly of Divines_ (1842), published at Philadelphia, U.S., by the\n\"Presbyterian Board of Publication.\"] Then, however, they had been\ninterrupted in this labour. The Scottish League and Covenant having come\ninto action, and the Scottish Commissioners having become an influence at\nthe back of the English Parliament, the Assembly had been ordered to\nproceed to what seemed the more immediately pressing businesses of the\nnew Model of Church-government and the new Directory of Worship. The\nbusiness of a Confession of Faith thus lying over till it could be\nresumed at leisure, the Assembly had, for more than a year, been occupied\nwith the Church-government question and the Directory. What tough and\ntedious work they had had with the Church-government question we have\nseen. Still, even in this question they had made progress. Beating the\nCongregationalists by vote on proposition after proposition, the\nPresbyterian majority had, by the end of October 1644, carried all the\nessentials of Presbytery through the Assembly, and referred them\nconfidently to Parliament. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 232.] Add to this that\na new Directory of Worship had been drawn up. The Congregationalist\nBrethren had been far more acquiescent in this business; and, though many\npoints in it had occasioned minute discussion, the Assembly were able, on\nthe 2lst of November, to transmit to Parliament, unanimously, a\nDirectory, in which everything in the shape of Liturgy or Prelatic\nceremonial was disallowed, and certain plain forms, like those of the\nScottish Presbyterian worship, prescribed instead. [Footnote: Baillie,\nII. 240 and 242-3] By the end of 1644, therefore, the Westminster\nAssembly had substantially acquitted itself of two out of four of the\npieces of work expected from it by Parliament--the _New Directory of\nWorship_ and the _New Frame of Church-government_; and it only\nremained for Parliament to sanction or reject what the Assembly had\nconcluded under these two heads. During November and December 1644, and\nJanuary 1644-5, accordingly, there was much discussion in both Houses of\nall the points of Religion and Church-government which the new Directory\nand the new Frame were to settle. The debates of the Houses during these\nmonths, indeed, were very much those of the Assembly over again--the\nLords and Commons, though laymen, examining each proposition and each\nclause for themselves, and insisting on proofs from Scripture and the\nlike. January 1644-5 was the great month. On the 4th of that month an\nOrdinance from the Commons passed the Lords, abolishing the use of the\nPrayer-book, adopting and confirming the new Westminster Directory, and\nordering it to be printed. On the 23rd of the same month, the following\nResolutions were adopted by the Commons:--\n\n\"_Resolved_: That there shall be fixed Congregations--that is, a\ncertain company of Christians to meet in one Assembly ordinarily for\npublic worship: when believers multiply to such a number that they cannot\nconveniently meet in one place, they shall be divided into distinct and\nfixed Congregations, for the better administration of such ordinances as\nbelong to them, and the discharge of mutual duties.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That the ordinary way of dividing Christians into\ndistinct Congregations, and most expedient for edification, is by the\nrespective bounds of their dwellings.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That the minister and other Church-officers in each\nparticular Congregation shall join in the government of the Church in\nsuch manner as shall be established by Parliament.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That these officers shall meet together at convenient\nand set times for the well-ordering of the affairs of that Congregation,\neach according to his office.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That the ordinances in a particular Congregation are\nPrayer, Thanksgiving, and Singing of Psalms; the Word read, though there\nfollow no immediate explication of what is read; the Word expounded and\napplied; Catechising; the Sacraments administered; Collection made for\nthe Poor; Dismissing of the people with a Blessing.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That many particular Congregations shall be under one\nPresbyterial government.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That the Church be governed by Congregational,\nClassical, and Synodical Assemblies, in such manner as shall be\nestablished by Parliament.\n\n\"_Resolved_: That Synodical Assemblies shall consist both of\nProvincial and National Assemblies.\"\n\nDry and simple as these Resolutions look, they were the outcome of\nfifteen months of deliberation, and they were of immense significance.\nThey declared it to be the will of Parliament that England thenceforth\nshould be a Presbyterian country, like Scotland. Just as Scotland was a\nlittle country, with her 1,000 parishes or so, the inhabitants of each of\nwhich were understood to form a particular congregation, meeting statedly\nfor worship, and taught and spiritually disciplined by one Minister and\ncertain other church-officers called Lay Elders, so England was to be a\nlarge country of some 10,000 or 12,000 parishes and parochial\ncongregations, each after the same fashion. As in Scotland the parishes\nor congregations, though mainly managing each its own affairs, were not\nindependent, but were bound together in groups by the device of\nPresbyteries, or periodical courts consisting of the ministers and ruling\nelders of a certain number of contiguous parishes meeting to hear appeals\nfrom congregations, and otherwise exercise government, so the ten times\nmore numerous parishes of England were similarly to be grouped into\nPresbyteries or Classes (Classes was the more favourite English term),\neach Classis containing some ten or twelve congregations. Thus in London\nalone, where there were about 120 parishes, there ought to be about\ntwelve Classes or Presbyteries. Finally, the Presbyteries were to be\ninterconnected, and their proceedings supervised, as in, Scotland, by\nperiodical Synods of the ministers and ruling elders of many\nPresbyteries--say of all the Presbyteries of one large shire, or of\nseveral small shires taken as a convenient ecclesiastical district. In\nScotland the practice was for all the ministers and ruling elders within\nthe bounds of a Provincial Synod to attend the Synod personally; but in\nEngland, on account of her size, the plan of Synods of elected\nrepresentatives might be advisable--which, however, would not affect the\nprinciple. In any case, the annual National Assembly of the whole Church,\nwhich, under the new Presbyterian system, would be to England the same\nEcclesiastical Parliament that the General Assembly in Edinburgh was to\nScotland, must necessarily, like that Assembly, be constituted\nrepresentatively. Nothing less than all this was implied in the eight\nResolutions of the Commons on Friday, Jan. 23, 1644-5. By an order of\nMonday the 27th, however, Mr. Rous, who had been commissioned to report\nthe Resolutions to the Lords, was instructed to report only four of\nthem,--the 3rd, the 6th, the 7th, and the 8th. The answer of the Lords on\nthe following day was \"That this House agrees with the House of Commons\nin all the Votes now brought up concerning Church-government.\" In\nrefraining from sending up all the eight Votes, the Commons appear to\nhave thought it best not yet positively to determine against the\nCongregationalists on one or two points, including that of strict\nparochialism. But in the four Votes sent up to the Lords and agreed to by\nthem, all the essentials of Presbytery were involved; so that from the\n28th of January 1644-5 it stood registered in the Acts of Parliament that\nEngland should, be Presbyterianized. [Footnote: Commons and Lords\nJournals of dates given.]\n\nAt this stage of the proceedings we may leave the Westminster Assembly\nfor a while. On the 26th of December, Johnstone of Warriston and Mr.\nBarclay had left it, in order to be present at the Scottish Convention of\nEstates, which was to meet at Edinburgh on the 7th of January; [Footnote:\nBaillie, II. 251.] and on the 6th of January Baillie and Gillespie left\nit, on a weary horse-journey, in order to be present at the General\nAssembly of the Scottish Kirk, which was to meet at the same place on the\n22nd. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 250.]  Henderson and Rutherford remained in\nLondon. What tidings were carried by the Scottish Commissioners to\nEdinburgh of the great things which the Lord had up to that time done for\nthe cause of Presbytery and true Religion in England may be read to this\nday in the records of the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish General\nAssembly of 1645. Baillie's exulting speech in the Assembly is really\nworth reading. [Footnote: It is given in Baillie's Letters, II. 255-257.\nBut see also Letter of Scottish Commissioners and Letter of Westminster\nAssembly to the Scottish General Assembly, both of date Jan. 6, 1645, in\nActs of General Assembly of the Kirk.] Suffice it to say here that there\nwas great rejoicing in Edinburgh and in all Scotland; that the General\nAssembly unanimously ratified the Westminster Directory of Worship (Feb.\n3) and the Westminster Frame of Presbyterial government (Feb. 10); and\nthat the Scottish Parliament (Feb. 6) approved and established, for\nScotland, the Directory already established for England. Let us add that\nBaillie had a pleasant holiday, revisited his wife and family in Glasgow,\nand would fain have been allowed to remain in his own country\nthenceforth. But this could not be. Both he and Gillespie had to obey\norders, and prepare, with sighs, for a return to London in March.\n\n\nSTATE OF THE WAR: SELF-DENYING ORDINANCE AND NEW MODEL.\n\nDuring the six months the transactions of which, as far as the\nWestminster Assembly was concerned, we have thus presented in summary\n(Sept. 1644-March 1645), the hurry of more general events in England had\nbeen very marked. Of what use was the preparation of a Presbyterian Form\nof Church-government, and a Presbyterian Directory of Worship, for\nEngland, so long as it remained uncertain whether England might not be\nonce again the King's, and the Parliament under his feet? And, really,\nthere was this danger. Marston Moor had been a great blow to the King: it\nhad spoilt his cause in the whole of the North. But Essex's defeat in\nCornwall (Sept. 1) had come as a terrible set-off, In the confidence of\nthat victory, the King was on the move out of the West back to Oxford\n(Sept. 30), sending proclamations before him, and threatening a march\nupon London itself. The taking of Newcastle by the Scots under Leven\n(Oct. 19) was a return of good fortune for the Parliament at the right\nmoment; at least it provided the Londoners again with their long-missed\ncoals. But it had come now to be a contest between the King's main force\nand the combined forces of Parliament in the South-English midlands. In\nthe second Battle of Newbury (Sunday, Oct. 27) the issue was tried--the\nEarl of Manchester's army, with Cromwell second in it, having been joined\nto the recruited armies of Essex and Waller in order to resist the King.\nManchester and Waller were the real Parliamentary commanders, Essex being\nill. It was a severe battle. The King had, on the whole, the worst; but\nhe got off, as Cromwell and others thought, less thoroughly beaten than\nhe ought to have been. [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 721-730; Carlyle's\nCromwell (ed. 1857), I. l59.] From the date of this second Battle of\nNewbury, accordingly, Cromwell became the spokesman of a dissatisfaction\nwith the military and political conduct of the cause of Parliament as\ndeep and as wide-spread throughout England as that dissatisfaction with\nthe conduct of the religious question of which he had made himself the\nspokesman six weeks before.\n\nWhat Cromwell had thought when he moved the Accommodation Order of Sept.\n13 had been virtually this: \"Here are you discoursing about strict\nPresbytery and what differences from it may be tolerated, when the real\nquestion is whether we shall have a free England for Presbytery or\nanything else to exist in, and how we can carry with us all honest men\nwho will fight to make such a free England.\" And now, when, after the\nsecond Battle of Newbury, he again reappeared in Parliament, it was in\nthis prolongation, or profounder state, of the same mood:--\"The time has\ncome when I must speak out. We, of this nation, must turn over a new\nleaf. We have been fighting the King now for more than two years, and we\nare very much as we were when we began. And why? Because the men who\ncommand our armies against the King do not want really to beat him;\nbecause they want only to _seem_ to be beating him; because the\npicture they love to look on, as their heaven on earth to come, is a\npicture of their gracious sovereign, after he has been beaten no more\nthan could be helped, surrounded by themselves as his reconciled and\npardoned ministers and chatting pleasantly with them over the deeds of\nthe campaigns. I say nothing personally of my Lord of Essex, or of Sir\nWilliam Waller: they are most honourable men. But I speak generally as I\nfeel. If the King is to be beaten, it can only be by generals who want to\nbeat him, who will beat him to bits, who will use all means to beat him,\nwho will gladly see in their armies the men who have the right\n_spirit_ in them for beating him. Are these the Presbyterians only?\nI trow not. I know my men; and I tell you that many of those that you\ncall Independents, that you call Anabaptists, Sectaries, and what not,\nare among the stoutest and godliest in England, and will go as far as\nany. Some weeks ago I complained to you of Major-general Crawford,\nbecause he would trouble these men, and would have no soldiers of\nParliament in my Lord Manchester's army that did not agree with his own\nnotions of Religion and Church-government. _Now_ I complain of my\nLord Manchester himself. In this last Battle of Newbury, I tell you, the\nKing was beaten less than he might have been. He was allowed to get off.\nI advised pursuing him, and my Lord Manchester would not. It was that\nover again which has been from the first. And now I speak out what has\nlong been in my mind, and what brave men in thousands are thinking.\nBefore the Lord, we must turn over a new leaf in this War. We must have\nan Army of the right sort of men, and men of the right sort to command\nthat Army.\"\n\nThis is a purely imaginary speech of Cromwell's; but it is an accurate\nexpression of several months of English history. The shrewdest of men at\nall times, and also the most sincere, he was yet always the most\ntempestuous when the fit time came, and it was the characteristic of his\nlife that he carried everything before him at such times by his bursts\nand tempests. There can be no doubt that, after the second Battle of\nNewbury, Cromwell was in one of his paroxysms. Of his vehemence against\nManchester at that time, and of Manchester's recriminations on him, one\nmay read at large in Rushworth and elsewhere. [Footnote: Rushworth, V.\n732-736; Carlyle's Cromwell (ed. 1857), I. 159, 160.] The brief account\nof Baillie, who had not yet left London, and was in the centre of the\nwhole affair, will be sufficient here. \"Lieutenant-general Cromwell,\"\nwrites Baillie, Dec. 1, \"has publicly, in the House of Commons, accused\nmy Lord of Manchester of the neglect of fighting at Newbury. That neglect\nindeed was great; for, as we now are made sure, the King's army was in\nthat posture that they took themselves for lost all-utterly. Yet the\nfault is most in justly charged on Manchester: it was common to all the\ngeneral officers then present, and to Cromwell himself as much as to any\nother. Always my Lord Manchester has cleared himself abundantly in the\nHouse of Lords, and there has recriminate Cromwell as one who has avowed\nhis desire to abolish the nobility of England; who has spoken\ncontumeliously of the Scots' intention in coming to England to establish\ntheir Church-government, in which Cromwell said he would draw his sword\nagainst them; also against the Assembly of Divines; and has threatened to\nmake a party of Sectaries, to extort by force, both from King and\nParliament, what conditions they thought meet. This fire was long under\nthe emmers; now it's broken out, we trust, in a good time. It's like, for\nthe interest of our nation, we must crave reason of that darling of the\nSectaries [_i.e._ bring Cromwell to a reckoning], and, in obtaining\nhis removal from the army--which himself by his over-rashness has\nprocured--to break the power of that potent faction. This is our present\ndifficile enterprise: we had need of your prayers.\" [Footnote: Baillie,\nII. 243-245.] In this account Baillie mixes up the proceedings in the\nCommons on the 25th of November when Cromwell exhibited his charge\nagainst Manchester, and in the Lords a few days after when Manchester\ngave in his defence and countercharge, with current gossip, apparently\ntrue enough, of Cromwell and his awful sayings in private. Evidently\nBaillie thought Cromwell had ruined himself. Even the hero of Marston\nMoor could not beard all respectable England in this way, and it should\nnot be the fault of the Scottish Commissioners if he did not find himself\nshelved! Little did Baillie know with what great things, beyond all\nScottish power of resistance or machination, Cromwell's fury was\npregnant.\n\nWhile Baillie was writing the passage above quoted, the Scottish\nCommissioners, along with the Lord-general Essex, and some of Essex's\nchief adherents, including Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton, were\nconsulting how they might trip Cromwell up. At a conference late one\nnight at Essex-house, to which Whitlocke and Maynard were invited, the\nScottish Chancellor Loudoun moved the business warily in a speech which\nWhitlocke mischievously tries to report in its native Scotch--\"You ken\nvary weele that Lieutenant-general Cromwell is no friend of ours,\" &c.\n\"You ken vary weele the accord 'twixt the twa kingdoms\" &c. Loudoun\nwanted to know, especially from the two lawyers, whether the Scottish\nplan of procedure in such cases would have any chance in England, in\nother words whether Cromwell could be prosecuted as an _incendiary_;\nfor \"you may ken that by our law in Scotland we clepe him an\n_incendiary_ whay kindleth coals of contention and raiseth differences in\nthe State to the public damage.\" Whitlocke and Maynard satisfied his\nlordship that the thing was possible in law, but suggested the extreme\ndifficulty there would be in proof, represented Cromwell's great\ninfluence in the Parliament and the country, and in fact discouraged the\nnotion altogether. Holles, Stapleton, and others were still eager for\nproceeding, but the Scots were impressed and thought delay would be\nprudent. And so, Whitlocke tells us, the Presbyterian intriguers parted\nat two in the morning, and he had reason to believe that Cromwell knew\nall that had passed before many hours were over, and that this\nprecipitated what followed. [Footnote:  Whitlocke's Memorials (edit.\nOxford, 1853), I. 3l3 _et seq._]\n\nOn Wednesday the 9th of December, at all events, the Commons having met\nin grand committee on the condition of the kingdom through the\ncontinuance of the war, there was for a time a dead silence, as if\nsomething extraordinary was expected, and then Cromwell rose and made a\nshort speech. It was very solemn, and even calm, but so hazy and general\nthat the practical drift of it could not possibly have been guessed but\nfor the sequel. Almost the last words of the speech were, \"I hope we have\nsuch true English hearts, and zealous affections towards the general weal\nof our mother-country, as no members of either House will scruple to\n_deny themselves,_ and their own private interests, for the public\ngood.\" The words, vague enough in themselves, are memorable as having\nchristened by anticipation the measure for which Cromwell, as he uttered\nthem, was boring the way. For, after one or two more had spoken in the\nsame general strain, Mr. Zouch Tate, member for Northampton, did the duty\nassigned him, and opened the bag which contained the cat. He made a\ndistinct motion, which, when it had been seconded by young Vane, and\ndebated by others (Cromwell again saying a few words, and luminous enough\nthis time), issued in this resolution, \"That no member of either House of\nParliament shall during the war enjoy or execute any office or command,\nmilitary or civil; and that an ordinance be brought in to that effect.\"\nThis was on the 9th of December; and on the 19th of that month the\nordinance itself, having gone through all its stages, passed the Commons.\nAll London was astounded. \"The House of Commons,\" writes Baillie, Dec.\n26, \"in one hour has ended all the quarrels which was betwixt Manchester\nand Cromwell, all the obloquies against the General, the grumblings\nagainst the proceedings of many members of their House. They have taken\nall office from all members of both Houses. This, done on a sudden, in\none session, with great unanimity, is still more and more admired by\nsome, as a most wise, necessary, and heroic action; by others as the most\nrash, hazardous, and unjust action that ever Parliament did. Much may be\nsaid on both hands, but as yet it seems a dream, and the bottom of it is\nnot understood.\" To the House of Lords the _Self-denying Ordinance_\nwas by no means palatable. They demurred, conferred with the Commons\nabout it, and at last (Jan. 15) rejected it. Their chief ground of\nrejection being that they did not know what was to be the shape of the\nArmy to be officered on the new principle, the Commons immediately\nproduced their scheme in that matter. The existing armies were to be\nweeded, consolidated, and recruited into one really effective army of\n21,000 men (of which 6,000 should be horse in ten regiments, 1,000 should\nbe dragoons in ten single companies, and 14,000 should be foot in\nregiments of not less than 1,200 each), the whole to cost 44,955_l_.\nper month, to be raised by assessment throughout the kingdom. This army,\nit was farther resolved by the Commons (Jan. 21), should be commanded in\nchief by the trusty and popular Sir Thomas Fairfax, who had done so well\nin the North, and, under him, by the trusty and popular Major-general\nSkippon, whose character for bull-headed bravery even the disaster in\nCornwall had only more fully brought out. [Footnote: I find, from the\nCommons Journals, that there was a division on the question whether\nFairfax should be appointed commander-in-chief of the New Model--the\nstate of the vote being _Yeas_ 101 against _Noes_ 69, or a majority of 32\n_for_ the appointment. The Tellers for the majority were the younger Vane\nand Cromwell; for the minority, Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton.\nThere was a subsequent division, Feb. 7, on the question whether\nFairfax's choice of officers under him should be subject to Parliamentary\nrevision. Cromwell was one of the Tellers for the _Noes_--_i.e._ he\nwanted Fairfax to have full powers. The other side, however, beat this\ntime by a majority of 82 against 63. After all it was arranged\nsatisfactorily between Fairfax and Parliament.] On the 28th of January\nthe _New Model_ complete passed the Commons. The Lords hesitated about\nsome parts of it, and were especially anxious for a provision in it\nincapacitating all from being officers or soldiers in the new army who\nshould not have taken the Covenant: there were conferences on this point,\nand a kind of compromise on it by the Commons; and on the 15th of\nFebruary the _Ordinance for New Modelling of the Army_ was finally\npassed. The _Self-denying Ordinance_ was then re-introduced in a changed\nform, and it passed the Lords, April 3, 1645. It ordained that all\nmembers of either House who had since November 20, 1640, been appointed\nto any offices, military or civil, should, at the end of forty days from\nthe passing of the Ordinance, vacate these offices, but that all other\nofficers in commission on the 20th of March, 1644-5, should continue in\nthe posts they then held.\n\nThus the year 1645 (beginning, in English reckoning, March 25) opened\nwith new prospects. Essex, Manchester, Waller, and all the officers under\nthem, retired into ordinary life, with thanks and honours--Essex, indeed,\nwith a great pension; and the fighting for Parliament was thenceforward\nto be done mainly by a re-modelled Army, commanded by Fairfax, Skippon,\nand officers under them, whose faces were unknown in Parliament, and\nwhose business was to be to fight only and teach the art of fighting.\n\nIt was high time! For another long bout of negotiations with the King,\nbegun as early as Nov. 20, 1644, and issuing in a formal Treaty of great\nceremony, called \"The Treaty of Uxbridge,\" had ended, as usual, in no\nresult. Feb. 22, it had been broken off after such a waste of speeches\nand arguments on paper that the account of the Treaty occupies ten pages\nin Clarendon and fifty-six folio pages in Rushworth. It was clear that\nthe year 1645 was to be a year of continued war. [Footnote: For this\nstory of the Self-denying Ordinance and the New Modelling of the Army\nauthorities are--Rushworth, VI. 1-16; Baillie, II. 247; Carlyle's\nCromwell (ed. 1857), I. 160-163. The Uxbridge Treaty is narrated in\nClarendon's Hist. (one-volume ed. 1843), pp. 520-530, and in Rushworth,\nV. 787-842.]\n\n\nPARLIAMENTARY VENGEANCES: DEATH OF LAUD.\n\nEre we pass out of the rich general history of this year 1644, the year\nof Marston Moor, we must take note of a few vengeances and deaths with\nwhich it was wound up. The long-deferred trial of poor Laud, begun March\n12, 1643-4, after he had been more than three years a prisoner in the\nTower, and they might have left him there in quiet, had straggled on\nthrough the whole of 1644. The interest in it had run, like a red thread,\nthrough the miscellany of other events. The temper of the people had been\nmade fiercer by the length of the war, and there was a desire for the old\nman's blood. The Presbyterian ministers of the Assembly, I find, fostered\nthis desire. In that very sermon of Herbert Palmer's before Parliament\n(Aug. 13) in which he had called for the extirpation of heresy and\nschism, and denounced Milton, there was an express passage on the duty of\n\"doing justice upon Delinquents impartially and without respect of\npersons.\" [Footnote: Palmer's Sermon, p. 48.] Calamy in his sermon, Oct.\n22, followed, and told the Parliament, \"All the guilty blood that God\nrequires you in justice to shed, and you spare, God will require the\nblood at your hands.\" [Footnote: Calamy's Sermon, p. 27.] Mr. Francis\nWoodcock, preaching Oct. 30, was even more decided. His sermon, which was\non Rev. xvi. 15, is a very untastefully-worded discourse on the propriety\nof always being on the watch so as not to be taken by surprise without\none's garments; and, among the rather ludicrous images which his literal\ntreatment of the subject suggests, we come upon a passage describing one\nof four pieces of raiment which the State ought never to be caught\nwithout. He calls it the \"Robe of Justice,\" and adds, \"Would God this\nrobe were often worn, and dyed of a deeper colour in the blood of\nDelinquents. It is that which God and man calls for. God repeats it,\n_Justice, Justice_; we, echoing God, cry _Justice, Justice_; and let me\nsay, perhaps we should not see other garments so much rolled in blood,\ndid we not see these so little.\" [Footnote: Woodcock's Sermon, pp 30,\n31.] Baillie, I am glad to think, was more tender-hearted. There was,\nindeed, one Delinquent for whom Baillie would have had no mercy--Dr.\nMaxwell, the Scottish ex-Bishop of Ross, who had published at Oxford, in\nthe King's interest, \"a desperately malicious invective\" against Scottish\nPresbytery and its leaders. \"However I could hardly consent to the\nhanging of Canterbury himself, or of any Jesuit,\" Baillie had written,\nJuly 16, 1644, after his first indignant sight of this book, \"yet I could\ngive my sentence freely against that unhappy liar's [Maxwell's] life.\"\nBut, indeed, the Scottish Commissioners and the Scottish nation were\nconjoined as parties with the English Presbyterians and the English\nParliamentarians generally (Prynne ruthlessly busy in getting up the\nevidence) in the long prosecution of Laud. It was all over on the 10th of\nJanuary, 1644-5. On that day Laud, aged 72, laid his head upon the block\non a scaffold in Tower Hill. Hanging had been commuted, with some\ndifficulty, to beheading. He died brave, raspy, and High-Church to the\nlast. [Footnote: Rushworth's main account of the trial and last days of\nLaud is in Vol. V. pp, 763-786. The \"History of the Troubles and Tryal of\nWilliam Laud,\" edited by Wharton, in two vols. folio, appeared in 1695-\n1700.]--Minor executions about the same time were those of Hugh Macmahon\nand Lord Maguire for their concern in the Irish rebellion and massacre,\nSir Alexander Carew for treachery at Plymouth, and the Hothams, father\nand son, for treachery at Hull. One Roger L'Estrange, a younger son of a\nNorfolk family, had been condemned to be hanged in Smithfield for an\nunderhand attempt to win the town of Lynn for the King; but he was\nreprieved, lay in Newgate for some years, and lived for sixty years\nlonger, to be known, even in Queen Anne's time, as Sir Roger L'Estrange,\nthe journalist.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nMILTON AMONG THE SECTARIES, AND IN A \"WORLD OF DISESTEEM\": STORY OF MRS.\nATTAWAY--SAMUEL HARTLIB, JOHN DURIE, AND JOHN AMOS COMENIUS: SCHEMES OF A\nREFORMED EDUCATION, AND PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY--MILTON'S _TRACT\nON EDUCATION_, AND METHOD WITH HIS PUPILS--HIS SECOND DIVORCE TRACT,\nOR COMPILATION FROM BUCER--MR. HERBERT PALMER'S ATTACK ON MILTON FROM THE\nPULPIT--MILTON AND THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: THEIR ACCUSATION OF HIM IN A\nPETITION TO THE COMMONS--HIS _AREOPAGITICA_, OR SPEECH FOR THE\nLIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING--ANGER OF THE STATIONERS, AND THEIR\nCOMPLAINT AGAINST MILTON TO THE LORDS: CONSEQUENCE OF THE COMPLAINT--THE\nDIVORCE QUESTION CONTINUED: PUBLICATION OF MR. HERBERT PALMER'S SERMON,\nAND FARTHER ATTACKS ON MILTON BY PRYNNE, DR. FEATLEY, AND AN ANONYMOUS\nPAMPHLETEER--_TETRACHORDON AND COLASTERION_: THEIR REPLIES TO THE\nASSAILANTS.\n\n\nEver since August 1643, when Milton had published his extraordinary\n_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, but more especially since Feb.\n1643-4, when he had published the second and enlarged edition of it, with\nhis name in full, and the dedication to Parliament and the Westminster\nAssembly, his reputation with orthodox English society had been definite\nenough. He was one of those dreadful Sectaries! Nay he was a Sectary more\nodious than most; for his was a _moral_ heresy. What was Independency,\nwhat was Anabaptism, what was vague Antinomianism, compared with this\nheresy of the household, this loosening of the holy relation on which all\ncivil society depended? How detestable the doctrine that, when two\nmarried people found they had made a mistake in coming together, or at\nleast when the husband could declare before God and human witnesses his\nirreconcilable dissatisfaction with his wife, then it was right that the\ntwo should be separated, with liberty to each to find a new mate! True,\nit was an able man who had divulged this heresy, one who had brought\napplauses from Cambridge, who was said to have written beautiful English\npoems, who had served the cause of Parliament by some splendid pamphlets\nfor Church-reformation and against Episcopacy, and who had in these\npamphlets encountered even the great Bishop Hall. All this only made the\ndoctrine more dangerous, the aberration more lamentable. This Mr. Milton\nmust be avoided, and denounced as a Sectary of the worst kind! Some said\nit was all owing to the conduct of his wife, a rank Royalist, who had\ndeserted him and gone back to her friends! If that were the case, he was\nto be pitied; but perhaps there were two sides to that story too!\n\nThere must have been much gossip of this kind, about Milton and his\nDivorce Treatise, in the booksellers' shops near St. Paul's, and even\nround the Parliament in Westminster, in the early months of 1644. The\ngossip may have affected Milton's relations with some of his former\nfriends and acquaintances. If Bishop Hall, when he first saw the\ntreatise, and perceived its literary ability, \"blushed for his age\" that\nso \"scandalous\" a thing should have appeared, and if even Howell the\nletter-writer, in his prison, thought it the impudent production of \"a\npoor shallow-brained puppy,\" what could Milton's orthodox and reverend\nSmectymnuan friends--Marshall, Calamy, Young, Newcomen, and Spurstow--\nthink or say about it? Shocked they must have been; and, knowing Milton's\ntemper, and with what demeanour he would front any remonstrances of\ntheirs, they probably left him alone, and became scarcer in their visits\nto Aldersgate Street. It would not do to keep up the Smectymnuan\nconnexion too visibly after what had happened. Or, if Young could not\nbreak off so easily, but would still call to see his old pupil, and to\ntalk with old Mr. Milton about the Bread Street days, how the good man\nmust have yearned to speak sometimes when the old gentleman was out of\nthe way, and he and Milton were alone. \"O my dear Mr. Milton, how much we\nare all concerned about that pamphlet! I am not going to argue it with\nyou; I know you too well, and how little influence my reasonings could\nhave with you now in any such matter; and it is my comfort at least to be\nable to tell some of my Assembly friends that, if they knew you as well\nas I do, they would be sure that nothing you do but is done in a great\nspirit and with a high intention. But, dear me! it is a terrible opinion\nyou have broached!\" To something like this Milton may have listened, more\nor less patiently; or he may have imagined it in Young's mind, if it was\nnot uttered. The mutual regard between Young and his old pupil did not\nsuffer so much from the trial but that we find Milton still willing to\nacknowledge publicly the connexion that had subsisted between them.\n\nOn the whole, it is certain that one consequence of the outcry about\nMilton's treatise among the London Presbyterians, and especially among\nthe city clergy and the Divines of the Assembly, was to drive Milton more\narid more into the society of those who had begun to dislike and to dread\nthe ascendancy of the Presbyterians. Finding himself, almost from the\nfirst publication of the treatise, as he tells us, in \"a world of\ndisesteem\" on account of it, he naturally held intercourse more and more\nwith those who, though they may not have approved of _his_ particular\nheresy, yet, as being themselves voted heretics on other accounts, were\nmore easy in their judgments of all extreme opinions. I believe, in fact,\nthat, could Milton's acquaintanceships in London from the winter of 1643-\n4 onwards be traced and recovered, they would be found to have been\nchiefly among the Independents, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, and\nother Tolerationists. What were the religious opinions of the Lady\nMargaret Ley, that \"woman of great wit and ingenuity,\" and her husband\nCaptain Hobson, \"a very accomplished gentleman,\" with both of whom he was\nso intimate about this time, and who, as Phillips tells us, \"had a\nparticular honour for him and took much delight in his company,\" must be\nleft to conjecture. [Footnote: It has been in my mind whether the Captain\nHobson who was the Lady Ley's husband, and whom Dagdale describes as \"...\nHobson of... in the Isle of Wight, Esq.,\" can by possibility have been\nthe same person as the Baptist preacher, Paul Hobson, who was also a\nCaptain in the Parliamentary Army, and who figures much in Edwards's\n_Gangr\u00e6na_ and in other books of the time, under the express name of\n\"Captain Hobson,\" as a leading Sectary, though Edwards will have it that\nhe was originally \"a tailor from Buckinghamshire\" (_ant\u00e8_, p. 148). The\nsupposition seems so absurd that I hardly like to mention that I spent\nhours in turning over Paul Hobson's published sermons and Baptist\ntreatises in case I might come on any confirmation of it--which I did\n_not_.]\n\nFrom Milton's Sonnet to the Lady Margaret one may safely infer at least\nthat she was a woman of liberal principles as well as wit. Probably her\nhouse was the resort of a good many of what would now be called the\n\"advanced\" or \"strong-minded\" Christians of both sexes then in London;\nand Milton may there have extended his acquaintance with such, and have\neven been an object of peculiar interest to some of one sex, as \"that\nhandsome, fair gentleman, now talking to Lady Margaret, who is a great\nscholar and a poet, and whose wife has left him shamefully, so that he\nwants to be divorced from her, and has written a book which quite proves\nit.\" Milton's acquaintance with Roger Williams, at all events, is almost\ncertainly to be dated from Williams's visit to England in 1643-4, when he\nwas writing his _Bloody Tenent_; and if Milton, at the same time,\ndid not become acquainted with John Goodwin of Coleman Street, it would\nbe a wonder.\n\n\nSTORY OF MRS. ATTAWAY.\n\nWe must, I am sorry to say, descend lower in the society of London, in\nand about 1644, than the Lady Margaret Ley's drawing-room, or the level\nof marked men like Williams and Goodwin, if we would understand how\nMilton's Divorce opinion had begun to operate, and with what consequences\nof its operation his name was associated. The reader may remember a Mrs.\nAttaway, mentioned by us among both the Baptists and the Seekers, and as\nperhaps the most noted of all the women-preachers in London (_ant\u00e8_,\npp. 149, 153). She was, it seems, a \"lace-woman, dwelling in Bell Alley\nin Coleman Street,\" and preaching on week-day afternoons in that\nneighbourhood, with occasional excursions to other parts of the city\nwhere rooms could be had. Sometimes other \"preaching-women\" were with\nher, and the gatherings, though at first of her own sex only, soon\nattracted curious persons of the other. From the descriptions of what\npassed in some of them, it would appear that, though the meetings were\nfor worship, and there were regular discourses by Mrs. Attaway and\nothers, free talk and criticism was permitted to all present, so that the\nconventicle took on sometimes the aspect of a religious debating society.\nWell, Mrs. Attaway, among others, had got hold of Milton's Divorce\nTreatise, and had been reading it. \"Two gentlemen of the Inns of Court,\ncivil and well-disposed men,\" who had gone \"out of novelty\" to hear her,\nafterwards told _Gangr\u00e6na_ Edwards of some \"discourse they had had\nwith her.\" Among other passages she \"spoke to them of Master Milton's\n_Doctrine of Divorce_, and asked them what they thought of it;\nsaying \"it was a point to be considered of, and that she, for her part,\nwould look more into it, for she had an unsanctified husband, that did\nnot walk in the way of Sion, nor speak the language of Canaan.\" Edwards\ndoes not give the date of this conversation with Mrs. Attaway; and,\nthough presumably in 1644, it may have been later. He evidently\nintroduces it, however, in order to implicate Milton in the subsequent\nbreak-down, which he also reports, of the poor woman morally. For, if Mr.\nEdwards is to be believed, Mrs. Attaway did \"look more into\" Milton's\ndoctrine, and at length acted upon it. Some time in 1645 she abjured her\n\"unsanctified husband\" Mr. Attaway, who, besides being unsanctified, was\nthen absent in the army, leaving her alone in her lace-shop, and\ntransferred herself to a man named William Jenney, an occasional\npreacher, who was much more sanctified, and was also on the spot. Mr.\nJenney had, unfortunately, a wife already, some children by her, and one\nexpected; but ho too had been meditating on the Divorce Doctrine, and had\nused his Christian liberty. Mr. Edwards had been most particular in his\ninvestigations. He had actually procured from a sure hand the copies of\ntwo letters-taken from the original letters, and compared by a minister\nwith the originals--one of William Jenney to his wife since he went away\nwith Mistress Attaway, the other of Mistress Attaway to William Jenney\nbefore his going away.\" He refrains from printing the letters\n_verbatim_, as they were too long; but he gives extracts. \"I thought\ngood to write to you these few lines,\" writes Jenney to the deserted Mrs.\nJenney, Feb. 15, 1645, \"to tell you that, because you have been to me\nrather a disturber of my body and soul than to be a meet help for me----\nbut I silence! And, for looking for me to come to you again, I shall\nnever come to you again any more. I shall send unto you never no more\nconcerning anything.\" If this actually was Jenney's letter, Mrs. Attaway\nwas worth ten of him, and deserved a better second. \"Dearest friend and\nwell-beloved in the Lord,\" so she had begun the letter sent to him while\nhe was still Mrs. Jenney's, and which had got into Mrs. Jenney's hands,\n\"I am unspeakably sorry in respect of thy sufferings, I being the object\nthat occasioned it.\" The sufferings were Mrs. Jenney's bastings of him\nbecause he was always with Mrs. Attaway. In good time, Mrs. Attaway goes\non to say, he would be delivered from these. \"When Jehoshaphat knew not\nwhat to do, he looked to the Lord. Let _us_ look to Him, believing\nconfidently in Him with the faith of Jesus; and no question but we shall\nbe delivered. In the mean season I shall give up my heart and affections\nto thee in the Lord; and, whatsoever I have or am in Him which is our\nHead, thou shalt command it.\" The event, according to Edwards, was that\nMr. Jenney and Mrs. Attaway eloped together, Mrs. Attaway having\npersuaded Jenney that she should never die, but that, in obedience to a\nheavenly message, they must go to Jerusalem, and repair that city in\nanticipation of the bringing of all the Saints to it in ships to be sent\nfrom Tarshish. I suspect they went only to Jericho. [Footnote: This story\nof Mrs. Attaway is from Edwards's _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part II. pp. 31, 32, 113-\n115; _Fresh Discovery_, appended to Second Part of _Gangr\u00e6na_, p. 9; and\nThird Part of _Gangr\u00e6na_, pp. 25-27 and 188. See also Baillie's\n_Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. l00 and 123-4.]\n\nAll this on the faith of Mr. Edwards's statements in the _Gangr\u00e6na_.\nBut really one should not judge of even a poor enthusiastic woman, dead\ntwo hundred years ago, on that sole authority. Never was there a more\nnauseous creature of the pious kind than this Presbyterian Paul Pry of\n1644-46. He revelled in scandals, and kept a private office for the\nreceipt of all sorts of secret information, by word of mouth or letter,\nthat could be used against the Independents and the Sectaries. [Footnote:\nRichard Baxter, as he himself tells us, sent communications from the\ncountry to Edwards. His correspondents were legion, but he concealed\ntheir names.] Yet there was a kind of coarse business-like\nconscientiousness in the toad; and, though he was credulous and\nunscrupulous in his collections of scandal, I do not believe he invented\ndocuments or lied deliberately. I do not doubt, therefore, that Mrs.\nAttaway, whether she went ultimately to Jericho or to Jerusalem, did know\nof Milton's Divorce Doctrine, and had extracted suggestions from it\nsuitable to her circumstances. For, indeed, the Doctrine was likely to\nfind not a few whose circumstances it suited. Mr. Edwards's book is\nstrewn with instances of persons who had even found out a tantamount\ndoctrine for themselves--men who had left their wives, or wanted to do\nso, and wives who had left their husbands, and who, without having seen\nMilton's treatise, defended their act or their wish on grounds of\nreligion and natural law. Nay, in the frenzy of inquiry which had taken\npossession of the English mind, everything appertaining to Marriage and\nthe Marriage-institution was being plucked up for fundamental re-\ninvestigation. There were actually persons who were occupying themselves\nintently with questioning the forbidden degrees of Consanguinity and\nAffinity in marriage, and who had not only come to the easy conclusion\nthat marriage with a deceased wife's sister is perfectly legitimate, but\nhad worked out a general theologico-physiological speculation to the\neffect that the marriage of near relatives is in all cases peculiarly\nproper, and perhaps the more proper in proportion to the nearness of the\nrelationship. This, I imagine, was a very small sect. [Footnote: But,\nunless Edwards and Baillie were both wrong, there _was_ some such\nsect. See _Gangr\u00e6na_, Part III. p. 187, and, more particularly,\nBaillie's _Dissuasive_, Part II. pp. 100 and 122-3.]\n\nLet us re-ascend into more pleasant air. There was one rather notable\nperson in London, of the highly respectable sort, though, decidedly among\nthe free opinionists, whose acquaintance Milton did make about this time,\nif he had not made it before, and who must be specially introduced to the\nreader. This was SAMUEL HARTLIB.\n\n\nSAMUEL HARTLIB: JOHN DURIE: JOHN AMOS COMENIUS, AND HIS SPECULATIONS\nABOUT A REFORMED EDUCATION--PROJECT OF A LONDON UNIVERSITY.\n\nEverybody knew Hartlib. He was a foreigner by birth, being the son of a\nPolish merchant, of German extraction, who had left Poland when that\ncountry fell under Jesuit rule, and had settled in Elbing in Prussia in\nvery good circumstances. Twice married before to Polish ladies, this\nmerchant had married, in Prussia, for his third wife, the daughter of a\nwealthy English merchant of Dantzic; and thus our Hartlib, their son,\nthough Prussian-born and with Polish connexions, could reckon himself\nhalf-English. The date of his birth was probably about the beginning of\nthe century, _i.e._ he may have been eight or ten years older than\nMilton. He appears to have first visited England in or about 1628, and\nfrom that time, though he made frequent journeys to the Continent, London\nhad been his head-quarters. Here, with a residence in the City, he had\ncarried on business as a \"merchant,\" with extensive foreign\ncorrespondences, and very respectable family connexions. One of his aunts\n(sisters of his mother) had married a Mr. Clark, the son of a former Lord\nMayor of London, and afterwards a Sir Richard Smith, Knight and Privy\nCouncillor, and again a Sir Edward Savage. The other aunt had married a\ncountry gentleman, named Peak. A cousin of Hartlib's, the daughter of the\nfirst and wealthier aunt, Lady Smith, became the wife of Sir Anthony\nIrby, M.P. for Boston in the Long Parliament. But it did not require such\nfamily connexions to make Hartlib at home in English society. The\ncharacter of the man would have made him at home anywhere. He was one of\nthose persons, now styled \"philanthropists\" or \"friends of progress,\" who\ntake an interest in every question or project of their time promising\nsocial improvement, have always some iron in the fire, are constantly\nforming committees or writing letters to persons of influence, and\naltogether live for the public. By the common consent of all who have\nexplored the intellectual and social history of England in the\nseventeenth century, he is one of the most interesting and memorable\nfigures of that whole period. He is interesting both for what he did\nhimself and also on account of the number and intimacy of his contacts\nwith other interesting people. [Footnote: Memoir of Hartlib by H. Dircks,\npp 2-6, where there are extracts from an autobiographical letter of\nHartlib to Worthington, written in 1660. \"The Diary and Correspondence of\nDr. John Worthington,\" edited by James Crossley, Esq., F.S.A. (Chetham\nSociety), contains many letters from Hartlib to Worthington, between 1655\nand 1662, but not this one. Mr. Crossley's Diary and Correspondence of\nWorthington, so far as it has gone, is one of the best edited books known\nto me, the footnotes being very nuggets of biographical lore; and it is\nto be regretted that the connected notices of Worthington, Hartlib, and\nDurie, postponed by Mr. Crossley until the work should be completed, have\nnot yet appeared.]\n\nAn early friend of Hartlib, associated with him long before the date at\nwhich we are now arrived, was that John Durie of whom, and his famous\nscheme for a union of all the Protestant Churches of Europe, we have\nalready had to take some account (Vol. II. pp. 367-8 and 517-8). Their\nintimacy must have begun in Hartlib's native town of Elbing in Prussia,\nwhere, I now find, Durie was residing in 1628, as minister to the English\ncompany of merchants in the town, and where, in that very year, I also\nnow find, Durie had the great idea of his life first suggested to him by\nthe Swedish Dr. Godeman. [Footnote: The proof is in statements of\nHartlib's own in a Tract of his published in 1641 under the title of \"A\nBriefe Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure\nEcclesiasticall Peace amongst Protestants.\"] Among Durie's first\ndisciples in the idea must certainly have been Hartlib; and it does not\nseem improbable that, when Hartlib left Prussia, in or about 1628, to\nsettle in England, it was with an understanding that he was to be an\nagent or missionary for Durie's idea among the English. That he did so\nact, and that he was little less of an enthusiast for Durie's idea than\nDurie himself, there is the most positive evidence. Thus, in a series of\nletters, preserved in the State Paper Office, from Durie abroad to the\ndiplomatist Sir Thomas Roe, of various dates between April 1633 and Feb.\n1637-8, there is incessant mention of Hartlib. In the first of these\nletters, dated from Heilbron April 2/12, 1633, Durie, among other things,\nbegs Roe \"to help Mr. Hartlib with a Petition of Divines of those\nquarters concerning an Edition of a Body of Divinity gathered out of\nEnglish authors, a work which will be exceeding profitable, but will\nrequire divers agents and an exact ordering of the work.\" In a subsequent\nletter Durie speaks of having sent Roe, \"by Mr. Hartlib, whose industry\nis specially recommended,\" an important proposition made by the Swedish\nChancellor Oxenstiern; and in still later letters Roe is requested by\nDurie to show Hartlib not only Durie's letters to himself, but also\nletters about the progress of his scheme which he has enclosed to Roe for\nthe Archbishop of Canterbury (Abbot) and the Bishop of London (Laud). At\nthis point, accordingly, July 20, 1633, there is a letter of Roe's to the\nArchbishop, from which it appears that Hartlib was made the bearer of\nDurie's letter to his Grace. Roe recommends the blessed work in which\nDurie is engaged, says that it seems to him and Durie that \"there is\nnothing wanting but the public declaration of his Majesty and the Church\nof England\" in its favour, and beseeches the Archbishop \"to give his\ncountenance to the bearer,\" described in the margin as \"Mr. Hartlib, a\nPrussian.\" As Abbot was then within fifteen days of his death, nothing\ncan have come of the application to him; and, as we already know, his\nsuccessor Laud was a far less hopeful subject for Durie's idea, even\nthough recommended by Roe and explained by Hartlib. In fact, he thought\nit mischievous moonshine; and, instead of giving Durie the encouragement\nwhich he wanted, he wrote to the English agent at Frankfort, instructing\nhim to show Durie no countenance whatever. Durie felt the rebuff sorely.\nIn England, he writes, he must depend now chiefly on Roe, who could still\ndo much privately, apart from Laud's approbation. \"Mr. Hartlib will send\nanything to Durie which Roe would have communicated to him in a secret\nway.\" So in June 1634; and fourteen months later (Aug. 1635) Durie, who\nhad meanwhile removed to the Hague, again writes to Roe and again relies\non Hartlib. The Dutch, he says, are slow to take up his scheme; and he\ncan think of nothing better in the circumstances than that Roe in England\nshould collect \"all the advices and comments of the best divines of the\nage\" on the subject, and have them printed. His very best agent in such a\nbusiness would be Hartlib, \"a man well known, beloved and trusted by all\nsides, a man exceeding painful, diligent and cordially affected to these\nendeavours, and one that for such works had lost himself by too much\ncharity.\" On independent grounds it would be well to find him \"some place\nsuitable for his abilities, which might rid him of the undeserved\nnecessities whereunto his public-heartedness had brought him;\" but in\nthis special employment he would be invaluable, being \"furnished with the\nPolish, Dutch, English, and Latin languages, perfectly honest and trusty,\ndiscreet, and well versed in affairs.\" In the same strain in subsequent\nletters. Thus, from Amsterdam Dec. 7/17, Roe is thanked for having\nbestowed some gratuity on Hartlib, and Hartlib is described as, next to\nRoe, \"the man in the world whom Durie loves and honours most for his\nvirtues and good offices in Durie's cause.\" At the same time Durie \"prays\nGod to free Hartlib from his straits and set him a little on horseback,\"\nand adds, \"His spirit is so large that it has lost itself in zeal to good\nthings.\" Again, from Amsterdam Jan 25/Feb 4, 1635-6, Durie writes to Roe\nand encloses a letter to be sent to his (Durie's) diocesan in Hartlib's\nbehalf. \"Mr. Hartlib,\" Durie says to Roe, \"has furnished his lordship\n(the diocesan) with intelligence from foreign parts for two or three\nyears, and has not yet got any consideration. Perhaps his lordship knows\nnot how Hartlib has fallen into decay for being too charitable to poor\nscholars, and for undertaking too freely the work of schooling and\neducation of children. If Hartlib and Roe were not in England, Durie\nwould despair of doing any good.\" The diocesan referred to is probably\nJuxon, Bishop of London; but, two years later, we find Roe recommending\nDurie's business and Hartlib personally to another prelate, Bishop Morton\nof Durham. Writing from St. Martin's Lane, Feb. 17, 1637-8, Sir Thomas\n\"presents the Bishop with a letter from Mr. Durie, and one from Durie to\nthe writer, from which the Bishop may collect his state, and his constant\nresolution to pursue his business as long as God gives him bread to eat.\nSuch a spirit the writer has never met, daunted with nothing, and only\nrelying upon Providence. ... Sir Thomas in Michaelmas term sent the\nBishop a great packet from Samuel Hartlib, correspondent of Durie, an\nexcellent man, and of the same spirit. If the Bishop like his way,\nHartlib will constantly write to him, and send all the passages both of\nlearning and public affairs, no man having better information, especially\n_in re literari\u00e2_.\" [Footnote: The quotations in this paragraph are\nfrom the late Mr. Brace's accurate abstracts of Durie's and Roe's letters\n(sixteen in all) given in the six volumes of Calendars of the Domestic\nState Papers from 1633 to 1638.]\n\nThese letters enable us to see Hartlib as he was in 1637, a Prussian\nnaturalized in London, between thirty and forty years of age, nominally a\nmerchant of some kind, but in reality a man of various hobbies, and\nconducting a general news-agency, partly as a means of income and partly\nfrom sheer zeal in certain public causes interesting to himself. His zeal\nin this way, and in private benevolences to needy scholars and inventors,\nhad even outrun prudence; so that, though he could reckon his means at\nbetween 300_l_. and 400_l_. a year, [Footnote: This appears from the\nletter of his to Worthington, of date Aug. 3, 1660, quoted in Dircks's\nMemoir (p. 4), where he says, \"Let it not seem a paradox to you, if I\ntell you, as long as I have lived in England, by wonderful providences, I\nhave spent yearly out of my own betwixt 300_l._ and 400_l._ sterling a\nyear.\"] that had not sufficed for his openhandedness. Durie's great\nproject for a reconciliation of the Calvinists and Lutherans, and a union\nof all the Protestant Churches of Europe on some broad basis of mutual\ntolerance or concession, had hitherto been his hobby in chief. He had\nother hobbies, however, of a more literary nature, and of late he had\nbeen undertaking too freely some work appertaining to \"the schooling and\neducation of children.\"\n\nThis last fact, which we learn hazily from Durie's letters and Roe's, we\nshould have known, abundantly and distinctly, otherwise. There are two\npublications of Hartlib's, of the  years 1637 and 1638 respectively, the\nfirst of a long and varied series that were to come from his pen. Now,\nboth of these are on the subject of Education. \"_Conatuum Comenianorum\nPr\u00e6ludia, ex Bibliothec\u00e2 S. H.: Oxoni\u00e6, Excudebat Gulielmus Turnerus,\nAcademia Typographus_, 1637\" (\"Preludes of the Endeavours of Comenius,\nfrom the Library of S. H.: Oxford, Printed by William Turner, University\nPrinter, 1637\")--such is the general title of the first of these\npublications. It is a small quarto, and consists first of a Preface\n\"_Ad Lectorem_\" (to the Reader), signed \"Samuel Hartlibius,\" and\nthen of a foreign treatise which it is the object of the publication to\nintroduce to the attention of Oxford and of the English nation; which\ntreatise has this separate title:--\"_Porta Sapienti\u00e6 Reserata; sive\nPansophi\u00e6 Christian\u00e6 Seminarium: hoc est, Nova, Compendiosa et Solida\nomnes Scientias et Artes, et quicquid manifesti vel occulti est quod\ningenio humano penetrare, solerti\u00e6 imitari, linguae eloqui, datur,\nbrevius, verius, melius, quam hactenus, Addiscendi Methodus: Auctore\nReverendo Clarissimoque viro Domino Johanne Amoso Comenio_\" (\"The Gate\nof Wisdom Opened; or the Seminary of all Christian Knowledge: being a\nNew, Compendious, and Solid Method of Learning, more briefly, more truly,\nand better than hitherto, all Sciences and Arts, and whatever there is,\nmanifest or occult, that it is given to the genius of man to penetrate,\nhis craft to imitate, or his tongue to speak: The author that Reverend\nand most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos Comenius\"). So far as I have\nbeen able to trace, this is the first publication bearing the name of\nHartlib. Copies of it must be scarce, but there is at least one in the\nBritish Museum. There also is a copy of what, on the faith of an entry in\nthe Registers of the Stationers' Company, I have to record as his second\npublication. \"Oct. 17, 1638: Samuel Gillebrand entered for his copy,\nunder the hands of Mr. Baker and Mr. Rothwell, warden, a Book called\n_Comenii Pansophi\u00e6 Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio_ (Comenius's\nHarbinger of Universal Knowledge and Treatise on Education), published by\nSam. Hartlib.\" [Footnote: My notes from Stationers' Registers.] When the\nthing actually appeared, in small duodecimo, it had the date \"1639\" on\nthe title-page.\n\nThe canvas becomes rather crowded; but I am bound to introduce here to\nthe reader \"that reverend and most distinguished man, Mr. John Amos\nComenius,\" who had been winning on Hartlib's heart by his theories of\nEducation and Pansophia, prepossessed though that heart was by Durie and\nhis scheme of Pan-Protestantism.\n\nHe was an Austro-Slav, born in 1592, at Comnia in Moravia, whence his\nname Jan Amos Komensky, Latinized into Joannes Amosius Comenius. His\nparents were Protestants of the sect known as the Bohemian or Moravian\nBrethren, who traced their origin to the followers of Huss. Left an\norphan in early life, he was poorly looked after, and was in his\nsixteenth year before he began to learn Latin. Afterwards he studied in\nvarious places, and particularly at Herborn in the Duchy of Nassau;\nwhence he returned to his native Moravia in 1614, to become Rector of a\nschool at Prerau. Here it was that he first began to study and practise\nnew methods of teaching, and especially of grammatical teaching, induced,\nas he himself tells us, by the fame of certain speculations on that\nsubject which had recently been put forth by Wolfgang Ratich, an\nEducational Reformer then very active in Germany. From Prerau Comenius\nremoved in 1618 to Fulneck, to be pastor to a congregation of Moravian\nBrethren there; but, as he conjoined the charge of a new school with his\npastorate, he continued his interest in new methods of education.\nManuscripts of schoolbooks which he was preparing on his new methods\nperished, with his library, in a sack of Fulneck in 1621 by the\nSpaniards; and in 1624, on an edict proscribing all the Protestant\nministers of the Austrian States, Comenius lost his living, and took\nrefuge in the Bohemian mountains with a certain Baron Sadowski of\nSlaupna. In this retreat he wrote, in 1627, a short educational Directory\nfor the use of the tutor of the baron's sons. But, the persecution waxing\nfurious, and 30,000 families being driven out of Bohemia for their\nProtestantism, Comenius had to migrate to Poland It was with a heavy\nheart that lie did so: and, as he and his fellow-exiles crossed the\nmountain-boundary on their way, they looked back on Moravia and Bohemia,\nand, falling on their knees, prayed God not to let His truth fail utterly\nout of those hinds, but to preserve a remnant in them for himself. Leszno\nin Poland was Comenius's new refuge. Here again he employed himself in\nteaching; and here, in a more systematic manner than before, he pursued\nhis speculations on the science of teaching and on improved methods for\nthe acquisition of universal knowledge. He read, he tells us, all the\nworks he could find on the subject of Didactics by predecessors or\ncontemporaries, such as Ratich, Ritter, Glaumius, Wolfstirn, C\u00e6cilius,\nand Joannes Valentinus Andre\u00e6, and also the philosophical works of\nCampanella and Lord Bacon; but he combined the information so obtained\nwith his own ideas and experience. The results he seems mainly to have\njotted down, for future use, in various manuscript papers in his Slavic\nvernacular, or in German, or in Latin; but in 1631 he was induced by the\ncurators of the school at Leszno to send to the press in Latin one book\nof a practical and particular nature. This was a so-called \"_Janua\nLinguarum Reserata_,\" or \"Gate of Languages Opened,\" propounding a\nmethod which he had devised, and had employed at Leszno, for rapidly\nteaching Latin, or any other tongue, and at the same time communicating\nthe rudiments of useful knowledge. The little book, though he thought it\na trifle, made him famous. \"It happened, as I could not have imagined\npossible,\" he himself writes, \"that that puerile little work was received\nwith a sort of universal applause by the learned world. This was\ntestified by very many persons of different countries, both by letters to\nmyself congratulating me earnestly on the new invention, and also by\ntranslations into the various popular tongues, undertaken as if in\nrivalry with each other. Not only did editions which we have ourselves\nseen appear in all the European tongues, twelve in number--viz. Latin,\nGreek, Bohemian, Polish, German. Swedish, Dutch, English, French,\nSpanish, Italian, and Hungarian; but it was translated, as we have\nlearnt, into such Asiatic tongues as the Arabic, the Turkish, the\nPersian, and even the Mongolian.\"\n\nThe process which Comenius thus describes must have extended over several\nyears. There are traces of knowledge of him, and of his _Janua\nLinguarum Reserata_, in England as early as 1633. In that year a\nThomas Home, M.A., then a schoolmaster in London, but afterwards Master\nof Eton, put forth a \"_Janua Linguarum_\" which is said by Anthony\nWood to have been taken, \"all or most,\" from Comenius. An actual English\ntranslation or expansion of Comenius's book, by a John Anchoran,\nlicentiate in Divinity, under the title of \"The Gate of Tongues Unlocked\nand Opened: or else A Summary or Seed-Plot of all Tongues and Sciences,\"\nreached its \"fourth edition much enlarged\" in 1639, and may be presumed\nto have been in circulation, in other forms, some years before. But the\ngreat herald of Comenius and his ideas among the English was Samuel\nHartlib. Not only may he have had to do with the importation of\nComenius's _Janua Linguarum_ and the recommendation of that book to\nsuch pedagogues as Home and Anchoran; but he was instrumental in\nextracting from Comenius, while that book and certain appendices to it\nwere in the flush of their first European popularity, a summary of his\nreserved and more general theories and intentions in the field of\nDidactics. The story is told very minutely by Comenius himself.\n\nThe _Janua Linguarum Reserata_ was only a proposed improvement in\nthe art of teaching Language or Words; and ought not a true system of\neducation to range beyond that, and provide for a knowledge of Things?\nThis was what Comenius was thinking: he was meditating a sequel to his\npopular little book, to be called \"_Janua Rerum Reserata\" or \"Gate of\nThings Opened,\" and to contain an epitome or encyclop\u00e6dia of all\nessential knowledge, under the three heads of Nature, Scripture, and the\nMind of Man. Nay, borrowing a word which had appeared as the title of a\nsomewhat meagre Encyclop\u00e6dia of the Arts by a Peter Laurenbergius,\nComenius had resolved on _Pansophia_, or _Pansophia Christiana_\n(\"Universal Wisdom,\" or \"Universal Christian Wisdom\"), as a fit\nalternative name for this intended _Janua Rerum_. But he was keeping the\nwork back, as one requiring leisure, and could only be persuaded to let\nthe announcement of its title appear in the Leipsic catalogue of\nforthcoming books. By that time, however, Hartlib of London had become so\ndear a friend to Comenius that he could refuse _him_ nothing. Whether\nthere had been any prior personal acquaintance between Hartlib and\nComenius, by reason of their German and Slavic connexions, I cannot say.\nBut, since the publication of the _Janua Linguarum_, Hartlib had been in\ncorrespondence with Comenius in his Polish home; and, by 1636, his\ninterest in the designs of Comenius, and willingness to forward them, had\nbecome so well known in the circle of the admirers of Comenius that he\nhad been named as one of the five chief Comenians in Europe, the other\nfour being Zacharias Schneider of Leipsic, Sigismund Evenius of Weimar,\nJohn Mochinger of Dantzic, and John Docemius of Hamburg. Now, Hartlib,\nhaving heard of the intended _Janua Rerum_ or _Pansophia_ of Comenius,\nnot only in the Leipsic catalogue of forthcoming works, but also, more\nparticularly, from some Moravian students passing through London, had\nwritten to Comenius, requesting some sketch of it. \"Being thus asked,\"\nsays Comenius, \"by the most intimate of my friends, a man piously eager\nfor the public good, to communicate some idea of my future work, I did\ncommunicate to him in writing, in a chance way, what I had a thought of\nprefixing some time or other to the work in the form of a Preface; and\nthis, beyond my hope, and without my knowledge, was printed at Oxford,\nunder the title of _Conatuum Comenianorum Pr\u00e6ludia_.\" Here we have the\nwhole secret of that publication from the Oxford University press, in\n1637, which was edited by Hartlib and announced as being from his\nLibrary. It was not a reprint of anything that had already appeared\nabroad, but was in fact a new treatise by the great Comenius which\nHartlib had persuaded the author to send him from Poland and had\npublished on his own responsibility. He had apologized to Comenius for so\ndoing, on the ground that the publication would \"serve a good purpose by\nfeeling the way and ascertaining the opinions of learned and wise men in\na matter of such unusual consequence.\" Comenius was a little nettled, he\nsays, especially as criticisms of the Pansophic sketch began to come in,\nwhich would have been obviated, he thought, if he had been allowed\nquietly to develop the thing farther before publication. Nevertheless,\nthere the book was, and the world now knew of Comenius not only as the\nauthor of the little _Janua Linguarum_, but also as contemplating a vast\n_Janua Rerum_, or organization of universal knowledge on a new basis.--In\nfact, the fame of Comenius was increased by Hartlib's little\nindiscretion. In Sweden especially there was an anxiety to have the\nbenefit of the counsels of so eminent a theorist in the business of\neducation. In 1638 the Swedish Government, at the head of which, during\nthe minority of Queen Christina, was the Chancellor Oxenstiern, invited\nComenius to Sweden, that he might preside over a Commission for the\nrevision and reform of the schools there. Comenius, however, declined the\ninvitation, recommending that the work should be entrusted to some native\nSwede, but promising to give his advice; and, at the same time (1638), he\nbegan to translate into Latin, for the behoof of Sweden and of other\ncountries, a certain _Didactica Magna_, or treatise on Didactics at\nlarge, which he had written in his Bohemian Slavic vernacular nine years\nbefore. Hartlib had an early abstract of this book, and this abstract is\npart of the _Comenii Pansophi\u00e6 Prodromus et Didactica Dissertatio_ which\nhe edited in London in the same year, and published in duodecimo in 1639.\n[Footnote: Bayle's Dictionary: Art. _Com\u00e9nius (Jean-Amos)_; \"Geshichte\nder P\u00e4dagogik,\" by Karl von Raumer (Stuttgart, 1843), Zweither Theil, pp.\n46-49; \"Essays on Educational Reformers,\" by Robert Hebert Quick (1868),\npp. 43-47; Wood's Ath. III. 366, and II. 677. The general sketch of\nComenius in Bayle, and those by Raumer and Mr. Quick, are very good; but\ndetails in the text, and especially the particulars of Hartlib's early\nconnexion with Comenius, have had to be culled by me from the curious\nautobiographical passages prefixed to or inserted in Comenius's various\nwritings as far as 1642. These form Part I. of his large Folio, _Opera\nDidactica Omnia_, published by him at Amsterdam in 1657; and the passages\nin that Part which have supplied particulars for the text will be found\nat columns 3-4, 318, 326,403,442--444,454-459. Comenius, like most such\ntheoretic reformers, had a vein of egotism, and a strong memory for\ndetails respecting the history of his own ideas and their reception.]\n\nWhat, after all, were the new notions propounded from Poland, with such\nuniversal European effort, by this Protestant Austro-Slav, Comenius, and\nsponsored in England by the Prussian Hartlib? We shall try to give them\nin epitome. Be it understood, however, that the epitome takes account\nonly of those works of Comenius which were written before 1639, without\nincluding the mass of his later writings, some of which were to be even\nmore celebrated.\n\nThe _Didactica Magna_ is perhaps the most pregnant of the early\nbooks of Comenius. The full title of this treatise is, in translation, as\nfollows: \"Didactics at Large: propounding a universal Scheme for teaching\nall Things to all persons; or a Certain and Perfect Mode of erecting such\nSchools through all the communities, towns, and villages of any Christian\nKingdom, as that all the youth of both sexes, without the neglect of a\nsingle one, may be compendiously, pleasantly, and solidly educated in\nLearning, grounded in Morals, imbued with Piety, and so, before the years\nof puberty, instructed in all things belonging to the present and the\nfuture life.\" In the treatise itself there are first some chapters of\npreliminary generalities. Man, says Comenius, is the last and most\nperfect of creatures; his destiny is to a life beyond this; and the\npresent life is but a preparation for that eternal one. This preparation\ninvolves three things--Knowledge by Man of himself and of all things\nabout him (Learning), Rule of himself (Morals), and Direction of himself\nto God (Religion). The seeds of these three varieties of preparation are\nin us by Nature; nevertheless, if Man would come out complete Man, he\nmust be formed or educated. Always the education must be threefold--in\nKnowledge, in Morals, and in Religion; and this combination must never be\nlost sight of. Such education, however, comes most fitly in early life.\nParents may do much, but they cannot do all; there is need, therefore, in\nevery country, of public schools for youth. Such schools should be for\nthe children of all alike, the poor as well as the rich, the stupid and\nmalicious as well as the clever and docile, and equally for girls as for\nboys; and the training in them ought to be absolutely universal or\nencyclop\u00e6dic, in Letters, Arts, and Science, in Morals, and in Piety.\n[Footnote: For Miltonic reasons, as well as for others, I cannot resist\nthe temptation to translate here, in a Note, the sub stance of Comenius's\nviews on the Education of Women; as given in Chap. IX. (cols. 42-44) of\nhis _Didactica Magna_:--\"Nor, to say something particularly on this\nsubject, can any sufficient reason be given why the weaker sex\"\n[_sequior sexus_, literally \"the later or following sex,\" is his\nphrase, borrowed from Apuleius, and, though the phrase is usually\ntranslated \"the inferior sex,\" it seems to have been chosen by Comenius\nto avoid that implication], \"should be wholly shut out from liberal\nstudies, whether in the native tongue or in Latin. For equally are they\nGod's image; equally are they partakers of grace and of the kingdom to\ncome; equally are they furnished with minds agile and capable of wisdom,\nyea often beyond our sex; equally to them is there a possibility of\nattaining high distinction, inasmuch as they have often been employed by\nGod himself for the government of peoples, the bestowing of the most\nwholesome counsels on kings and princes, the science of medicine and\nother things useful to the human race, nay even the prophetical office,\nand the rattling reprimand of Priests and Bishops\" [_etiam ad\nPropheticum munus, et incrependos Sacerdotes Episcoposque_, are the\nwords; and, as the treatise was prepared for the press in 1638, one\ndetects a reference, by the Moravian Brother in Poland, to the recent\nfame of Jenny Geddes of Scotland]. \"Why then should we admit them to the\nAlphabet, but afterwards debar them from Books? Do we fear their\nrashness? The more we occupy their thoughts, the less room will there be\nin them for rashness, which springs generally from vacuity of mind.\" Some\nslight limitations as to the reading proper for young women are appended,\nbut with a hint that the same limitations would be good for youth of the\nother sex; and there is a bold quotation of the Scriptural text (1 Tim.\nii. 12),\"_I suffer not a woman to teach_,\" and of two well-known\npassages of Euripides and Juvenal against learned women or bluestockings,\nto show that he was quite aware of these passages, but saw nothing in\nthem against his real meaning.] Here, at length, in the eleventh chapter,\nwe arrive at the great question, Has such a system of schools been\nanywhere established? _No_, answers Comenius, and abundantly proves\nhis negative. Schools of a kind there had been in the world from the days\nof the Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzar, if not from those of Shem, but not\nyet were there schools everywhere; not yet, where schools did exist, were\nthey for all classes; and, at best, where they did exist, of what sort\nwere they? Places, for the most part, of nausea and torment for the poor\ncreatures collected in them; narrow and imperfect in their aims, which\nwere verbal rather than real; and not even succeeding in these aims!\nLatin, nothing but Latin! And how had they taught this precious and\neternal Latin of theirs? \"Good God! how intricate, laborious, and prolix\nthis study of Latin has been! Do not scullions, shoeblacks, cobblers,\namong pots and pans, or in camp, or in any other sordid employment, learn\na language different from their own, or even two or three such, more\nreadily than school students, with every leisure and appliance and all\nimaginable effort, learn their solitary Latin? And what a difference in\nthe proficiency attained! The former, after a few months, are found\ngabbling away with ease; the latter, after fifteen or twenty years, can\nhardly, for the most part, unless when strapped up tight in their\ngrammars and dictionaries, bring out a bit of Latin, and that not without\nhesitation and stammering.\" But all this might be remedied. There might\nbe such a Reformation of Schools that not only Latin, but all other\nlanguages, and all the real Sciences and Arts of life to boot, might be\ntaught in them expeditiously, pleasantly, and thoroughly. What was wanted\nwas right methods and the consistent practical application of these.\nNature must supply the principles of the Method of Education: as all\nNature's processes go softly and spontaneously, so will all artificial\nprocesses that are in conformity with Nature's principles. And what are\nNature's principles, as transferable into the Art of Education? Comenius\nenumerates a good many, laying stress on such as these: nothing out of\nseason; matter before form; the general before the special, or the simple\nbefore the complex; all continuously, and nothing _per saltum_. He\nphilosophizes a good deal, sometimes a little quaintly and mystically, on\nthese principles of Nature, and on the hints she gives for facility,\nsolidity, and celerity of learning, and then sums up his deductions as to\nthe proper Method in each of the three departments of education, the\nIntellectual, the Moral, and the Religious. Things before words, or\nalways along with words, to explain them; the concrete and sensible to\nprepare for the abstract; example and illustration rather than verbal\ndefinition, or to accompany verbal definition: such is his main maxim in\nthe first department. Object-lessons, wherever possible: i.e. if boys are\ntaught about the stars, let it be with the stars over their heads to look\nat; if about the structure of the human body, let it be with a skeleton\nbefore them; if about the action of a pump, or other machine, let it be\nwith the machine actually at hand. \"Always let the things which the words\nare to designate be shown; and again, whatever the pupils see, hear,\ntouch, taste, let them be taught to express the same; so that tongue and\nintellect may go on together.\" Where the actual objects cannot be\nexhibited, there may be models, pictures, and the like; and every school\nought to have a large apparatus of such, and a museum. Writing and\ndrawing ought to be taught simultaneously with reading. All should be\nmade pleasant to the pupils; they ought to relish their lessons, to be\nkept brisk, excited, wide-awake; and to this end there should be\nemulation, praise of the deserving, always something nice and rousing on\nthe board, a mixture of the funny with the serious, and occasional\npuzzles, anecdotes, and conundrums. The school-houses ought to be airy\nand agreeable, and the school-hours not too long. In order that there may\nbe time to teach all that really ought to be taught, there must be a wise\nneglect of heaps of things not essential: a great deal must be flung\noverboard, as far as School is concerned, and left to the chance\ninquisitiveness of individuals afterwards. And what sort of things may be\nthus wisely neglected? Why, in the first place, the _non necessaria_\n(things generally unprofitable), or things that contribute neither to\npiety nor to good morals, and without which there may be very sufficient\nerudition--as, for example, \"the names of the Gentile gods, their love-\nhistories, and their religious rites,\" all which may be got up in books\nat any time by any one that wants them; and, again, the _aliena_\n(things that do not fit the particular pupil)--mathematics, for example,\nfor some, and music for those who have no ear; and, again, the\n_particularissima_, or those excessive minutenesses and distinctions\ninto which one may go without end in any subject whatsoever. So, at\nlarge, with very competent learning, no small philosophical acumen, much\nlogical formality and numeration of propositions and paragraphs, but a\nfrequent liveliness of style, and every now and then a crashing shot of\npractical good sense, Comenius reasons and argues for a new System of\nEducation, inspired by what would now be called Realism or enlightened\nUtilitarianism. Objections, as they might occur, are duly met and\nanswered; and one notes throughout the practical schoolmaster, knowing\nwhat he is talking about, and having before his fancy all the while the\nspectacle of a hundred or two of lads ranged on benches, and to be\nmanaged gloriously from the desk, as a skilled metallurgist manages a\nmass of molten iron. He is a decided advocate for large classes, each of\n\"some hundreds,\" under one head-master, because of the fervour which such\nclasses generate in themselves and in the master; and he shows how they\nmay be managed. Emulation, kindliness, and occasional rebuke, are chiefly\nto be trusted to for maintaining discipline; and punishments are to be\nfor moral offences only. How Comenius would blend moral teaching and\nreligious teaching with the acquisition of knowledge in schools is\nexplained in two chapters, entitled \"Method of Morals\" and \"Method of\ninstilling Piety;\" and this last leads him to a separate chapter, in\nwhich he maintains that, \"if we would have schools thoroughly reformed\naccording to the true rules of Christianity, the books of Heathen authors\nmust be removed from them, or at least employed more cautiously than\nhitherto.\" He argues this at length, insisting on the necessity of the\npreparation of a graduated series of school-books that should supersede\nthe ordinary classics, conserving perhaps the best bits of some of them.\nIf any of the classics were to be kept bodily for school-use, they should\nbe Seneca, Epictetus, Plato, and the like. And so at last he comes to\ndescribe the System of Schools he would have set up in every country,\nviz.: I. THE INFANT SCHOOL, or MOTHER'S OWN SCHOOL, for children under\nsix; II. THE LUDUS LITERARIUS, Or VERNACULAR PUBLIC SCHOOL, for boys and\ngirls up to the age of twelve; III. THE LATIN SCHOOL or GYMNASIUM, for\nhigher teaching up to eighteen or so; and IV. THE UNIVERSITY (with\nTRAVEL), for the highest possible teaching on to the age of about five-\nand-twenty. From the little babble of the Infant School about Water, Air,\nFire, Iron, Bird, Fish, Hill, Sun, Moon, &c., all on the plan of\nexercising the senses and making Things and Words go together, up to the\nmost exquisite training of the University, he shows how there might be a\nprogress and yet a continuity of encyclop\u00e6dic aim. Most boys and girls in\nevery community, he thinks, might stop at the Vernacular School, without\ngoing on to the Latin; and he has great faith in the capabilities of any\nvernacular and the culture that may be obtained within it. Still he would\nlike to see as many as possible going on to the Latin School and the\nUniversity, that there might never be wanting in a community spirits\nconsummately educated, veritable [Greek: polumatheis] and [Greek:\npansophoi]. In the Universities apparently he would allow the largest\nranging among the classics of all sorts, though still on some principle\nfor organizing that kind of reading. There is, in fact, a mass of details\nand suggestions about each of the four kinds of schools, all vital to\nComenius, and all pervaded by his sanguine spirit, but which one can\nhardly now read through. [Footnote: A separate little treatise on the\nmanagement of \"The Infant School,\" containing advices to parents for home\nuse, was written by Comenius in Bohemian Slavic, and translated thence\ninto German in 1633. It appears in Latin among his _Opera Didactica_\ncollected. He wrote also, he tells us, six little books for \"The\nVernacular School,\" under fancy-titles. These do not seem ever to have\nbeen published. His _Janua Linguarum_ (1631), and one or two\nappendages to it, were contributions to the theory and practice of \"The\nLatin School.\"] The final chapter is one of the most eloquent and\ninteresting. It is entitled, \"Of the Requisites necessary for beginning\nthe practice of this Universal Method.\" Here he comes back upon his\nnotion of a graduated series of school-books, or rather of an\norganization of books generally for the purposes of education. \"One great\nrequisite,\" he says, \"the absence of which would make the whole machine\nuseless, while its presence would put all in motion, is A SUFFICIENT\nAPPARATUS OF PAMMETHODIC BOOKS.\" All, he repeats, hinges on the\npossibility of creating such an apparatus. \"This is a work,\" he adds,\n\"not for one man, especially if he is otherwise occupied, and not\ninstructed in everything that ought to be reduced into the Universal\nMethod; nor is it perhaps a work for one age, if we would have all\nbrought to absolute perfection. There is need, therefore, of a COLLEGIAL\nSOCIETY (_ergo Societate Collegiali est opus_). For the convocation\nof such a Society there is need of the authority and liberality of some\nKing, or Prince, or Republic, and also of some quiet place, away from\ncrowds, with a Library and other appurtenances.\" There follows an earnest\nappeal to persons of all classes to forward such an association, and the\ngood Moravian winds up with a prayer to God. [Footnote: There is a\nsummary of Comenius's _Didactica Magna_ in Von Reumer's \"Geshichte\nder P\u00e6dgogis\" (pp. 53-59). It is accurate so far as it goes; but I have\ngone to the book itself.]\n\nA special part of Comenius's system, better known perhaps at the time of\nwhich we write than his system as a whole, was his Method for Teaching\nLanguages. This is explained in Chapter XXII. of his _Didactica\nMagna_, and more in detail in his _Linguarum Janua Rescrata_, and\none or two writings added to that book:--Comenius, as we already know,\ndid not overrate linguistic training in education. \"Languages are\nacquired,\" he says, \"not as a part of learning or wisdom, but as\ninstrumental to the reception and communication of learning. Accordingly,\nit is not _all_ languages that are to be learnt, for that is\nimpossible, nor yet _many_, for that would be useless, as drawing\naway the time due to the study of Things; but only those that are\n_necessary_. The necessary tongues, however, are: first, the\nVernacular, for home use; next, Neighbouring Tongues, for conversation\nwith neighbours,--as, for example, the German for Poles of one frontier,\nand the Hungarian, the Wallachian, and the Turkish, for Poles of other\nparts; next, Latin, as the common language of the learned, admitting one\nto the wise use of books; and, finally, the Greek and Arabic for\nphilosophers and medical men, and Greek and Hebrew for theologians.\" Not\nall the tongues that are learnt, either, are to be learnt to the same\nnicety of perfection, but only to the extent really needed. Each language\nshould be learnt separately--first, the Vernacular, which ought to be\nperfectly learnt, and to which children ought to be kept for eight or ten\nyears; then whatever neighbouring tongue might be desirable, for which a\nyear would be long enough; next, Latin, which ought to be learnt well,\nand might be learnt in two years; and so to Greek, to which he would give\none year, and Hebrew, which he would settle in six months. If people\nshould be amazed at the shortness of the time in which he ventured to\nassert a language like the Latin might be learnt and learnt well, let\nthem consider the principles of his method. Always Things along with\nWords, and Words associated with new groups of Things, from the most\nfamiliar objects to those rarer and farther off, so that the\n_vocabulary_ might get bigger and bigger; and, all the while, the\nconstant use of the vocabulary, such as it was, in actual talk, as well\nas in reading and writing. First, let the pupil stutter on anyhow, only\nusing his stock of words; correctness would come afterwards, and in the\nend elegance and force. Always practice rather than rule, and leading to\nrule; also connexion of the tongue being learnt with that learnt last. A\nkind of common grammar may be supposed lying in the pupil's head, which\nhe transfers instinctively to each new tongue, so that he has to be\ntroubled only with variations and peculiarities. The reading-books\nnecessary for thoroughly teaching a language by this method might be\n(besides Lexicons graduated to match) four in number--I. _Vestibulum_\n(The Porch), containing a vocabulary of some hundreds of simple words,\nfit for babbling with, grouped in little sentences, with annexed tables\nof declensions and conjugations; II. _Janua_ (The Gate), containing all\nthe common words in the language, say about 8,000, also compacted into\ninteresting sentences, with farther grammatical aids; III. _Palatium_\n(The Palace), containing tit-bits of higher discourse about things, and\nelegant extracts from authors, with notes and grammatical comments; IV.\n_Thesaurus_ (The Treasury), consisting of select authors themselves, duly\nillustrated, with a catalogue of other authors, so that the pupils might\nhave some idea of the extent of the Literature of the language, and might\nknow what authors to read on occasion afterwards.--Comenius himself\nactually wrote a _Vestibulum_ for Latin, consisting of 427 short\nsentences, and directions for their use; and, as we know, his _Janua\nLinguarum Reserata_, which appeared in 1631, was the publication which\nmade him famous. It is an application of his system to Latin. On the\nprinciple that Latin can never be acquired with ease while its vocabulary\nis allowed to lie alphabetically in dead Dictionaries, or in\nmultitudinous variety of combination in Latin authors, about 8,000 Latin\nwords of constant use are collected into a kind of Noah's Ark,\nrepresentative of all Latinity. This is done in 1,000 short Latin\nsentences, arranged in 100 paragraphs of useful information about all\nthings and sundry, under such headings as _De Ortu Mundi_ (Of the\nBeginning of the World), _De Elementis_ (Of the Elements), _De\nFirmamento_ (Of the Firmament), _De Igne_ (Of Fire), and so on through\nother physical and moral topics. Among these are _De Metallis_ (Of\nMetals), _De Herbis_ (Of Plants), _De Insectis_ (Of Insects), _De\nUlceribus et Vulneribus_ (Of Sores and Wounds), _De Agricultura_ (Of\nAgriculture), _De Vestituum Generibus (Of Articles of Dress), _De\nPuerperio_ (Of Childbirth), _De Pace et Bella_ (Of Peace and War), _De\nModestia_ (Of Modesty), _De Morte et Sepultura_ (Of Death and Burial),\n_De Providentia Dei_ (Of the Providence of God), _De Angelis_ (Of\nAngels). Comenius was sure that due drill in this book would put a boy in\neffective possession of Latin for all purposes of reading, speaking, and\nwriting. And, of course, by translation, the same manual would serve for\nany other language. For, the Noah's Ark of _things_ being much the same\nfor all peoples, in learning a new language you have but to fit on to the\ncontents of that permanent Ark of realities a new set of vocables.\n[Footnote: _Dialectica Magna_ Chap. XXII. first edition of _Janua_, as\nreprinted  in _Comenii Opera Didactica_, 1657 (Part I, cols. 255-302).]\n\nComenius rather smiled at the rush of all Europe upon his _Janua\nLinguarum_, or Method for Teaching Languages. That was a trifle in his\nestimation, compared with the bigger speculations of his _Didactica\nMagna_, and still more with his _Pansophi\u00e6 Prodromus_ or _Porta\nSapienti\u00e6 Reserata_. A word or two on this last little book:--Comenius\nappears in it as a would-be Lord Bacon, an Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon, a\nvery Austro-Slavic Lord Bacon. He mentions Bacon several times, and\nalways with profound respect (\"_illustrissimus Verulamius_\" and so\non); but it appeared to him that more was wanted than Bacon's _Novum\nOrganum,_ or _Instauratio Magna_, with all its merits. A PANSOPHIA was\nwanted, nay, a PANSOPHIA CHRISTIANA, or consolidation of all human\nknowledge into true central Wisdom, one body of Real Truth. O Wisdom,\nWisdom! O the knowledge of things in themselves, and in their universal\nharmony! What was mere knowledge of words, or all the fuss of pedagogy\nand literature, in view of that! Once attained, and made communicable, it\nwould make the future of the world one Golden Age! Why had it not been\nattained? What had been the hindrances to its attainment? What were the\nremedies? In a kind of phrenzy, which does not prevent most logical\nprecision of paragraphing and of numbering of propositions, Comenius\ndiscusses all this, becoming more and more like a Bacon bemuddled, as he\neyes his PANSOPHIA through the mist. What it is he cannot make plain to\nus; but we see he has some notion of it himself, and we honour him\naccordingly. For there are gleams, and even flashes, through the mist.\nFor example, there is a paragraph entitled _Scientiarum Laceratio_,\nlamenting the state of division, disconnectedness, and piece-meal\ndistribution among many hands, into which the Sciences had fallen. Though\nthere were books entitled Pansophias, Encyclop\u00e6dias, and the like, he had\nseen none sufficiently justifying the name, or exhausting the\nuniversality of things. Much less had he seen the whole apparatus of\nhuman intelligence so constructed from its own certain and eternal\nprinciples that all things should appear mutually concatenated among\nthemselves from first to last without any hiatus! \"Metaphysicians hum to\nthemselves only, Natural Philosophers chaunt their own praises,\nAstronomers lead on their dances for themselves, Ethical Thinkers set up\nlaws for themselves, Politicians lay foundations for themselves,\nMathematicians triumph for themselves, and for themselves Theologians\nreign.\" What is the consequence? Why, that, while each one attends only\nto himself and his own phantasy, there is no general accord, but only\ndissonance.  \"We see that the branches of a tree cannot live unless they\nall alike suck their juices from a common trunk with common roots. And\ncan we hope that the branches of Wisdom can be torn asunder with safety\nto their life, that is to truth? Can one be a Natural Philosopher who is\nnot also a Metaphysician? or an Ethical Thinker who does not know\nsomething of Physical Science? or a Logician who has no knowledge of real\nmatters? or a Theologian, a Jurisconsult, or a Physician, who is not\nfirst a Philosopher? or an Orator or Poet who is not all things at once?\nHe deprives himself of light, of hand, and of regulation, who pushes away\nfrom him any shred of the knowable.\" From such passages one has a glimmer\nof what Comenius did mean by his Pansophia. He hoped to do something\nhimself towards furnishing the world with this grand desideratum. He had\nin contemplation a book which should at least show what a proper\nEncyclop\u00e6dia or Consolidation of Universal Truth ought to be. But here\nagain he invites co-operation. Many hands in many lands would have to\nlabour at the building of the great Temple of Wisdom. He appeals to all,\n\"of every rank, age, sex, and tongue,\" to do what they can. Especially\nlet there be an end to the monopoly of Latin. \"We desire and protest that\nstudies of wisdom be no longer committed to Latin alone, and kept shut up\nin the schools, as has hitherto been done, to the greatest contempt and\ninjury of the people at large and the popular tongues. Let all things be\ndelivered to each nation in its own speech, so that occasion may be\nafforded to all who are men to occupy themselves with these liberal\nmatters rather than fatigue themselves, as is constantly the case, with\nthe cares of this life, or ambitions, or drinking-bouts, or other\nvanities, to the destruction of life and soul both. Languages themselves\ntoo would so be polished to perfection with the advancement of the\nSciences and Arts. Wherefore we, for our part, have resolved, if God\npleases, to divulge these things of ours both in the Latin and in the\nvernacular. For no one lights a candle and hides it under a bushel, but\nplaces it on a candlestick, that it may give light to all.\" [Footnote:\n_Pansophici Libri Delineatio_ (_i.e._ the same treatise which Hartlib had\nprinted at Oxford in 1637) in _Comenii Opera Didactica_, Part I. cols.\n403-454.] Such were the varied Comenian views which the good Hartlib\nstrove to bring into notice in England in 1637-9. Durie and\nReconciliation of the Churches was still one of his enthusiasms, but\nComenius and Reformed Education was another. But, indeed, nothing of a\nhopeful kind, with novelty in it, came amiss to Hartlib. He, as well as\nComenius, had read Lord Bacon. He was a devoted admirer of the Baconian\nphilosophy, and had imbibed, I think, more deeply than most of Bacon's\nown countrymen, the very spirit and mood of that philosophy. That' the\nworld had got on so slowly hitherto because it had pursued wrong methods;\nthat, if once right methods were adopted, the world would spin forward at\na much faster rate in all things; that no one could tell what fine\ndiscoveries of new knowledge, what splendid inventions in art, what\ndevices for saving labour, increasing wealth, preserving health, and\npromoting happiness, awaited the human race in the future: all this,\nwhich Bacon had taught, Hartlib had taken into his soul. His sympathy\nwith Durie and Religious Compromise and his sympathy with Comenius and\nSchool Reform were but special exhibitions of his general passion for new\nlights. The cry of his soul, morning and night, in all things, was\n\n  Phosphore, redde diem! Quid gaudia nostra moraris?\n  Phosphore, redde diem!\n\n[Footnote: This is no fancy-quotation. Hartlib himself, in 1659, uses it\nin a letter to the famous Boyle, as the passionate motto of his life (see\nDiary of Worthington, edited by Crossley, I, 168, and Boyle's Works, ed.\n1744, V. 293).]\n\nNaturally this passion had a political side. Through the reign of\nThorough, it is true, Hartlib had been as quiet as it became a foreigner\nin London to be at such a time, and had even been in humble\ncorrespondence in Durie's behalf with Bishops, Privy Councillors, and\nother chiefs of the existing power. But, when the Scottish troubles\nbrought signs of coming change for England, and there began to be stir\namong the Puritans and the miscellaneous _quidnuncs_ of London in\nanxiety for that change, Hartlib found himself in friendly contact and\nacquaintanceship with some of these forward spirits. One is not\nsurprised, therefore, at the fact, previously mentioned in our History\n(Vol. II. p. 45), that, when Charles was mustering his forces for the\nFirst Bishops' War against the Scots, and Secretary Windebank was busy\nwith arrests of persons in London suspected of complicity with the Scots,\nHartlib was one of those pounced upon. Here is the exact official\nwarrant:--\"These are to will, require, and authorize you to make your\nrepair to the house of Samuel Hartlib, merchant, and to examine him upon\nsuch interrogatories as you shall find pertinent to the business you are\nnow employed in; and you are also to take with you one of the messengers\nof his Majesty's Chamber, who is to receive and follow such order and\ndirections as you shall think fit to give him; and this shall be your\nsufficient warrant in this behalf.--Dated at my house in Drury Lane, 1\nMay 1639.--Fran. Windebank. To Robert Reade, my Secretary.\" [Footnote:\nCopied by me from the original in the S.P.O.]--The reader may, at this\npoint, like to know where Hartlib's house was. It was in Duke's Place,\nAldgate. He had been there for more than a year, if not from his first\nsettling in London; and it was to be his residence for many years to\ncome.[Footnote: Among the Ayscough MSS. in the British Museum there is\none (No. 4276) containing a short letter from Joseph Meade to Hartlib,\ndated from Christ's College, Cambridge, June 18, 1638, and addressed \"To\nhis worthie friend Mr. Samuel Hartlib at his house in Duke's Place,\nLondon.\" There is nothing of importance in the letter; which is mainly\nabout books Meade would like Hartlib to send to certain persons named--\none of them Dr. Twisse, afterwards Prolocutor of the Westminster\nAssembly. Meade died less than four months after the date of this\nletter.] He was married, and had at least one child.--Reade and the\nKing's officer appear to have discovered nothing specially implicating\nHartlib; for he is found living on much as before through the remainder\nof the Scottish Presbyterian Revolt, on very good terms with his former\nEpiscopal correspondents and others who regarded that Revolt with dread\nand detestation. The following is a letter of his, of date Aug. 10, 1640,\nwhich I found in his own hand in the State Paper Office. It has not, I\nbelieve, been published before, and letters of Hartlib's of so early a\ndate are scarce: besides, it is too characteristic to be omitted:--\n\n\"Right Hon. [no farther indication of the person addressed: was it Sir\nThomas Roe?]\n\n\"These are to improve the leisure which perhaps you may enjoy in your\nretiredness from this place. The author of the Schedule of Divers New\nInventions [apparently enclosed in the letter] is the same Plattes who\nabout a year ago published two profitable treatises concerning Husbandry\nand Mines. He is now busy in contriving of some other Tracts, which will\nmore particularly inform all sorts of people how to procure their own and\nthe public good of these countries. [Footnote: Gabriel Plattes, author of\n\"A Discovery of Subterraneall Treasure: viz. of all manner of Mines and\nMinerals from the Gold to the Coale: London 1639, 4to.\" This is from\nLowndes's _Bibliographer's Manual_ by Bohn; where it is added that\n\"Plattes published several other works chiefly relating to Husbandry, and\nis said to have dropped down dead in the London streets for want of\nfood.\" Among other things, he was an Alchemist; and in Wood's Athen\u00e6 by\nBliss (I. 640-1) there is a curious extract from his Mineralogical book,\ngiving an account of a process of his for making pure gold artificially,\nthough, as he says, not with profit. One thinks kindly of this poor\ninventive spirit hanging on upon Hartlib with his \"Schedule of New\nInventions,\" and of Hartlib's interest in him.] Some of my learned\nfriends in France do highly commend one Palissi to be a man of the like\ndisposition and industry. The books which he hath written and printed\n(some of them in French) are said to contain a world of excellent matter.\n[Footnote: This, I think, must be the famous Bernard Palissy, \"the\nPotter,\" who died in 1590, leaving writings such as Hartlib describes. If\nso, Hartlib was a little behind time in his knowledge, for one might\nfancy him speaking of a contemporary.] I wish such like observations,\nexperiments, and true philosophies, were more known to other nations. By\nthis means not only the Heavens, but also the Earth, would declare the\nglory of God more evidently than it hath done.---As for Mr. Durie, by\nthese enclosed [a number of extracts from letters about Durie's business\nwhich Hartlib had received from Bishops and others] your Honour will be\nable to see how far I am advanced in transactions of his affairs. My Lord\nBishop of Exeter [Hall], in one of his late letters unto himself [Durie],\nuses these following words: '_Perlegi qu\u00e6_,' &c. [A long Latin\npassage, which may be given in English: 'I have read through what you\nhave heretofore written to the most illustrious Sir Thomas Roe respecting\nthe procuring of an ecclesiastical agreement. I like your prudence and\nmost sagacious theological ingenuity in the same: should Princes follow\nthe thread of the advice, we shall easily extricate ourselves from this\nlabyrinth of controversies. The Reverend Bishop of Salisbury has a work\non the Fundamentals of Faith, which is now at press, designed for the\ncomposing of these disputes of the Christian world; doubtless to the\ngreat good of the Church. Proceed busily in the sacred work you have\nundertaken: we will not cease to aid you all we can with our prayers and\ncounsels, and, if possible, with other helps']: I hear the worthies of\nCambridge are at work to satisfy in like manner the Doctors of Bremen:\nonly my Lord Bishop of Durham [Morton] is altogether silent. It may be\nthe northern distractions hinder him from such and the like pacifical\novertures. I am much grieved for his book _De [Greek: polutopia]\ncorporis Christi_ [on the Ubiquity of Christ's Body], which is now in\nthe press at Cambridge; for both the Bishop of Lincoln [Williams] and Dr.\nHacket told me, from the mouth of him that corrects it (an accurate and\njudicious scholar), that it was a very invective and bitter railing\nagainst the Lutheran tenets on that point, insomuch that Dr. Brownrigg\nhad written unto his lordship about it, to put all into a milder strain.\nI confess others do blame somewhat Mr. D[urie] for certain phrases which\nhe seems to yield unto in his printed treatise with the Danes, '_De\nOmnipr\u00e6senti\u00e2 et orali manducatione_' [Of the Omnipresence and Eating\nwith the Mouth]; yet let me say this much--that Reverend Bucer, that\nprudent learned man, who was the first man of note that ever laboured in\nthis most excellent work of reconciling the Protestants, even in the very\nfirst beginning of the breach, and who laboured more abundantly than they\nall in it (I mean than all the rest of the Reformers in his time): Bucer,\nI say, yielded so far for peace' sake to Luther and his followers in some\nharsh-sounding terms and words that the Helvetians began to be suspicious\nof him, lest he should be won to the contrary side, although the good man\ndid fully afterwards declare his mind when he saw his yielding would do\nno good. It is not then Mr. D.'s case alone, when so brave a worthy as\nBucer goes along with him, a man of whom great Calvin uttered these words\nwhen news was brought him of his death, '_Quam multiplicem in Bucero\njacturam fecerit Dei Ecclesia quoties in mentem venit, cor meum prope\nlaccrari sentio_' ['As often as it comes to my mind what a manifold\nloss the Church of God has had in Bucer, I feel my heart almost\nlacerated']. So he wrote in an epistle to Viret. But enough of this\nsubject.----I have had these 14 days no letters from Mr. D.; nor do I\nlong much for them, except I could get in the rents from his tenant to\npay the 70 rixdollars to Mr. Avery's brother in London. The Bishop of\nExeter seems to be a man of excellent bowels; and, if your Honour would\nbe pleased to second his requests towards my Lord's Grace of Canterbury,\nor to favour Bishop Davenant's advice in your own way, perhaps some\ncomfortable effects would soon follow. My Lady Anna Waller doth highly\naffect Mr. D. and his endeavours; and, if any donatives or other\npreferments should be recommended to be disposed this way by my Lord\nKeeper (who is a near kinsman of her Ladyship), I am confident she would\nprove a successful mediatrix in his behalf. If your Honour thinks it fit,\nI can write also to my Lord Primate [Usher] to intercede with my Lord's\nGrace [Laud] for Mr. D. He is about to bring forth a great universal\nwork, or Ecclesiastical History. The other treatise, put upon him by his\nMajesty's special command, '_De Authoritate Regum et Officio\nSubditorum,_' ['On the Authority of Kings and the Duty of Subjects']\nwill shortly come to light.----Thus, craving pardon for this prolixity of\nscribbling, I take humbly my leave; remaining always\n\n\"Your Honour's most obliged and most assured Servant,\n\nSAM. HARTLIB. [Footnote: Copied by me from the original in the S.P.O.]\n\nLondon: the 10 of Aug. 1640.\"\n\nThree months after the date of this letter the Long Parliament had met,\nand there was a changed world, with changed opportunities, for Hartlib,\nas well as for other people. The following digest of particulars in his\nlife for the years 1641 and 1642 will show what he was about:--\n\n\"A Briefe Relation of that which hath been lately attempted to procure\nEcclesiasticall Peace amongst Protestants. Published by Samuel Hartlib.\nLondon, Printed by J. R. for Andrew Crooke, and are to be sold at his\nshop in Paul's Churchyard at the sign of the Green Dragon. 1641.\"--This\nlittle tract is an exposition of Durie's idea, and a narrative sketch of\nhis exertions in its behalf from 1628 onwards.\n\n\"A Description of the famous Kingdom of MACARIA, shewing its excellent\nGovernment, wherein the Inhabitants live in great prosperity, health, and\nhappiness; the King obeyed, the Nobles honoured, and all good men\nrespected; Vice punished, and Virtue rewarded: An example to other\nnations. In a Dialogue between a Scholar and a Traveller. London 1641\"\n(4to. pp. 15).--There is a Dedication to Parliament, dated \"25th October\n1641,\" in which it is said that \"Honourable Court will lay the\ncornerstone of the world's happiness.\" The tract is an attempt at a\nfiction, after the manner of \"More's Utopia\" and Bacon's \"New Atlantis,\"\nshadowing forth the essentials of good government in the constitution of\nthe imaginary Kingdom of MACARIA (Happy-land, from the Greek makarios,\nhappy). The gist of the thing lies in the rather prosaic statement that\nMACARIA has Five Councils or Departments of State: to wit, _Husbandry_,\n_Fishery_, _Land-trade_, _Sea-trade_, and _New Plantations_.--Although\nthere is no author's name to the scrap, it is known to be Hartlib's; who,\nindeed, continued to use the word MACARIA, half-seriously, half-\nplayfully, till the Restoration and beyond, as a pet name for his Ideal\nCommonwealth of perfect institutions. [Footnote: See Worthington's Diary\nedited by Crossley (L 163). Hartlib's original _Macaria_ is reprinted in\nthe Harleian Miscellany, Vol. I.]\n\nIn 1641 Hartlib was in correspondence with Alexander Henderson. The\nreader already knows how \"the Scottish business,\" or the King's\ndifficulty with the Scots, led to the calling of the Long Parliament, and\nhow for six or seven months (Nov. 1640-June 1641) that business\nintertwined itself with the other proceedings of the Parliament, and\nHenderson and the other Scottish Commissioners, lay and clerical, were in\nLondon all that time, nominally looking after that business, but really\nco-operating with Pym and the other Parliamentary leaders for the Reform\nof both kingdoms, and much lionized by the Londoners accordingly (Vol.\nII. pp. 189-192). Well, Hartlib, who found his way to everybody, found\nhis way to Henderson. lie probably saw a good deal of him, if not of the\nother Scottish Commissioners; for, after Henderson had returned to\nScotland, at least three letters from Hartlib followed him thither. Here\nis the beginning of the third: \"Reverend and Loving Brother in Christ: I\nhope my two former letters were safely delivered, wherein I gave you\nnotice of a purpose taken in hand here to make Notes upon the Bible. What\nconcurrence you think fit to give in such a work I leave to your own\npiety to determine. Now I have some other thoughts to impart to you,\nwhich lie as a burthen on my heart.\" The thoughts communicated to\nHenderson are about the wretched state of the Palatinate, with its\nProtestantism and its University of Heidelberg ruined by the Thirty\nYears' War, and the \"sweet-natured Prince Elector\" in exile; but Hartlib\nslips into Durie's idea, and urges theological correspondence of all\nProtestant divines, in order to put an end to divisions. The letter,\nwhich is signed \"Your faithful friend and servant in Christ,\" is dated\n\"London, Octob. 1641.\" All this we know because Hartlib kept a copy of\nthe letter and printed it in 1643. \"The copy of a Letter written to Mr.\nAlexander Henderson: London, Printed in the yeare 1643,\" is the title of\nthe scrap, as I have seen it in the British Museum. Even so we should not\nhave known it to be Hartlib's, had not the invaluable Thomason written\n\"_By Mr. Hartlib_\" on the title-page, appending \"_Feb._ 6, 1642\" (_i.e._\n1642-3) as the date of the publication.\n\n\"A Reformation of Schooles, designed in two excellent Treatises: the\nfirst whereof summarily sheweth the great necessity of a generall\nReformation of Common Learning, what grounds of hope there are for such a\nReformation, how it may be brought to passe. The second answers certaine\nobjections ordinarily made against such undertakings, arid describes the\nseverall parts and titles of workes which are shortly to follow. Written\nmany yeares agoe in Latine by that reverend, godly, learned, and famous\nDivine, Mr. John Amos Comenius, one of the Seniours of the exiled Church\nof Moravia; and now, upon the request of many, translated into English\nand published by Samuel Hartlib for the general good of the Nation.\nLondon: Printed for Michael Sparke, Senior, at the Blue Bible in Greene\nArbour: 1642\" (small ito. pp. 94).--This is, in fact, a reproduction in\nEnglish of the views of Comenius in his Didactica Magna, &c. As I find it\nregistered in the books of the Stationers' Company \"Jan. 12, 1641\"\n(_i.e._ 1641-2), it must have been out early in 1642.\n\nThese traces of Hartlib in the years 1641 and 1642 are significant, and\nadmit of some comment:--In the _Description_ _of the Kingdom of Macaria_,\nI should say, Hartlib broke out for himself. He had all sorts of ideas as\nto social and economic improvements, and he would communicate a little\nspecimen of these, respecting Husbandry, Fishery, and Commerce, to the\nreforming Parliament. But he was still faithful to Durie and Comenius,\nand three of his recovered utterances of 1641-2 are in behalf of them.\nHis _Brief Relation_ and his _Letter to Henderson_ refer to Durie and his\nscheme of Protestant union. It is not impossible that Hartlib was moved\nto these new utterances in the old subject by Durie's own presence in\nLondon; for, as we have mentioned (Vol. II. p. 367), there is some\nevidence that Durie, who had not been in London since 1633, came over on\na flying visit after the opening of the Long Parliament. It is a\ncoincidence, at least, that the publisher of Hartlib's _Brief Relation_\nabout Durie brought out, at the very same time, a book of Durie's own\ntending in the same direction. [Footnote: \"Mr. Dureus his Eleven\nTreatises touching Ecclesiastical Peace amongst Protestants\" is the title\nof an entry by Mr. Crooke in the Stationers' Registers, of date Feb. 15,\n1640.] Quite possibly, however, Durie may have still been abroad, and\nHartlib may have acted for him. In the other case there is no such doubt.\nWhen, in Jan. 1641-2, Hartlib sent to the press his new compilation of\nthe views of Comenius under the title of _A Reformation of Schools_,\nthere was good reason for it. Comenius himself was at his elbow. The\ngreat man had come to London.\n\nEducation, and especially University Education, was one of the subjects\nthat Parliament was anxious to take up. In the intellectual world of\nEngland, quite apart from politics, there had for some time been a\ntradition of dissatisfaction with the existing state of the Universities\nand the great Public Schools. In especial, Bacon's complaints and\nsuggestions on this subject in the Second Book of his _De Augmentis_\nhad sunk into thoughtful minds. That the Universities, by persistence in\nold and outworn methods, were not in full accord with the demands and\nneeds of the age; that their aims were too professional and particular,\nand not sufficiently scientific and general; that the order of studies in\nthem was bad, and some of the studies barren; that there ought to be a\nbold direction of their endowments and apparatus in the line of\nexperimental knowledge, so as to extract from Nature new secrets, and\nsciences for which Humanity was panting; that, moreover, there ought to\nbe more of fraternity and correspondence among the Universities of\nEurope, and some organization of their labours with a view to mutual\nillumination and collective advance: [Footnote: \"De Augmentis:\" Bacon's\nWorks, I. 487 _et seq._, and Translation of same, III. 323 _et seq._\n(Spedding's edition).] all these Verulamian speculations, first submitted\nto King James, were lying hid here and there in English intellects, in\nwatch for an opportunity. Then, in a different way, the political crisis\nhad brought Oxford and Cambridge, but especially Oxford, under severe\nrevision. Had they not been the nurseries of Episcopacy, and of other\nthings and principles of which England was now declaring herself\nimpatient? All this, which was to be more felt after the Civil War had\nbegun and Oxford became the King's headquarters, was felt already in very\nconsiderable degree during the two-and-twenty months of preliminary\nstruggle between the King and the Parliament (Nov. 1640-Aug. 1642). Why\nnot have a University in London? There was Gresham College in the city,\nin existence since 1597, and doing not ill on its limited basis; there\nwas Chelsea College, founded by Dean Sutcliffe of Exeter in 1610, \"to the\nintent that learned men might there have maintenance to answer all the\nadversaries of religion\" but which, after a rickety infancy, and laughed\nat by Laud as \"Controversy College,\" had been lost in lawsuits: why not,\nwith inclusion or exclusion of these and other foundations, set up in\nLondon a great University on the best modern principles, abolishing the\nmonopoly of Oxford and Cambridge?\n\nOf these rumours, plans, or possibilities, due notice had been sent by\nthe zealous Hartlib to Comenius at Leszno. Ought not Comenius to be on\nthe spot? What had he been hoping for and praying for but a \"Collegial\nSociety\" somewhere in some European state to prepare the necessary\n\"Apparatus of Pammethodic Books\" and so initiate his new system of\nUniversal Didactics, or again (to take the other and larger form of his\naspiration), a visible co-operation of kindred spirits throughout Europe\ntowards founding and building the great \"Temple of Pansophia\" or\n\"Universal Real Knowledge\"? What if these Austro-Slavic dreams of his\nshould be realized on the banks of the Thames? People were very willing\nthereabouts; circumstances were favourable; what was mainly wanted was\ndirection and the grasp of a master-spirit! Decidedly, Comenius ought to\ncome over.--All this we learn from Comenius himself, whose account of the\nmatter and of what followed had better now be quoted. \"The _Pansophi\u00e6\nProdromus_,\" he says, \"having been published, and copies dispersed\nthrough the various kingdoms of Europe, but many learned men who approved\nof the sketch despairing of the full accomplishment of the work by one\nman, and therefore advising the erection of a College of learned men for\nthis express business, in these circumstances the very person who had\nbeen the means of giving the _Prodromus_ to the world, a man strenuous in\npractically prosecuting things as far as he can, Mr. S. H. [_strenuus\nrerum qu\u00e2 datur [Greek: ergodiokt\u00e6s], D. S. H._], devoted himself\nlaboriously to that scheme, so as to bring as many of the more forward\nspirits into it as possible. And so it happened at length that, having\nwon over one and another, he, in the year 1641, prevailed on me also by\ngreat entreaties to go to him. My people having consented to the journey,\nI came to London on the very day of the autumnal equinox [Sept. 22,\n1641], and there at last learnt that I had been invited by the order of\nthe Parliament. But, as the Parliament, the King having then gone to\nScotland [Aug. 10], was dismissed for a three months' recess [not quite\nthree months, but from Sept. 9 to Oct. 20], I was detained there through\nthe winter, my friends mustering what Pansophic apparatus they could,\nthough it was but slender. On which occasion there grew on my hands a\ntractate with this title, _Via Lucis: Hoc Est, &c._. [The Way of Light]:\nThat is, A Reasonable Disquisition how the Intellectual Light of Souls,\nnamely Wisdom, may now at length, in this Evening of the World, be\nhappily diffused through all Minds and Peoples. This for the better\nunderstanding of these words of the oracle in _Zachariah XIV._ 7, _It\nshall come to pass that at evening time it shall be light._ The\nParliament meanwhile having reassembled, and our presence being known, I\nhad orders to wait until they should have sufficient leisure from other\nbusiness to appoint a commission of learned and wise men from their body\nfor hearing us and considering the grounds of our design. They\ncommunicate also beforehand their thoughts of assigning to us some\nCollege with its revenues, whereby a certain number of learned and\nillustrious men, called from all nations, might he honourably maintained,\neither for a term of years or in perpetuity. There was even named for the\npurpose _the Savoy_ in London; _Winchester College_ out of London was\nnamed; and again, nearer the city, _Chelsea College_, inventories of\nwhich and of its revenues were communicated to us; so that nothing seemed\nmore certain than that the design of the great Verulam, concerning the\nopening somewhere of a Universal College, devoted to the advancement of\nthe Sciences, could be carried out. But the rumour of the Insurrection in\nIreland, and of the massacre in one night of more than 200,000 English\n[Oct.-Nov.], and the sudden departure of the King from London [Jan. 10,\n1641-2], and the plentiful signs of the bloody war about to break out,\ndisturbed these plans, and obliged me to hasten my return to my own\npeople. It happened, however, that letters came to me from Sweden, which\nhad been sent to Poland and thence forwarded to England, in which that\nmagnanimous and energetic man, Ludovicus de Geer, invited me to come to\nhim in Sweden, and offered immediate means of furthering my studies and\nthose of any two or three learned men I chose to associate with me.\nCommunicating this offer to my friends in London, I took my departure,\nbut not without protestations from them that I ought to let my services\nbe employed in nothing short of the Pansophic Design.\" [Footnote:\nAutobiographic Introduction to the \"Second Part\" of the _Opera Didactica_\nof Comenius (1657), containing his Didactic writings from 1642 to 1650.]\nThis is very interesting, and, I have no doubt, quite accurate.\n[Footnote: I have not been able to find in the Lords or Commons Journals\nfor 1641 and 1642 any traces of those communications between Comenius and\nthe Parliament of which he speaks. There may be such, for the Indexes are\nnot perfect; and there is not the least reason to doubt the word of\nComenius.] And so, through the winter of 1641-2 and the spring of 1642,\nwe are to imagine Hartlib and Comenius going about London together,\nHartlib about forty years of age and Comenius about fifty, the younger\nman delighted with his famous friend, introducing him to various people,\nand showing him the chief sights (the law-chambers and house of the great\nVerulam not omitted, surely), and all the while busy with Pansophic talk\nand the details of the Pansophic College. We see now the reason of\nHartlib's publication in Jan. 1641-2 of Comenius's two treatises jointly\nin a book called _A Reformation of Schools_. It was to help in the\nbusiness which had brought Comenius to London.\n\nIt was a great chagrin to Hartlib when the London plan came to an abrupt\nend, and Comenius transferred himself to Sweden. Thither we must follow\nhim, for yet one other passage of his history before we leave him:--\n\"Conveyed to Sweden in August of the year 1642,\" proceeds Comenius, \"I\nfound my new M\u00e6cenas at his house at Nortcoping; and, having been kindly\nreceived by him, I was, after some days of deliberation, sent to\nStockholm, to the most illustrious Oxenstiern, Chancellor of the Kingdom,\nand Dr. Johannes Skyte, Chancellor of the University of Upsal. These two\nexercised me in colloquy for four days; and chiefly the former, that\nEagle of the North (_Aquila Aquilonius_). He inquired into the\nfoundations of both my schemes, the Didactic and the Pansophic, so\nsearchingly that it was unlike anything that had been done before by any\nof my learned critics. In the first two days he examined the Didactics,\nwith at length this conclusion: 'From an early age,' said he, 'I\nperceived that our Method of Studies generally in use is a harsh and\ncrude one [_violentum quiddam_]; but where the thing stuck I could\nnot find out. At length, having been sent, by my King of glorious memory\n[Gustavus Adolphus], as ambassador into Germany, I conversed on the\nsubject with various learned men. And, when I had heard that Wolfgang\nRatich was toiling at an amended Method, I had no rest of mind till I had\ngot that gentleman into my presence; who, however, instead of a talk on\nthe subject, offered me a big volume in quarto to read. I swallowed that\ntrouble; and, having turned over the whole book, I saw that he detected\nnot badly the maladies of our schools, but the remedies he proposed did\nnot seem sufficient. Yours, Mr. Comenius, rest on firmer foundations. Go\non with the work.' I answered that I had done all I could in those\nmatters, and must now go on to others. 'I know said he, 'that you are\ntoiling at greater affairs, for I have read your _Prodromus Pansophi\u00e6_.\nWe will speak of that to-morrow: I must to public business now.' Next\nday, beginning to examine, but with greater severity, my Pansophic\nAttempts, he opened with this question, 'Are you a man, Mr. Comenius,\nthat can bear contradiction? [_Potesne contradicentem ferre_?]' 'I can,'\nreplied I, 'and therefore that _Prodromus_ or Preliminary Sketch was (not\nby me either, but by friends) sent out first, that it might meet with\njudgment and criticism. Which if we admit from all and sundry, why not\nfrom men of mature wisdom and heroic reason?' He began, accordingly, to\ndiscourse against the hope of a better state of things conceived as lying\nin a rightly instituted study of Pansophia, first objecting political\nreasons of deep import, and then the testimonies of the divine\nScriptures, which seem to foretell for the latter days of the world\nrather darkness and a certain deterioration of things than light and\namended institutions. To all which he had such answers from me that he\nclosed with these words, 'Into no one's mind do I think such things have\ncome before. Stand upon these grounds of yours: either so shall we come\nsome time to agreement, or there will be no way at all left. My advice,\nhowever, is (added he) that you proceed first to do a good stroke in the\nSchool business, and to bring the study of the Latin tongue to a greater\nfacility, and so prepare a broader and clearer way for those bigger\nmatter.' The Chancellor of the University did not cease to urge the same;\nand he suggested this as well: that, if I were unwilling to remove with\nmy family into Sweden, at all events I should come nearer to Sweden by\ntaking up my abode in Prussia, say in Elbing. As my M\u00e6cenas, to whom I\nreturned at Nortcoping [Ludovicus de Geer], thought that both advices\nought to be acquiesced in, and earnestly begged me that nothing should be\ndone otherwise than had been advised, whether in respect of the place of\nmy abode, or of priority to be given to any other task, I agreed at\nlength, always with the hope that within a year or two there would be an\nend of the hack-work.\"--In fact, Comenius went to Elbing in Prussia\n(Hartlib's native place, as the reader may remember), to be supported\nthere by the generosity of Ludovicus de Geer, with subsidies perhaps from\nOxenstiern, and to labour on at a completion of his system of School\nEducation, with a view to its application to Sweden.--\"But this good-\nnature of mine in yielding to the Swedes vehemently displeased my English\nfriends; and they sought to draw me back from any bargain by a long\nepistle, most full of reasons. 'A sufficient specimen,' they argued, 'had\nbeen given in Didactics; the path of farther rectification in that\ndepartment was open enough: not yet so in Real Science. Others could act\nin the former department, and everywhere there were rising up\nSchoolmasters provoking each other to industry by mutual emulation;\nwhereas the foundations of Pansophia were not yet sufficiently laid bare.\nInfinitely more profit would redound to the public from an explanation of\nthe ways of true Wisdom than from little trifles about Latin.' Much more\nin the same strain; and S. H. [Samuel Hartlib] added, '_Quo, moriture,\nruis? minoraque viribus audes_?' in this poetical _solecism_ [Comenius\ncalls the hexameter a solecism, I suppose, on account of the false\nquantity it contains in the word _minora_], reproaching my\ninconsiderateness. Rejoiced by this recall into the road-royal, I sent\non this letter to Sweden; and, nothing doubting that they would come\nround to the arguments there expressed, I gave myself up wholly to my\nPansophics, whether to continue in them, or that, at all events (if the\nSwedish folk did wish me to dwell on in my Scholastics and it were my hap\nto die in that drudgery), the foundations of Pansophia, of the\ninsufficient exposition of which I heard complaints, might be better dug\ndown into, so that they might no longer be ignored. But from Sweden the\nanswer that came was one ordering me to persevere in the proposal of\nfirst finishing the Didactics; backed by saws to this effect: 'One would\nrather the _better_, but the _earlier_ must be done first,' 'One doesn't\ngo from the bigger to the smaller, but _wicey warsey_,' and all the rest\nof it. Nothing was left me but to obey, and plod on against my will in\nthe clay of logomachies for eight whole years. Fortunately this was not\ntill I had printed at Dantzic, in the year 1643, my already-made efforts\nat a better detection of the foundations of Pansophia, under the title of\n'_Pansophi\u00e6 Diatyposis Ichnographica et Orthographica_,' reprinted\nimmediately at Amsterdam and Paris.\" [Footnote: Introd. to Part II. of\n_Opera Didactica_.]\n\nPoor Comenius! He had a long life before him yet; but at this point we\nmust throw him off, shunted into his siding at Elbing, to plod there for\nfour years (1642-1646) at his Didactics, while he would fain have been\nsoaring among his Pansophics. [Footnote: Though, as he has told us, his\ndrudgery at the Didactics continued for _eight_ years in all, there\nwas a break of these eight years in 1646 when he returned to Sweden to\nreport proceedings to his employers.] Letters from his London friend,\nHartlib, would reach him frequently in Elbing, and would doubtless\nencourage him in the humbler labour since he could not be at the higher.\nFor Hartlib himself, we find, also laid aside the Pansophics for a time,\nseeing no hope for them in London without the presidency of Comenius, but\ncontinued to interest himself in the Didactics. In fact, however, he was\nnever without interests of some kind or another. Thus, in Feb. 1642-3, or\nwhen Comenius may have been about a year at Elbing, Hartlib was again at\nthe Durie business. \"A Faithfull and Seasonable Advice, or the Necessity\nof a Correspondence for the Advancement of the Protestant Cause: humbly\nsuggested to the Great Councill of England assembled in Parliament:\nPrinted by John Hammond, 1643,\" is the title of a new tract, of a few\npages, which we know to be Hartlib's. [Footnote: In the copy in the\nKing's Library, British Museum, there is the MS. note \"Ex dono Authoris,\nS. Hartlib\" with the date \"Feb. 6, 1642,\" (_i.e._ 1642-3).] Then, in\nJuly 1643, the Westminster Assembly met; and what an accession of topics\nof interest that brought to Hartlib may be easily imagined. There was the\nexcitement of _The Solemn League and Covenant_ (Aug.-Sept.), with\nthe arrival in London of the Scottish Commissioners, including Hartlib's\nfriend Henderson, to take part in the Assembly; there was the beginning\nof the great debate between Independency and Presbyterianism; nay, in\nNov. 1643, Durie was himself appointed a member of the Assembly by the\nParliament (Vol. II. p. 517), and so drawn over from the Continent for a\nlong period of service and residence in England.\n\nThat Hartlib _was_ interested in all this, and led into new\npositions and relationships by it, there is very varied proof.--For\nexample, he was one of the witnesses in Laud's trial, which began Nov.\n13,1643, and straggled on through the rest of that year and the next. His\nevidence was wanted by the prosecution in support of that one of the\ncharges against Laud which alleged that he had \"endeavoured to cause\ndivision and discord between the Church of England and other Reformed\nChurches.\" In proof of this it was proposed to show that he had\ndiscouraged and impeded Durie in his Conciliation scheme, on the ground\nthat the Calvinistic Churches were alien from the true faith, and that,\nin particular, he had \"caused letters-patent granted by the King for a\ncollection for the Palatinate ministers to be revoked after they had\npassed the great seal\"; and it was to the truth of both these statements\nthat Hartlib, with others, was required to testify. He was, as we know, a\nmost competent witness in that matter; and he gave his evidence duly,\nthough, as I should fancy, with no real ill-will to Laud. [Footnote: See\nparticulars in Prynne's _Canterburie's Doome_ (1646), pp.539-542.\nLaud, in this part of his defence, names both Durie and Hartlib. He says\nhe did not discourage Durie, but rather encouraged him, as he could prove\nby letters of Durie's which he had; to which the prosecution replied that\nthe contrary was notorious, and that Durie had \"oft complained to his\nfriends\" of Land's coldness.]--Now that Episcopacy was done with, and it\nwas to a Parliament and an Assembly mainly Presbyterian that England was\nlooking for a new system of Church-government, Hartlib's anxiety was, as\nDurie's also was, to make the best of the new conditions, and to instil\ninto them as much of the Durie idea as possible. Might it not even be\nthat a Reformed Presbyterian Church of England would be a more effective\nleader in a movement for the union of the Protestant Churches of Europe\nthan the Episcopal Church had been? This explains another short tract of\nHartlib's, put forth Nov. 9, 1644, and entitled, \"The Necessity of some\nnearer Conjunction and Correspondency amongst Evangelical Protestants,\nfor the Advancement of the National Cause, and bringing to passe the\neffect of the Covenant.\" [Footnote: Though the tract, which consists of\nbut eight small quarto pages, is anonymous, it is verified as Hartlib's\nby the inscription on the British Museum copy, \"By Mr. Hartlib, Novemb.\n9th.\" The tract itself bears only \"London Printed 1644.\"]--Well, but how\ndid Hartlib stand in the great controversy between the Independents and\nthe Presbyterians? This too can be answered. As might be expected, he was\nin sympathy with the Independents, in as far as their claim for a\nToleration was concerned. The reader will remember Edwards's famous\n_Antapologia_, published in July 1644, in answer to the _Apologetical\nNarration_ of the Five Independent Divines of the Assembly, and which all\nthe Presbyterian world welcomed as an absolutely crushing blow to\nIndependency and the Toleration principle. Here, then, is the title of a\nsmaller publication which that big one provoked: \"A Short Letter modestly\nentreating a Friend's judgment upon Mr. Edwards his Booke he calleth an\nAnti-Apologia: with a large but modest Answer thereunto: London, Printed\naccording to order, 1644.\" Actually it was out on Sept. 14th, or about\ntwo months after Edwards's book. The title exactly indicates the\nstructure of the publication. It consists of a short Letter and a longish\nReply to that Letter. The Letter begins, \"Worthy Sir, I have heard of Mr.\nEdwards's Anti-Apologeticall Book, as I needs must doe, for all the City\nand Parliament rings with it,\" and it goes on to request from the person\naddressed _his_ opinion of the hook. At the end of the letter we find the\nwriter's name \"Sam Hartlib\": and the dating \"from my house in Duke's\nPlace in great haste, Aug. 5.\" And who was the friend addressed? He was a\nHezekiah Woodward, B.A. (Oxon.), preacher in or near Aldermanbury, about\nfifty years of age, long a zealous Puritan, latterly a decided\nParliamentarian and champion of the Solemn League and Covenant, and\nalready known as an author by some Puritanic books, and one or two of a\npedagogic kind, referable to an earlier period of his life when he had\nbeen a London schoolmaster. Hartlib had known him, he says in his letter,\nfor sixteen years, that is to say from his first coming to London in 1628\nor 1629. It is this long friendship that justifies him in asking\nWoodward's opinion of Edwards's book. The opinion is given in a reply to\nHartlib, signed \"Hezekiah Woodward,\" and dated \"from my house in\nAldermanbury, 13 Aug. 1644\"; and it is, as far as I remember, quite\nagainst Edwards, and a real, though hazy and perplexed, reasoning for\nToleration.[Footnote: The publication was duly registered, and has a long\nappended _Imprimatur_ by Joseph Caryl; and the exact date of the\npublication (Sept 14) is from a MS. note in the British Museum copy, For\na sketch of Woodward and a list of his writings see Wood, Ath. III, 1034-\n7.]\n\n\nMILTON'S TRACT ON EDUCATION: HIS METHOD WITH HIS PUPILS.\n\nIt had been Hartlib's chance, he himself tells us, to be \"familiarly\nacquainted with the best of Archbishops, Bishops, Earls, Viscounts,\nBarons, Knights, Esquires, Gentlemen, ministers, Professors of both\nUniversities, Merchants, and all sorts of learned or in any kind useful\nmen.\" This he wrote at a considerably later date in his life; [Footnote:\nIn Aug. 1660, See Letter in Dircks's Memoir, p. 4.] but, from what we\nhave already seen, we may vote it substantially true even in 1644. In\nthat year, we know for certain, the circle of Hartlib's friends included\nMilton.\n\nThe acquaintanceship may have begun some years before that. It may have\nbegun in 1639 when Milton, on his return from abroad, took lodgings in\nSt. Bride's Churchyard, or in 1640, when he first set up house in\nAldersgate Street. At all events, when Milton's Anti-Episcopal pamphlets\nof the next two years made him a public man, he is not likely to have\nescaped the cognisance of Hartlib. I should not wonder if Milton were one\nof those \"more forward spirits\" whom Hartlib wanted to enlist in the\ngreat scheme of a Pansophic University of London to be organized by\nComenius, and whom he tried to bring round Comenius personally during the\nstay of that theorist in London in 1641-2, when the experiment of some\nsuch University was really in contemplation by friends in Parliament, and\nChelsea had been almost fixed on as the site. But, if so, I rather guess,\nfor reasons which will appear, that Milton gave the whole scheme the cold\nshoulder, and did not take to the great Comenius. Quite possibly,\nhowever, it was not till Comenius was gone, and was fixed down at Elbing\nin Prussia, that there was any intimacy between Milton and Hartlib. It\nmay have come about after Milton had been deserted by his wife in July\n1643, and when a few pupils, besides the two nephews he had till then had\ncharge of, were received into his wifeless household. Would not this in\nitself be an attraction to Hartlib? Was not Milton pursuing a new method\nwith his pupils, between which and the method of Comenius there were\npoints in common? Might not Comenius himself, in his retirement at\nElbing, be interested in hearing of an eminent English scholar and poet\nwho had views about a Reform of Education akin to his own?\n\nThis is very much fancy, but it is the exact kind of fancy that fits the\ncertainty. That certainty is that, before the middle of 1644, Milton and\nHartlib were well acquainted with each other, had met pretty frequently\nat Milton's house in Aldersgate Street, or at Hartlib's in Duke's Place,\nand had conversed freely on many subjects, and especially on that of\nEducation. Nay more, Hartlib, trying to indoctrinate Milton with the\nComenian views on this subject, had found that Milton had already certain\nmost positive views of his own upon it, in some things agreeing with the\nComenian, but in others vigorously differing. Hence, after various\ncolloquies, he had made a request to Milton. Would he put a sketch of his\nviews upon paper--no elaborate treatise, but merely a sketch, such as one\ncould read in half-an-hour or so, and, if permitted, show to a friend, or\nprint for more general use? Urged more and more pressingly, Milton\ncomplied; and the result was the appearance, on June 5, 1644, on some\nbooksellers' counters, of a thin little quarto tract, of eight pages in\nrather small type, with no author's name, and no title-page at all, but\nsimply this heading atop of the text on the first page, \"OF EDUCATION: TO\nMASTER SAMUEL HARTLIB.\" The publication had been duly registered, and the\npublisher was the same Thomas Underhill, of Wood Street, who had\npublished Milton's first three Anti-Episcopal pamphlets. The inference is\nthat the thing was printed by Milton himself, and not by Hartlib. It\nwould be handier for Hartlib to have it in print than in manuscript.\n[Footnote: \"June 4, 1644: Tho. Underhill entered for his copy under the\nhands of Mr. Cranford [the licenser] and Mr. Man, warden, a little tract\ntouching Education of Youth,\" is the entry in the Stationers' books;\nwithout which we should not have known the publisher's name. The date of\nthe publication is fixed, and the fact that the authorship was known at\nthe time is proved, by this MS. note of Thomason on the copy among the\nKing's Pamphlets in the British Museum (Press mark  12. F. e. 12./160)\n\"By Mr. John Milton: 5 June, 1644.\"--Milton reprinted the tract in 1673,\nat the end of the second edition of his Minor Poems, with the words\n\"Written above twenty years since\" added to the original title.]\n\nHartlib must have been pleased, and yet not altogether pleased, with the\nopening of the Tract. Here it is:--\n\n\"MR. HARTLIB,\n\n\"I am long since persuaded that to say or do aught worth memory and\nimitation no purpose or respect should sooner move us than simply the\nlove of God and of Mankind. Nevertheless, to write now the Reforming of\nEducation, though it be one of the greatest and noblest designs that can\nbe thought on, and for the want whereof this Nation perishes, I had not\nyet at this time been induced, but by your earnest entreaties and serious\nconjurements; as having my mind for the present half diverted in the\npursuance of some other assertions, the knowledge and the use of which\ncannot but be a great furtherance both to the enlargement of Truth and\nhonest living with much more peace. [Footnote: This passage, the wording\nof which clearly implies that Milton was prosecuting his Divorce\nspeculation, with whatever else in addition, sets aside a hypothesis\n(which may have occurred to the reader as well as to myself) that the\nTract on Education, though not published till June 1644, may have been\nwritten, and in Hartlib's hands, as early as 1641-2, when Comenius was in\nLondon. The hypothesis, which might have been otherwise plausible, will\nnot accord with the particular words of the tract now presented; and the\nconclusion is that, whether Milton knew Hartlib or not as early as 1641-\n2, when Comenius was with him, the tract was not written till shortly\nbefore its publication in June 1644, when Comenius had been two years in\nElbing.] Nor should the laws of any private friendship have prevailed\nwith me to divide thus, or to transpose, my former thoughts, but that I\nsee those aims, those actions, which have won you with me the esteem of a\nperson sent hither by some good providence from a far country to be the\noccasion and the incitement of great good to this Island. And, as I hear,\nyou have obtained the same repute with men of most approved wisdom, and\nsome of highest authority among us; not to mention the learned\ncorrespondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary\npains and diligence which you have used in this matter both here and\nbeyond the seas, either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the\npeculiar sway of nature, which also is God's working, Neither can I think\nthat, so reputed and so valued as you are, you would, to the forfeit of\nyour own discerning ability, impose upon me an unfit and over-ponderous\nargument, but that the satisfaction which you profess to have received\nfrom those incidental discourses which we have wandered into hath\npressed, and almost constrained, you into a persuasion that what you\nrequire from me in this point I neither ought nor can in conscience defer\nbeyond this time, both of so much need at once and of so much opportunity\nto try what God hath determined. I will not resist, therefore, whatever\nit is either of divine or human obligement that you lay upon me; but will\nforthwith set down in writing, as you request me, that voluntary Idea\nwhich hath long in silence presented itself to me of a better Education,\nin extent and comprehension far more large, and yet of time far shorter\nand of attainment far more certain, than hath been yet in practice. Brief\nI shall endeavour to be; for that which I have to say assuredly this\nNation hath extreme need should be _done_ sooner than _spoken_.\nTo tell you, therefore, what I have benefited herein among old renowned\nauthors, I shall spare; and to search what many modern JANUAS and\nDIDACTICS, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my inclination\nleads me not. But, if you can accept of these few observations, which\nhave flowered off, and are as it were the burnishing of, many studious\nand contemplative years altogether spent in the search of religious and\ncivil knowledge, and such as pleased you so well in the relating, I here\ngive you them to dispose of.\"\n\nWhat must have pleased Hartlib in this was the tone of respectful\ncompliment to himself; what may have pleased him less was the slighting\nway in which Comenius is passed over. \"To search what many modern JANUAS\nand DIDACTICS, more than ever I shall read, have projected, my\ninclination leads me not,\" says Milton, quoting in brief the titles of\nthe two best-known works of Comenius. It is as if he had said, \"I know\nyour enthusiasm for your Pansophic friend; but I have not read his books\non Education, and do not mean to do so.\" This was barely polite;\n[Footnote: The manner of the allusion to Comenius rather forbids the idea\nthat Milton had met him during his London visit. Like most high-natured\nmen,  Milton had a kindly side to the merits of those whom he personally\nknew.] but Hartlib was a man of sense: and he would be glad, in reading\non, to find that, with whatever independence Milton had formed his views,\nnot even Comenius had outgone him in denunciations of the existing system\nof Education. Thus:--\n\n\"Seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all\nkind of learning, therefore we are taught chiefly the languages of those\npeople who have at any time been most industrious after wisdom; so that\nLanguage is but the instrument conveying to us Things worthy to be known.\nAnd, though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that\nBabel cleft the world into, yet, if he have not studied the solid things\nin them as well as the words and Lexicons, he were nothing so much to be\nesteemed a learned man as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his\nmother-dialect only. Hence appear the many mistakes which have made\nLearning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful. First, we do amiss\nto spend seven or eight years merely in scraping together so much\nmiserable Latin and Greek as might be learnt otherwise easily and\ndelightfully in one year. And that which casts our proficiency therein so\nmuch behind is our time lost, partly in too oft idle vacancies given both\nto Schools and Universities, partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing\nthe empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which\nare the acts of ripest judgment, and the final work of a head filled, by\nlong reading and observing, with elegant maxims and copious invention.\nThese are not matters to be wrung from poor striplings, like blood out of\nthe nose, or the plucking of untimely fruit: besides the ill habit which\nthey get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom with\ntheir untutored Anglicisms, odious to read, yet not to be avoided without\na well-continued and judicious conversing among pure authors digested,\nwhich they scarce taste; whereas, if, after some preparatory grounds of\nspeech by their certain forms got into memory, they were led to the\npraxis thereof in some chosen short book lessoned thoroughly to them,\nthey might then forthwith proceed to learn the substance of good Things\nand Arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into\ntheir power. This I take to be the most rational and most profitable way\nof learning _Languages_, and whereby we may best hope to give\naccount to God of our youth spent herein. And, for the usual method of\nteaching _Arts_, I deem it to be an old error of Universities, not\nyet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that,\ninstead of beginning with Arts most easy (and these be such as are most\nobvious to the sense), they present their young unmatriculated novices at\nfirst coming with the most intellective abstractions of Logic and\nMetaphysics; so that they, having but newly left those grammatic flats\nand shallows where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with\nlamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under another\nclimate to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted wits in\nfathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do for the most part grow\ninto hatred and contempt of Learning, mocked and deluded ail the while\nwith ragged notions and babblements, while they expected worthy and\ndelightful knowledge; till poverty or youthful years call them\nimportunately their several ways, and hasten them, with the sway of\nfriends, either to an ambitious and mercenary or ignorantly zealous\nDivinity: some allured to the trade of Law, grounding their purposes not\non the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which\nwas never taught them, but on promising and pleasing thoughts of\nlitigious terms, fat contentions and flowing fees. Others betake\nthemselves to State affairs, with souls so unprincipled in virtue and\ntrue generous breeding that flattery and court-shifts and tyrannous\naphorisms appear to them the highest points of wisdom; instilling their\nbarren hearts with a conscientious slavery, if (as I rather think) it be\nnot feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit, retire\nthemselves, knowing no better, to the enjoyments of ease and luxury,\nliving out their days in feasts and jollity; which indeed is the wisest\nand the safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity\nundertaken. And these are the errors, and these are the fruits of mis-\nspending our prime youth at the Schools and Universities as we do, either\nin learning mere Words, or such Things chiefly as were better unlearnt.\"\n\nHaving thus denounced the existing system of Schools and Universities,\nMilton goes on to explain what he would substitute. As he poetically\nexpresses it, he will detain his readers no longer in the wretched survey\nof things as they are, but will conduct them to a hill-side where he will\npoint out to them \"the right path of a virtuous and noble education,\nlaborious indeed at the first ascent, but else so smooth, so green, so\nfull of goodly prospect and melodious sounds on every side, that the Harp\nof Orpheus was not more charming.\" The rest of the tract is a redemption\nof this promise. To represent it by mere continued quotation would be of\nsmall use, and is perhaps unnecessary. We will, therefore, try a stricter\nmethod.\n\nMilton does not formally concern himself in this tract with the complete\nproblem of National Education. In this respect the passion and the\nprojects of Comenius were a world wider than Milton's. Comenius aimed at,\nand passionately dreamt of, a system of Education that should, in every\ncountry where it was established, comprehend all born in that country, of\nboth sexes, and of every rank or class, and take charge of them from\ntheir merest infancy on as far as they could go, from the first or\nMother's School through the subsequent routine of the Public Vernacular\nSchool, the Latin School or _Ludus Literarius_, and the University.\nThis last stage of the complete routine might extend to the twenty-fourth\nor twenty-fifth year of life; and, though few could proceed to that\nstage, and the majority must, from sheer social necessity, drop off in\nthe earlier stages, yet all were to be carried through the stage of the\nVernacular Public School, and progress beyond that, where possible, was\nnot to be denied to girls any more than to boys. Compared with this, what\nMilton contemplates, or at least discusses, is but an important fragment\nstruck off from the total mass. True, he gives a tolerably broad\ndefinition of Education at the outset. \"I call therefore a complete and\ngenerous Education,\" he says, \"that which fits a man to perform, justly,\nskilfully, and magnanimously, all the offices, both private and public,\nof Peace and War.\" This definition, if meant as verbally perfect, would\nnot have been satisfactory to Comenius, whose express notion of\nEducation, as we know, was that it included preparation for the life to\ncome as well as for that which now is. But, if he had known Milton, he\nmight have let the omission pass as certainly and most solemnly implied,\nand might even have liked, for the sake of effect, the practical and\nstraightforward utilitarianism of the definition. But then, when Milton's\nprecise phrasing of the definition was examined, one could not but guess\nlimits in his mind. \"That which fits a _man_ to perform\" are the\nwords of the definition; and to perform what? \"All the offices, both\nprivate and public, of _Peace and War_,\" are the words that follow.\nAnd, as one reads on, the conjecture suggested by this phrasing is\nconfirmed. By _man_ Milton did not mean _Homo_, but _Vir_. When he framed\nhis definition of Education, only one of the sexes was present to his\nmind; and throughout the whole tract, from first to last, there is not a\nsingle recognition of girl, woman, or anything in female shape, as coming\nwithin the scheme proposed. But more than that. Not only is it the\neducation of one sex only that Is discussed in the tract, but it is the\neducation only of a portion of that sex, and of that portion only at a\nparticular period of life. There is nothing about the Infant Education,\nor what we should now call the Primary Education, of male children; and\nthere is nothing about ways and means for the secondary or higher\neducation of any others than those whose parents could pay for such\neducation out of their own resources. In short, the tract is a proposal\nof a new method for the education of English gentlemen's sons between the\nages of twelve and twenty-one. It is this, and nothing more, except in so\nfar as hints in the general philosophy of education may be implied in the\nparticular exposition. Milton himself was careful, ere the close of the\ntract, to avow that he had so restricted himself. It was a \"general\nview,\" he said, such as Mr. Hartlib had desired, and meant also \"for\nlight and direction\" to \"such as have the worth in them to make trial,\"\nbut \"not beginning as some have done [_e.g._ Comenius] at the cradle,\nwhich might yet be worth many considerations,\" and omitting also \"many\nother circumstances\" that might have been mentioned had not brevity been\nthe scope. All this it is necessary to remember in justice to the tract.\nIt is a tract on the education of gentlemen's sons, or of such boys and\nyouths as had hitherto been accustomed to go to the English Public\nSchools and Universities.\n\nWithin his avowed limits, Milton is very like himself, _i.e._ very\ngrand and very bold. At the first start, for example, he tells us that he\nwould abolish Universities altogether, or roll Public Schools and\nUniversities into one. Here is his recipe: \"First to find out a spacious\nhouse and ground about it fit for an ACADEMY, and big enough to lodge 150\npersons (whereof 20 or thereabout maybe attendants), all under the\ngovernment of one who shall be thought of desert sufficient, and ability\neither to do all or wisely to direct and oversee it done. This place\nshould be at once both School and University, not needing a remove to any\nother house of Scholarship, except it be some peculiar College of Law or\nPhysic, where they mean to be practitioners; but, as for those general\nstudies which take up all our time from Lilly to the commencing (as they\nterm it) Master of Art, it should be absolute. After this pattern, as\nmany edifices may be converted to this use as shall be needful in every\ncity throughout this land; which would tend much to the increase of\nlearning and civility everywhere.\" Milton clearly did not like the\ndeputation of all the higher education of England to two seats of\nlearning, like Oxford and Cambridge, but wanted his Academies to be\ndistributed all over England, in numbers proportionate to the population,\nand chiefly in cities.\n\nHe takes one of these imagined Academies as a model, and shows how it\nmight be conducted. He divides the subject into the three heads of\nSTUDIES, EXERCISES AND AMUSEMENTS, and DIET. On this last, however, he is\nextremely brief. \"For their Diet there cannot be much to say, save only\nthat it would be best in the same house; for much time else would be lost\nabroad, and many ill habits got; and that it should be plain, healthful,\nand moderate, I suppose is out of controversy:\" _i.e._ Milton would\nprefer that all the pupils should be boarded in the Academy, and have\ntheir meals there at a common table. It is to the Studies and the\nExercises and Amusements that most space is devoted.\n\nI. THE STUDIES:--Here Milton appears decidedly as an innovator, but yet\nwith a curious mixture of what would now be called rank Conservatism. The\ninnovation consists in a total departure from the use and wont of his\ntime, in respect of the nature of the studies to be pursued and the order\nin which they should be taken. There was to be an end of that wretched\ntorture of Latin and Greek theme-making and versifying, and that dreary\ntoiling amid obsolete subtleties of scholastic Logic and Metaphysics,\nwhich he had denounced in a previous passage, and which had made\nUniversity Education, he says, nothing better than \"an asinine feast of\nsow-thistles and brambles.\" Instead of these he would have studies useful\nin themselves and delightful to ingenuous young minds. Things rather than\nWords; the Facts of Nature and of Life; Real Science of every possible\nkind: this, together with a persistent training in virtuous and noble\nsentiment, and a final finish of the highest literary culture, was to\ncompose the new Education. Here Milton and Comenius are very much at one;\nhere Milton and the modern advocates of the Real or Physical Sciences in\nEducation are very much at one. Given a lofty and varied idea of utility,\nno man has ever been more strenuously utilitarian than Milton was in this\ntract. The very novelty of the scheme it proposed consisted in the\nproclamation of utility as the test of the studies to be pursued and as\nruling the order in which they should come.--What, then, was that \"rank\nconservatism,\" as some might call it now, which accompanied the novelty?\nIt was that the medium of liberal education should still be mainly Latin\nand Greek. A sentence in one of the passages of the tract already quoted\nhas prepared us for this. Language, Milton had there admitted, is\nvaluable in education only as an instrument of real knowledge, a vehicle\nof \"things worthy to be known.\" But then all languages were not equally\nfitted for this function, inasmuch as every people could put into its\nlanguage only what it had in its head or heart, and so different\nlanguages had come down freighted with very different weights and worths\nof matter. Now, what were the languages pointed out by this principle as\napt for the purposes of education? They were Greek, Latin, and Italian,\nwith (on religious grounds) Hebrew and one or two of its cognates. These\nwere the tongues to be taught, and to be taught in, and mainly, of these,\nLatin and Greek. Of English there is not one word. This may partly be\naccounted for. The acquisition of useful information in all kinds of\nsubjects was to be a great part of the education in each of the proposed\nMiltonic Academies; and at that time information on all kinds of subjects\nwas locked up chiefly in Latin and Greek books. All modern or mediaeval\nbooks of information, all the standard text-books in the Sciences and\nArts, that had been written by Englishmen themselves or by Continentals,\nwere in the common Latin; the library of such books, original or\ntranslated, in the vernacular was yet but scanty. One could not be\n_learned_ by means of English alone. Well, but Milton recognised a\nculture of the feelings, the imagination, the sense of art and nobleness,\nas also something needed in education, and to be helped by books; and in\nthis respect, if not in the other, were there not available materials and\nmeans in the native English Literature? That Literature contained, at all\nevents, the poetry of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and not a few\nothers, rated more or less highly by Milton himself. That Milton did not,\non this account, include some teaching and reading of the vernacular in\nthe curriculum of his Academy, may have arisen from the fact that the\nbest in English Literature was then all recent, and of such small bulk\ncollectively that acquaintance with it might be expected as a matter of\nmere chance and delicious odd hours in window-corners. Here he but\nfollowed the custom. All Public or Grammar Schools were Latin and Greek\nSchools: English at that stage was, by common consent, to shift for\nitself. And yet there were dissentients from the custom, and advocates of\nthe claims of the vernacular. Comenius, as we have seen, had blown a\nblast on the subject for all lands; and in Milton's own school of St.\nPaul's there had been a rather remarkable tradition of English. Not only\nhad the elder Gill, the Head-master of the school in Milton's time, been\na purist in English, and an inventor of new methods for teaching in and\nthrough English (see Vol. I. pp. 60-64), but Gill's predecessor in the\nschool, Mulcaster, had pleaded for English. \"Is it not a marvellous\nbondage,\" he had written as early as 1582, \"to become servants to one\ntongue, for learning's sake, the most part of our time, whereas we may\nhave the very same treasure in our own tongue with the gain of most time:\nour own bearing the joyful title of our liberty and freedom; the Latin\ntongue remembering us of our thraldom and bondage? I love Rome, but\nLondon better; I favour Italy, but England more; I honour the Latin, but\nI worship the English.\" [Footnote: Richard Mulcaster's \"First Part of the\nElementarie; which entreateth chiefelie of the Right Writing of our\nEnglish Ton.,\" (1582). My quotation, however, is not directly from the\nbook itself, but from an extract in the Appendix to Mr. Quick's \"Essays\non Educational Reformers\" (1868), pp. 301-2.] After this and the\ntradition of English in St. Paul's, Milton's total omission of English\nfrom the curriculum of his Academy is rather remarkable. There are proofs\nthat, when he wrote his Tract on Education, he had settled in a lower\nestimate of the worth of all the previous English Literature than is\ncommon now, and that he thought the greatness of English still to come.\nThis may have had something to do with the omission. Possibly, however,\nhe reserved a large daily use of English in his Academy which does not\nappear in the programme.\n\nWhat does appear in the programme is that the curriculum of eight years\nor so was to be arranged, not rigidly but in a general way, in four\nclasses or stages, thus:--\n\n(1) _First Class or Stage_ (\u00e6tat. l2-l3?):--The business here was to\nbe Latin, Arithmetic, and Elementary Geometry. The Latin rudiments and\nrules were to be learnt from \"some good Grammar, either that now used\n[Lilly's], or any better,\" and the Italian or Continental mode of\npronouncing Latin, instead of the customary English, was to be carefully\ntaught from the first; but as to the first reading-books to be used along\nwith the Grammar, or any method for simplifying and accelerating entrance\ninto Latin, whether that of Comenius or any other, there is no hint as\nyet. Neither is there any hint as to the manner of learning Arithmetic\nand the Elements of Geometry, save that the latter might be picked up\n\"even playing, as the old manner was.\" On another part of the training of\nthis First Class, however, Milton is more specific. Most especially at\nthis stage, the boys were to be inured to noble and hardy sentiments and\na sense of the importance of the education they were beginning; they were\nto be \"inflamed with the study of Learning and the admiration of Virtue\";\nnay, they were to be \"stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave\nmen and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages.\" This might\nbe done by reading to them aloud, from Greek or Latin, \"some easy and\ndelightful Book of Education\" not yet accessible to themselves. \"CEBES,\n[Footnote: The Pinax (Table) of CEBES of Thebes, a disciple of Socrates.\n\"This Pinax is a philosophical explanation of a table on which the whole\nof human life, with its dangers and temptations, was symbolically\nrepresented, and which is said to have been dedicated by some one to the\ntemple of Cronos at Athens or Thebes. The author introduces some youths\ncontemplating the table, and an old man who steps among them undertakes\nto explain its meaning. The whole drift of the book is to show that only\nthe proper development of the mind and possession of real virtues can\nmake us truly happy\" (Dr. L. Schmitz in Smith's Dict. of Greek and Roman\nBiog.: Art. _Cebes_.) There were in Milton's time Latin translations\nof Cebes, and at least one in English.] PLUTARCH, [Footnote: This must be\nsome such portion of PLUTARCH'S \"Moral Works\" as that relating to\nPedagogy. An English translation of the \"Morals,\" by Philemon Holland,\nhad been published in 1603.] and other Socratic Discourses,\" are\nmentioned as fit for the purpose in Greek; and, in Latin, \"the two or\nthree first Books of QUINTILIAN.\" [Footnote: I do not find in Lowndes any\nearly English translation of QUINTILIAN'S \"Institutes.\" The first two or\nthree Books of this work are an excellent dissertation on the importance\nof Education and survey of what it ought to include; and it gives us an\nidea of Milton's purpose that he wanted them to be read to pupils at the\noutset. He wanted to fire them with high notions of that business of\neducation on which they were entering.] Most, however, would depend on\nthe explanations and precepts of the master himself at every opportunity,\nand on the influence of his own example, \"infusing into their young\nbreasts such an ingenuous and noble ardour as would not fail to make many\nof them renowned and matchless men.\" Always, too, at evening, there was\nto be Religious teaching and reading of the Bible.\n\n(2) _Second Class or Stage_ (_\u00e6tat_. 13-16?):--This stage, it\nmust be presumed, was to be considerably longer than the first; for its\nbusiness was to consist in Latin continued, with Greek added, and in the\nacquisition through these tongues, and otherwise, of a knowledge of all\nthe useful Sciences and Arts. Here, indeed, Milton's utilitarian bent,\nhis determination to substitute a pabulum of real knowledge for the\nstudies then customary in schools, asserts itself most conspicuously.\nHere it is that he approaches most to Comenius in the substance, though\nwith a difference in the manner. For what were the books he would\nexercise his pupils on at this stage, _i.e._ as soon as they had got\nthrough the Latin Grammar, and could make out a bit of Latin? First,\nCATO, VARRO, and COLUMELLA, the three Latin writers on Agriculture.\n[Footnote: CATO is the famous \"Cato the Censor\" of Roman history, or M.\nPorcius Cato (B.C. 231-141), among whose preserved writing, is an\nagricultural treatise, _De Re Rustica_; VARRO is M. Terentius Varro\n(B.C. 116-28), reputed the most learned of all the Romans, and among\nwhose various works is also one _De Re Rustica_; COLUMELLA, the\nauthor of a systematic work on Agriculture, in twelve Books, lived in the\nfirst century of the Christian era. I do not know that there were any\nEnglish translations of these Latin works on Agriculture in Milton's\ntime.] If the language of these unusual authors was difficult for the\npupils, \"so much the better; it is not a difficulty beyond their years.\"\nThey would, at all events, find the matter useful and interesting, and\nmight, by these readings, and due modern comments, be \"incited and\nenabled\" for the great work of \"improving the tillage of their country\"\nwhen they should grow to be men. Hartlib, we may be sure, would like this\non its own account; but Milton had an additional reason for it. The\npupils, after having read these writers, would have a good grasp of the\nLatin vocabulary, and would be masters of any ordinary Latin prose. They\nmight then, therefore, learn Geography, with \"the use of the Globes and\nall the Maps,\" through any good modern (Latin) treatise on that subject,\nand also the elements of \"Natural Philosophy\" in the same way. Milton\ndoes not specify any manual on either subject. But, about this time, he\nsays, the pupils would be learning Greek. This they would do \"after the\nsame manner as was before prescribed in the Latin; whereby, the\ndifficulties of Grammar being soon overcome, all the historical\nPhysiology of ARISTOTLE and THEOPHRASTUS are open before them, and, as I\nmay say, under contribution.\" In other words, the first Greek readings of\nthe pupils would be in such works of Aristotle as his \"History of\nAnimals,\" his \"Meteorology,\" and parts of his general \"Physics,\" and in\nthe \"History of Plants\" of Aristotle's disciple, Theophrastus; [Footnote:\nLowndes mentions no English translations of ARISTOTLE or THEOPHRASTUS as\nearly as Milton's time.] and the purpose of such readings would be to\nenlarge their knowledge of the Physical Sciences at the same time that\nthey were breaking themselves into Greek. But now, Latin being thoroughly\nin their possession, they might be ranging at large, in quest of the same\nand analogous kinds of information, in VITRUVIUS (Architecture), SENECA's\n\"Natural Questions,\" MELA (Geography), CELSUS (Medicine), PLINY (Natural\nHistory), and SOLINUS (Natural History and Geography). [Footnote:\nVITRUVIUS and CELSUS do not seem to have been translated into English so\nearly as Milton's time; but there were translations of all the others.\nThe works of SENECA, both Moral and Natural, had been \"done into English\"\nby Thomas Lodge (1614); PLINY'S \"Natural Historie of the World,\"\ntranslated by Philemon Holland, Doctor of Physic (1601), was a well-known\nbook; and MELA and SOLINUS had been made accessible together in \"The rare\nand singular work of Pomponius Mela, that excellent and worthy\nCosmographer of the Situation of the World, most orderly prepared, and\ndivided every parte by it selfe; with the Longitude and Latitude of\neverie kingdome, &c.; whereunto is added that learned worke of Julius\nSolinus _Polyhistor_, with a necessarie table for this Booke, right\npleasant and profitable for Gentlemen, Merchants, Mariners, and\nTravellers, Translated into Englyshe by Arthur Golding, gent.\" (1585-7.)]\nWhat next? Why, \"having thus passed the principles of Arithmetic,\nGeometry, Astronomy, and Geography, with a general compact of Physics,\nthey may descend, in Mathematics, to the instrumental science of\nTrigonometry, and from thence to Fortification, Architecture, Enginry, or\nNavigation; and, in Natural Philosophy, they may proceed leisurely from\nthe History of Meteors, Minerals, Plants, and Living Creatures, as far as\nAnatomy. Then also in course might be read to them out of some not\ntedious writer the Institution of Physic; that they may know the tempers,\nthe humours, the seasons, and how to manage a crudity.\" Text-books are\nnot mentioned here; and, though some must have been in view for such\nsubjects as Trigonometry, Fortification, Engineering, and Navigation, yet\nit is clear, from Milton's language, that he meant a good deal of the\nmiscellaneous instruction to be by lectures and digests of books by the\nteacher. Nay, there were to be more than lectures. \"To set forward all\nthese proceedings in Nature and Mathematics, what hinders but that they\nmay procure, as oft as shall be needful, the helpful experiences of\nHunters, Fowlers, Fishermen, Shepherds, Gardeners, Apothecaries, and, in\nthe other sciences, Architects, Engineers, Mariners, Anatomists; who,\ndoubtless, would be ready, some for reward, and some to favour such a\nhopeful Seminary.\" Hartlib must here have rejoiced again. But there comes\nin a Miltonic touch at the end. Hitherto he has debarred the pupils of\nhis Academy, it will have been noticed, from all the ordinary classics\nread in schools. But, just about the end of this, the second stage of\ntheir studies, devoted to the Real or Physical Sciences and their\napplications, he would admit them to such classic readings as would\nimpart a poetic colouring to the knowledge so acquired. In Greek, they\nmight take now to ORPHEUS, HESIOD, THEOCRITUS, ARATUS, NICANDER, OPPIAN,\nand DIONYSIUS, and in Latin to LUCRETIUS, MANILIUS, and the Georgics of\nVIRGIL. [Footnote: Of the ORPHIC POEMS Milton must here have intended\nthose relating to Nature and her phenomena. Of the \"Works and Days\" or\n\"Georgics\" of HESIOD, there had been an English translation by George\nChapman (1618); and at least some of the Idylls of THEOCRITUS had been in\nEnglish since 1588. The _Phnomena_ and _Diosemeia_ of Aratus\n(circ. B.C. 270) were, as we know, a favourite book with Milton, and he\nhad had a copy of the Paris edition of 1559 in his possession since 1631\n(see Vol. I. p. 234, Note), with MS. notes of his own in the margin. In\nlooking at the specimens of these MS. notes facsimiled by the late Mr.\nLeigh Sotheby in his Milton _Ramblings_ from the original book, now in\nthe British Museum, I can see, by my test of the shaping of the letter e\n(Vol. II. p. 121, Note), that, while some of the notes were written\nbefore the journey to Italy, or between 1631 and 1638, others were\nwritten after the return from Italy, _i. e._ after 1639. This proves that\nMilton kept using the book in his manhood. There was, I think, then no\nEnglish translation of it. Neither was there a translation of the\n_Theriaca_ and _Alexipharmaka_ (Poems on Venomous Animals and Poisons) of\nthe Greek NICANDER (circ. B.C. 150); nor of the _Halieutics_ and\n_Kynegetics_ (Poems on Fishing and Hunting) of OPPIAN (circ. A.D. 210).\nThere was, however, as early as 1572, an English translation \"by Thomas\nIrvine, gentl.\" of the _Periegetes_ or Geographical Poem of DIONYSIUS\nAFER (third century after Christ). Of the Latin Poems mentioned--\nLUCRETIUS _De Rerum Natura_, the _Astronomica_ of MANILIUS, and the\nGeorgics of VIRGIL--only the last had been Englished as yet. They had\nbeen Englished in 1589 by an Abraham Fleming, and in 1628 by Thomas May.]\n\nSome of these books which were \"counted most hard\" would be, in the\ncircumstances, facile and pleasant.\n\n(3) _Third Class or Stage_ (_\u00e6tat_. 16-19?):--The work of this\nstage was also to be very composite. It was to embrace Ethics, Economics,\nPolitics, Jurisprudence, Theology, Church History and General History,\ntogether with Italian, Hebrew, and possibly Chaldee and Syriac, varied\nthroughout by such carefully-arranged readings in Latin and Greek\nclassics as would harmonize with those studies while they relieved them.\nFor by this stage the reason of the pupils would have been so far matured\nthat they might pass from the Physical to the Moral Sciences. For Ethics,\nthey might be led \"through all the Moral Works of PLATO, XENOPHON,\nCICERO, PLUTARCH, LAERTIUS, and those LOCRIAN REMNANTS; [Footnote: There\nwas then no complete English translation of PLATO, but individual\nDialogues had been translated, and he had been accessible complete in\nLatin since 1484. The _Cyrop\u00e6dia_ of XENOPHON had been twice translated\ninto English, the second translation (1632) being by Philemon Holland;\nbut Lowndes mentions no translation yet of the _Memorabilia_. The _De\nOfficiis_ of CICERO had been translated again and again, and others of\nhis writings. The Morals of PLUTARCH, as we have already seen, were\naccessible in English. The book on the History of Philosophy by the Greek\nDIOGENES LAERTIUS was not yet in English, but a Latin translation was\nextant. By the LOCRIAN REMNANTS seem to be meant reputed remains of those\nLOCRIAN philosophers from whom PLATO had derived instruction.] but still\nto be reduced, in their nightward studies wherewith they close the day's\nwork, under the determinate sentence of DAVID or SOLOMON, or the EVANGELS\nand APOSTOLIC SCRIPTURES.\" For Economics and Politics, to follow the\nEthics, no books are named; but the Greek and Latin books in view may be\nguessed. In Jurisprudence, which was to come next, they would find the\nsubstance \"delivered first, and with best warrant, by MOSES\"; and then,\n\"as far as human prudence can be trusted, in those extolled remains of\nGrecian Lawgivers, LYCURGUS, SOLON, ZALEUCUS, CHARONDAS, and thence to\nall the Roman Edicts and Tables, with their JUSTINIAN, and so down to the\nSAXON AND COMMON LAWS OF ENGLAND and the STATUTES.\" [Footnote: To put\nthis in other words, Milton, to ground his English students in the\nScience of Law, would have begun first with the MOSAIC LAWS in the\nPentateuch, and would then have led them through a course of: I. _The\nGreek Legislation_, so far as it could be recovered, of LYCURGUS the\nSpartan (B.C. 884, according to Aristotle), SOLON the Athenian (_circ._\nB.C. 600), ZALEUCUS, the Lawgiver of the Locrians (_circ._ B.C. 660), and\nCHARONDAS, the Lawgiver of Catana and other Greek cities in Sicily and\nItaly (_circ._ B.C. 500); II. _The Roman Law_, in all its ancient\nfragments, and especially in its great compilation and completion by the\nEmperor JUSTINIAN (A.D. 527-534); III. _Native English Law_, as\nrepresented in the preserved codes of the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of\nKent, Wessex, &c., and in the traditional and written Laws of England\nsince the Conquest.] For History, General or Ecclesiastical, no manuals\nare spoken of; and, as respects Theology, it is only indicated that this\nmight be the employment of Sundays, though not exclusively so.--The\nItalian language was to be acquired \"at any odd hour\" in an early part of\nthis stage, and the Hebrew, with Chaldee and Syriac, farther on; but\nthere is no specification of means, or of the Grammars to be used.--The\npoetical and oratorical readings interspersed with these various and\nprogressive studies were to be, in the earlier part of the stage, \"some\nchoice Comedies, Greek, Latin, and Italian,\" selected \"with wariness and\ngood antidote,\" and a Tragedy or two of the domestic kind, such as the\n_Trachini\u00e6_ of SOPHOCLES, and the _Alcestis_ of EURIPIDES; and so\ngradually to the chief Historians (HERODOTUS, THUCYDIDES, &c.), the\nHeroic Poets (HOMER, VIRGIL, &c.), the \"Attic Tragedies of stateliest and\nmost regal ornament\" (more of SOPHOCLES and EURIPIDES), and \"the most\nfamous Political Orations\" (DEMOSTHENES and CICERO). [Footnote: Chapman's\ntranslation of HOMER into English had been complete in 1616. Nothing of\n\u00c6SCHYLUS, SOPHOCLES, or EURIPIDES, appears to have  been translated into\nEnglish. Two Books of HERODOTUS had been translated into English as early\nas 1584; and Hobbes' translation of THUCYDIDES had appeared in 1628.\nThere were English translations of some Orations of DEMOSTHENES and\nCICERO; and of the \u00c6neid of VIRGIL, or separate portions of it, there had\nbeen many translations, including Caxton's (1480), Gawin Douglas's in\nScotch (1553), the Earl of Surrey's (1557), Ph\u00e6r and Irvine's (1573), and\nSandys's (1627).] Milton recommends that passages of the Orators and\nTragedians should be got by heart and solemnly recited aloud. He does not\nname \u00c6schylus among his Tragedians. Euripides, we know, was his\nfavourite.\n\n(4) _Fourth Class or Stage_ (_\u00e6tat._ 19-21?):--This was to be the\nfinishing stage, and was to be devoted to Logic, Rhetoric, and Poetics,\nwith practice in Composition. Such training in form and literary theory,\nMilton argued, would come best after the pupils had acquired a\nsufficiency of _matter_, or somewhat of \"an universal insight into\n_things_.\" As to the masters for Logic he says nothing in the tract; but\nwe know otherwise that he had a fancy for Ramus, as qualifying Aristotle.\nFor Rhetoric the masters were to be \"PLATO, ARISTOTLE, PHALEREUS, CICERO,\nHERMOGENES, LONGINUS.\" [Footnote: PLATO comes in here, I suppose, for his\nstyle generally, and for disquisitions on Rhetoric in one or two of his\nDialogues; ARISTOTLE, of course, for his _Rhetoric_ (not then translated,\nI think). PHALEREUS is Demetrius Phalereus, the Athenian orator (B.C.\n345--283), and reputed author of a work \"On Elocution\" (not translated in\nMilton's time, I think); CICERO is brought in, of course, for his _De\nOratore_, &c. (translated into English, I should think, before Milton's\ntime, but I am not sure); HERMOGENES (second century after Christ) is the\nGreek author of a system of Rhetoric in several Books, all written in his\nyouth (not in English in Milton's time, if yet); and LONGINUS was\nLonginus' \"On the Sublime\" (waiting to be put into English).] By Poetics\nMilton did not mean mere Prosody, which he assumed the pupils to have\nlearnt long ago under the head of Grammar, but \"that sublime Art which,\nin ARISTOTLE'S _Poetics_, in HORACE, and the Italian Commentaries of\nCASTELVETRO, TASSO, MAZZONI, and others, teaches what the laws are of a\ntrue Epic Poem, what of a Dramatic, what of a Lyric, what decorum is,\nwhich is the great masterpiece to observe. [Footnote: Lowndes does not\nmention any very early translation of the _Poetics_ of ARISTOTLE. Of the\n_De Arte Poetica_ of HORACE there had been at least two translations--one\nby \"Tho. Drant\" in 1567, and one by Ben Jonson (published 1640). One work\nof TASSO referred to in the text is, I suppose, his _La Cavaletta; overo\ndella Poesia Toscana;_ CASTELVETRO (1505--1571) and MAZZONI (_circa_\n1590) were two Italian scholars who had written on Poetry. The omission\nby Milton here of such English books as Sir Philip Sidney's _Apologie for\nPoetrie_ (1595) and Puttenham's _Arte of English Poesie_ (1589) is a\nstriking instance of his resolute non-regard of everything English.] This\nwould make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common\nRhymers and Play-writers be, and show them what religious, what glorious\nand magnificent use, might be made of Poetry both in divine and human\nthings.\" Observe the contempt which Milton here expresses of the English\nLiterature of his age. It had by this time become one of his habitual\nfeelings. He goes on, however, to express the same contempt of the\ncontemporary English Pulpit. By that practice in speaking and writing\nwhich he proposed as the final and crowning discipline in his Academy, he\nhoped to turn out young men fitted to teach the English Pulpit a new\nstyle of preaching, as well as to excel in public and Parliamentary life.\n\nII. EXERCISES AND AMUSEMENTS:--These were to be of three kinds: (1)\n_Gymnastics and Regular Military Drill._ Milton is most emphatic on\nthis subject. He would have the course of Education in his Academy to be\nas good for war as for peace; and therefore he would blend the Spartan\ndiscipline with the Athenian culture. The pupils were to be taught\nFencing, so that they might be excellent swordsmen, with \"exact use of\ntheir weapon, to guard, and to strike safely with edge or point.\" They\nwere also to be \"practised in all the locks and gripes of Wrestling,\nwherein Englishmen were wont to excel, as need may often be in fight to\ntug or grapple, and to close.\" So much for their gymnastics individually.\nBut the main thing was to be their military drill collectively. There was\nto be no mistake about this; it was to be no mere school-play. The 120 or\n130 youths in each Academy, under its head-master, with his twenty\nattendants, were to be treated sometimes as a single company of Foot, and\nat other times as two troops of Horse; and they were to be regularly and\ncontinually drilled in all the art both of Infantry and Cavalry. As we\nhave already quoted the substance of the passage where this is insisted\non (Vol. II. p. 480), we need here note only that portion of the passage\nin which Milton points out how, by such a system of training, the pupils\nof his Academy might be expected, \"as it were out of a long war,\" to\n\"come forth renowned and perfect commanders in the service of their\ncountry.\"  \"Commanders\" observe; _i.e._, as we said before, the\ncontemplated Academy was one for gentlemen's sons only. (2) _Music_.\nThere was to be abundance of this in the Academy, both for recreation and\nfor the noble effects of music on the mind. The music was to be both\nvocal and instrumental; and of the various instruments the organ is named\nin chief. (3) _Excursions_. \"In those vernal seasons of the year\nwhen the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness\nagainst Nature not to go out and see her riches, and partake in her\nrejoicing with Heaven and Earth. I should not therefore be a persuader to\nthem of studying much then, after two or three years that they have well\nlaid their grounds, but to ride out in companies, with prudent and staid\nguides to all the quarters of the land, learning and observing all places\nof strength, all commodities of building, and of soil for towns and\ntillage, harbours and ports for trade; sometimes taking sea as far as to\nour navy, to learn there also what they can in the practical knowledge of\nsailing and of sea-fight.\"\n\nDr. Johnson's criticism of Milton's new Method of Education is well\nknown, and is perhaps the criticism most operative to the present day.\nThe scheme is a mere air-hung fancy, the _utinam_ of a sanguine\nspirit, put forth as a possible institution! But the real question in\nevery such case is, Does the proposal contain some important improvement\nwhich _is_ practicable? Does it move in the right direction? This is\nthe question to be asked respecting Milton's plan for a Reformed\nEducation, How does Dr. Johnson answer it? \"The truth is that the\nknowledge of external nature, and the sciences which that knowledge\nrequires or includes, are not the great or the frequent business of the\nhuman mind. Whether we provide for action or conversation, whether we\nwish to be useful or pleasing, the first object is the religious and\nmoral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the\nhistory of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody\ntruth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and\njustice are virtues and excellences of all times and all places; we are\nperpetually moralists, but are geometricians only by chance. Our\nintercourse with Intellectual Nature is necessary; our speculations upon\nMatter are voluntary, and at leisure. Physiological learning is of such\nrare emergence that one man may know another half his life without being\nable to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy; but his moral\nand prudential character immediately appears. Those authors, therefore,\nare to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence, most\nprinciples of moral truth, and most materials for conversation; and these\npurposes are best served by poets, orators, and historians.\"[Footnote:\nJohnson's Life of Milton, in his _Lives of the Poets_ (Cunningham's\nedit. I.91-93)] What an egregious misrepresentation this is of Milton's\nproject the reader, who already knows the project itself in its\ncompleteness, will see at once. Milton included all that Johnson wanted\nto have included, and more largely and systematically than Johnson would\nhave dared to dream of, and for the same reasons. The introduction of\nNatural and Physical Science into schools was but a portion, though an\nemphatic portion, of Milton's project. And, with respect to this portion\nof his project--a novelty at the time, though Milton had Comenius and\nHartlib and all the Verulamians with him--subsequent opinion has more and\nmore pronounced, and is more and more and more pronouncing, for Milton\nand against Johnson. The fairer criticism now would be as to the\n_mode_ in which Milton proposed to teach Natural and Physical\nScience, and knowledge generally. Milton, who himself possessed in really\nencyclop\u00e6dic extent all the scientific knowledge of his time, must have\nbeen right in supposing that the knowledge _could_ then be taught\nthrough Latin and Greek books. Even then, however, he perhaps overrated\nthe necessity of Latin and Greek for this particular business of\neducation, and underrated what could be done in sheer English. And, now\nthat Science has burst all bounds of Latin and Greek, and it would be\nludicrous to go merely to the Greek and Latin authors named by Milton for\nour Geography, or Astronomy, or Natural History, or Physics, or\nChemistry, or Anatomy and Physiology, it is clear that the claims of\nLatin and Greek in education must not rest on their instrumental value in\ngiving access to the stores of science, but on quite another basis. In\nshort, that in Milton's scheme which is now obsolete is its determinate\nintertwining of the whole business of the acquisition of knowledge with\nthe process of reading in other languages than the vernacular. This taken\nout of the Scheme, all the rest lasts, and is as good now, and perhaps as\nneedful, as it was in Milton's time. Above all, the noble moral glow that\npervades the _Tract on Education_, the mood of magnanimity in which\nit is conceived and written, and the faith it inculcates in the powers of\nthe young human spirit, if rightly nurtured and directed, are merits\neverlasting.\n\nThe plan of the tract was not speculative only. Since 1639, when he lived\nin the St. Bride's Churchyard lodging, Milton had been teaching his two\nnephews, and had had the younger nephew, Johnny Phillips, boarding with\nhim entirely; when he removed in 1640 to the house in Aldersgate Street,\nthe elder nephew, Edward Phillips, also came under his roof; and in 1643,\nafter his wife had deserted him, and his father had come to live with\nhim, he had received into his house, as boarders or day-boarders, a few\nadditional pupils. How many there were we do not know: probably, with the\ntwo nephews, not more than eight or a dozen at most. Part of his daily\nwork, therefore, at the very time when he wrote the tract to Hartlib, was\nthe teaching of these few boys. Accordingly, it is at this point that we\nmay best quote Edward Phillips's account of his uncle's method with his\npupils. He had himself had four or five years' experience of the method,\nand was now (1644) fourteen years of age. In his account, however, though\nhe inserts it as early as the year 1639 in his Memoir, he inweaves\nrecollections that must span from 1639 to 1646, so as to describe in one\npassage his uncle's training of boys from the age of ten to that of\nfifteen or sixteen:--\n\n\"And here, by the way, I judge it not impertinent to mention the many\nauthors both of the Latin and Greek which, through his excellent judgment\nand way of teaching, far above the pedantry of common Public Schools\n(where such authors are scarce ever heard of), were run over within no\ngreater compass of time than from ten to fifteen or sixteen years of\nage:--Of the Latin, the four grand authors _De Re Rustic\u00e2_, CATO, VARRO,\nCOLUMELLA, and PALLADIUS; a great part of PLINY'S 'Natural History';\nVITRUVIUS his 'Architecture'; FRONTINUS his 'Stratagems'; with the two\negregious Poets, LUCRETIUS and MANILIUS: Of the Greek, HESIOD, a poet\nequal to Homer; ARATUS his _Ph\u00e6nomena_ and _Diosemeia_; DIONYSIUS AFER\n'_De Situ Orbis_'; OPPIAN'S 'Cynegetics' and 'Halieutics'; QUINTUS\nCALABER his Poem of the Trojan War continued from Homer; APOLLONIUS\nRHODIUS his 'Argonautics'; and, in prose, PLUTARCH'S '_Placita\nPhilosophorum_' and [Greek: Peri Paidon Agogias]; GEMINUS'S Astronomy,\nXENOPHON'S _Cyri Institutio_ and _Anabasis_, \u00c6LIAN'S 'Tactics,' and\nPOLY\u00c6NUS his 'Warlike Stratagems.' Thus, by teaching, he in some measure\nincreased his own knowledge, having the reading of all these authors as\nit were by proxy.... Nor did the time thus studiously employed in\nconquering the Greek and Latin tongues hinder the attaining to the chief\nOriental languages, viz. the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac, so far as to go\nthrough the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses, in Hebrew, to make a good\nentrance into the Targum, or Chaldee Paraphrase, and to understand\nseveral chapters of St. Matthew in the Syriac Testament: besides an\nintroduction into several Arts and Sciences, by reading URSTISIUS his\nArithmetic, RIFF'S Geometry, PITISCUS his Trigonometry, JOANNES DE SACRO\nBOSCO _De Sph\u00e6ra_; and into the Italian and French tongues, by reading,\nin Italian, GIOVAN VILLANI'S History of the Transactions between several\npetty States of Italy, and, in French, a great part of PIEREE DAVITY, the\nfamous geographer of France in his time.----The Sunday's work was for the\nmost part the reading each day a chapter of the Greek Testament and\nhearing his learned exposition upon the same (and how far this savoured\nof Atheism in him I leave to the courteous backbiter to judge); the next\nwork after this was the writing from his own dictation some part, from\ntime to time, of a Tractate which he thought fit to collect from the\nablest of Divines who had written of that subject (AMESIUS, WOLLEBIUS,\n&c.)--viz. A Perfect System of Divinity; of which more hereafter.\"\n[Footnote: The books named in this extract from Phillips, but not in\nMilton's tract, may be noted:--The PALLADIUS, who is here added to the\nthree Latin writers on Agriculture mentioned in the tract, lived probably\nin the fourth century, and left a treatise _De Re Rustica_, very popular\nthrough the Middle Ages. It had not been translated into English.\nFRONTINUS (who had preceded Agricola as Roman Governor of Britain, and\ndied _circ_. A.D. 106) was the author of _Stratagematicon Libri IV._, a\nkind of anecdotic treatise on the Art of War; \u00c6LIANUS (time of the\nEmperor Hadrian) and POLY\u00c6NUS the Macedonian (second century) were Greek\nwriters on the Military Art. Though Milton does not name them in his\ntract, he doubtless had them in view among Military Books to be read. Two\nof them had been translated into English--Frontinus, by \"Richarde\nMorysine\" (1539), and \u00c6lianus by \"John Bingham\" (1616-31). QUINTUS\nCALABER, the nature of whose Poem in 14 Books is sufficiently described\nin the text (really a native of Smyrna, but called \"Calaber\" because the\nbest known copy of his Poem was found in Calabria), lived late in the\nfourth century; APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, so called because he lived long in\nRhodes, though born in Alexandria, is a much earlier and much better\nknown Greek poet (_circ._ B. C. 200). Neither of these Greek poets seems\nto have been translated in Milton's time. GEMINUS was a Greek\nmathematician of the first century, who seems to have lived in Rome, and\nwho left an [Greek: Pisagog\u00e6 kis ta phainomena], or treatise on the\nSphere. Lowndes mentions no English version of it. URSTISIUS, who is\nmentioned for his Arithmetic, is CHRISTIAN WURZTICIUS, an Italian\nmathematician (1544-1588); RIFF I have not farther identified; PITISCUS\nis Bartholomew Pitiscus (1561-1613); and JOANNES DE SACRO BOSCO is the\nfamous Englishman John Holywood (died 1256), whose treatise _De Sph\u00e6ra_,\noften re-edited and re-published, was the most popular manual of\nAstronomy in the Middle Ages. VILLANI, the Florentine historian, died\n1348; DAVITY, the French geographer, is unknown to me; AMESIUS, author of\nthe _Medella Theo logia_ and other theological works, is the William Ames\n(1576-1633), already known to us (Vol. II. p 579); and WOLLIBIUS (1536-\n1626) was a Divine of Basle and author of _Compendium Theologi\u00e6_.]\n\nWhat a busy domicile the wifeless house in Aldersgate Street must have\nbeen through the year 1644! Pupils and their lessons through the solid\npart of the day; only a margin, morning and evening, for Milton's own\nreadings and meditations; the father sometimes with him for an hour or so\nof music, but oftener in his own room, \"retired to his rest and devotion,\nwithout the least trouble imaginable;\" every hour of the day crammed with\nwork; even on the Sundays those expositions of the Greek Testament to his\npupils, and those dictations to them in Latin of portions of a System of\nDivinity which he had resolved to compile from the Scriptures and the\nworks of the best Protestant theologians! And yet it was out of this\nquiet and industrious household that there had burst upon the English\npublic that thunderbolt of the Divorce heresy!\n\nA SECOND DIVORCE TRACT: COMPILATION FROM BUCER.\n\nThe Divorce idea still occupied Milton. On the 15th of July, 1644 (five\nweeks after the publication of the _Tract on Education_ addressed to\nHartlib, and five months and a half after the publication of the Second\nEdition of the _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_), there was\nentered at Stationers' Hall another tract, which appeared on that day, or\nimmediately afterwards, with this title: \"_The Judgement of Martin\nBucer concerning Divorce. Writt'n to Edward the Sixt, in his Second Book\nof the Kingdom of Christ. And now Englisht. Wherein a late Book restoring\nthe Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, is heer confirm'd and justify'd\nby the authoritie of Martin Bucer. To the Parlament of England_. John\n3, 10: Art thou a teacher in Israel, and know'st not these things?\n_Publisht by Authoritie. London, Printed by Matthew Simmons_, 1644.\"\nMartin Bucer [Footnote: The entry in the Stationers' Hall Registeris as\nfollows:--\"_July 15, 1614: Matt. Symmons cut. for his copie, under\nwhich, of Mr. Downham, and Mr. Parker, warden, the Judgment of Martin\nBucer concerning Divorce, written to King Edw. ye 6th in the 2nd Book of\nthe Kingdom of Xt.: Englished by Mr. Milton._\"] The tract consists of\n40 small quarto pages in all; of which, however, only 24 are numbered.\nThese numbered pages, forming the body of the tract, are abridged\ntranslations by Milton of the passages from Martin Bucer which he wished\nto introduce to the English public. They are preceded by six pages of\n\"Testimonies of the high approbation which learned men have given of\nMartin Bucer\" (viz. quotations by Milton from Calvin, Beza, Sturmius, and\nothers, to show what a man Bucer was), and then by eight pages of closer\ntype, addressed by Milton to the Parliament and signed with his name in\nfull. At the end, after the numbered pages, there is a postscript of two\npages, in which Milton again speaks directly, and winds up the tract.\n\nThe title-page of the tract indicates Milton's purpose in it, His\noriginal Divorce treatise had been put forth as the result of his own\nreasonings and meditations, without the knowledge that any had preceded\nhim in the same track to anything like the same extent. While preparing\nthe second edition he had become aware that strong support from learned\nauthorities might be adduced for his doctrine; in especial, he had become\naware that he had had a forerunner in the famous Reformer Paul Fagius.\nMuch of the added matter in the second edition consisted, accordingly, in\nthe citation of Fagius and other witnesses to strengthen his argument.\nStrangely enough, however, he was still unaware that he might have the\nbenefit of a witness more renowned even than Paul Fagius. Not till May\n1644 did he chance to learn this fact. \"When the book,\" he says, \"had\nbeen now the second time set forth well-nigh three months, as I best\nremember, I then first came to hear that Martin Bucer had written much\nconcerning Divorce: whom earnestly turning over, I soon perceived, but\nnot without amazement, in the same opinion, confirmed with the same\nreasons, which in that published book, without the help or imitation of\nany precedent writer, I had laboured out and laid together.\" The\nparticular writing of Bucer's in which Milton found this extraordinary\ncoincidence with his own views was the _De Regno Christi ad Edw.\nVI._, written by Bucer about 1550, but first published at Basle in\n1557. There was reason, Milton is careful to impress on his readers, why\nBucer, and Fagius along with Bucer, should be remembered with unusual\nreverence by the Protestants of England. Coming over to England in 1549,\neach with his great continental fame already won, they had been placed in\nCambridge by the young Edward VI., then desirous of completing and\nperfecting the Reformation of his kingdom--Bucer as Professor of\nDivinity, and Fagius of Hebrew. Fagius had died in Cambridge in the same\nyear, when he had barely begun to teach; Bucer, after he had taught for\nabout eighteen months, died in the same place, Feb. 28, 1550-51. Both had\nthus breathed the last strength of their spirits into the Protestantism\nof England. Nay, they might be reckoned among the martyrs of English\nProtestantism; for, when Mary had succeeded Edward, had not their bodies\nbeen dug up, as the bodies of heretics, and publicly burnt to ashes in\nthe Cambridge market-place? Let all this be remembered, and especially\nlet it be remembered that Bucer had addressed his _De Regno Christi_\nto Edward VI., and intended its admonitions and instructions for the use\nof that monarch and his people. In that writing Bucer, though he had been\ndead a hundred years, was still speaking to the people of England, and\ntelling them what remained to be done before their national reformation\ncould be called thorough. Well, in that treatise there was a great deal\nabout Divorce. Bucer had evidently made a study of the topic, and\nattached great importance to it. A large portion of the Second Book of\nthe treatise consisted of nothing else; and it was this portion of the\ntreatise only that Milton, partly in delight and partly in amazement at\nits accordance with his own doctrine, proposed to recover out of the\nneglected Latin, and present in plain English. Not that such drudgery of\ntranslation was to his taste. \"Whether it be natural disposition or\neducation in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker of what God made\nmine own, and not a translator,\" is his proud phrase of explanation why\nhe could \"never delight in long citations, much less in whole\ntraductions.\" Even in this case he would only digest and epitomize.\nBeginning at Chap. XV. of the Second Book of Bucer's treatise, he would\ngo on to Chap. XLVII. inclusively, indicating the contents of the\nsuccessive chapters by headings, omitting what was irrelevant to his own\npurpose, and translating the passages that were most relevant. This is\nwhat is done in the 24 numbered pages which form the body of Milton's\ntract. They are a concatenation of dryish morsels from Bucer, duly\nlabelled and introduced; but they make it clear that Bucer's notion of\nmarriage was substantially the same as Milton's.\n\nAs respects Milton himself, the portion of his new Tract which is of\ngreatest interest is the prefixed Address to the Parliament. It is\nnoteworthy that, whereas the Second Edition of his original Divorce\ntreatise is dedicated to \"the Parliament of England _with_ the\nAssembly,\" the new tract is dedicated to the Parliament only. The Address\nmakes the reason of this plain. It is here, in fact, that we first hear\nfrom Milton himself of the obloquy to which his Divorce Doctrine had\nsubjected him. It had begun, he now tells us (and we have already used\nthe information), almost immediately after the publication of the first,\nand anonymous, edition of his original treatise--his style then betraying\nhim to be the author, and some of the clergy opening loud cry against him\nin consequence. This had induced him to bring out the second edition, not\nanonymous, but openly acknowledged. Though aware of the declared\nhostility among the clergy, he had not then deemed it proper to descant\non that subject, but had, in courtesy, dedicated the Second Edition to\nthe Assembly in conjunction with the Parliament. Even then he had no\ndoubt from which of the two bodies he would receive the fairer treatment.\n\"I was confident,\" he says in his present address of the Bucer tract to\nthe Parliament, \"if anything generous, anything noble and above the\nmultitude, were yet left in the spirit of England, it could be nowhere\nsooner found, and nowhere sooner understood, than in that House of\nJustice and true Liberty where ye sit in Council.\" Here the Assembly is\nignored, and the insinuation is that, though he had included _them_\nin the dedication, it was rather by way of form than in real trust. This\nhad been in Feb. 1643-4, and now, in July 1644, he knew his position so\nprecisely that there was no need for farther reticence. He had not been\ndisappointed in the Parliament. He had had hope in them; \"nor doth the\nevent hitherto, _for some reasons which I shall not here deliver_,\nfail me of what I conceived so highly.\"  The words I have put in italics\ncan bear no other construction than that Milton had reason to know, from\nprivate assurances, which he regarded as confidential, that some leading\nmen in Parliament thought him perfectly entitled to broach his doctrine,\nand would take care that he should not be troubled for it. He was not\nuninformed either, he adds, that \"divers learned and judicious men,\" both\nin and out of Parliament, had \"testified their daily approbation\" of his\ntreatise. With the Assembly, however, he knew it to be all over. Though\nfrom them above all, by reason of \"their profession and supposed\nknowledge,\" his treatise had deserved a fair hearing, all that he had\nreceived was to be \"esteemed the deviser of a new and pernicious\nparadox.\" He does not, indeed, name the Assembly while intimating this,\nbut only refers to the clergy generally and dispersedly. That he had the\nAssembly distinctly in view, however, appears not only from the tenor of\nthe whole, but also from a passage in the Postscript, where he hints that\nsuch action was at work against him that he might be stopped any day by\nthe official censorship and prevented from printing. If, therefore, this\nnew tract should be permitted to appear, only to the Parliament would he\ndedicate it. But, while dedicated to the Parliament, it was intended for\nthe Assembly. It was a challenge to _them_. The Reverend gentlemen\nhad refused to consider the Doctrine of Divorce when propounded by their\ncontemporary, a private layman and reasoner. They had thought it worthy\nonly of denunciation as an impious paradox, destructive of morality and\nsocial order. What would they now say to the same Doctrine exhibited to\nthem, chapter and verse, as the doctrine of one of the great European\nReformers and Divines, whose name was often in their mouths, though they\nknew so little about him?\n\nWhile the Address to Parliament thus makes clear Milton's consciousness\nthat the Assembly were watching him and might at any time denounce him,\nthere is yet another curious strain in it, interesting as an illustration\nof the writer's character. Milton was evidently divided between delight\nin having found Bucer his predecessor in the doctrine and a proud feeling\nof his own self-earned property in the same. Not even to Bucer would he\nyield the palm of this discovery; nay, generally, he did not care though\nit should be known that, while he reverenced Bucer and such men of the\npast, he did not think that God's power to create and endow exceptional\nhuman spirits had so exhausted itself in that time and that group of men\nbut that work higher than aught of mere discipleship to any of them might\nbe reserved for himself. Here Milton is in one of his constitutional\nmoods; and it is interesting to observe with what constancy to it he\ntreats the small fact of a discovered coincidence in opinion between\nhimself and Bucer. The following passage will suffice in this respect,\nand also as a specimen of the whole tract:--\n\n\"I may justly gratulate mine own mind with due acknowledgment of\nassistance from above, which led me, not as a learner, but as a\ncollateral teacher, to a sympathy of judgment with no less a man than\nMartin Bucer. And he, if our things here below arrive him where he is,\ndoes not repent him to see that point of knowledge which he first, and\nwith an unchecked freedom, preached to those more knowing times of\nEngland, now found so necessary, though what he admonished were lost out\nof our memory, yet that God doth now again create the same doctrine in\nanother unwritten table [the _tabula rasa_ of Milton's mind], and\nraises it up immediately out of his pure oracle to the convincement of a\nperverse age, eager in the reformation of names and ceremonies, but in\nrealities as traditional and as ignorant as their forefathers. I would\nask now the foremost of my profound accusers whether they dare affirm\nthat to be licentious, new and dangerous, which Martin Bucer so often and\nso urgently avouched to be moot lawful, most necessary, and most\nChristian, without the least blemish. to his good name among all the\nworthy men of that age and since who testify so highly of him. If they\ndare, they must then set up an arrogance of their own against all those\nchurches and saints who honoured him without this exception. If they dare\nnot, how can they now make _that_ licentious doctrine in another\nwhich was never blamed or confuted in Bucer or in Fagius? The truth is,\nthere will be due to them, for this their unadvised rashness, the best\ndonative that can be given them--I mean a round reproof [_a hint to\nParliament about the Assembly?_]; now that, where they thought to be\nmost magisterial, they have displayed their own want both of reading and\nof judgment: first, to be so unacquainted in the writings of Bucer, which\nare so obvious and so useful in their own faculty; next, to be so caught\nin a prejudicating weakness as to condemn that for lewd which, whether\nthey knew or not, these elect servants of Christ commended for lawful,\nand for new that which was taught by these, almost the first and greatest\nauthors of Reformation, who were never taxed for so teaching, and\ndedicated without scruple to a royal pair of the first Reforming kings in\nChristendom [Edward VI., for whom Bucer's _De Regno Christi_ was\nwritten, and Christian III. of Denmark, to whom it was dedicated when\npublished at Basle in 1557], and confessed in the public Confession of a\nmost orthodoxal Church and State in Germany [the church and community of\nStrasburg, in whose Confession, according to Milton, Bucer's Divorce\nDoctrine had been adopted]. This is also another fault which I must tell\nthem--that they have stood now almost this whole year clamouring afar\noff, while the Book [Milton's _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_]\nhath been twice printed, twice bought up, and never once vouchsafed a\nfriendly conference with the author, who would be glad and thankful to be\nshown an error, either by private dispute or public answer, and could\nretract as well as wise men before him: might also be worth the gaining,\nas one who heretofore hath done good service to the Church, by their own\nconfession. ... However, if we know at all when to ascribe the\noccurrences of this life to the work of a special Providence, as nothing\nis more usual in the talk of good men, what can be more like to a special\nprovidence of God than in the first Reformation of England that this\nquestion of Divorce, as a main thing to be restored to just freedom, was\nwritten, and seriously commended to Edward the Sixth, by a man called\nfrom another country to be an instructor of our nation, and now, in this\npresent renewing of the Church and Commonwealth, which we pray may be\nmore lasting, that same question should be again treated and presented to\nthis Parliament by one enabled to use the same reasons without the least\nsight or knowledge of what was done before. It were no trespass, Lords\nand Commons, though something of less note were attributed to the\nordering of a Heavenly Power. This question, therefore, of such prime\nconcernment to Christian and Civil welfare, in such an extraordinary\nmanner not recovered, but plainly twice-born to these latter ages, as\nfrom a divine hand, I tender to your acceptance and most considerate\nthoughts.\"\n\n\nMR. HERBERT PALMER'S ATTACK ON MILTON FROM THE PULPIT.\n\nWhether up to this time (July 1644) there had been any open mention of\nMilton and his Doctrine in the Westminster Assembly, anything more than\nmuttered thunder among the Divines in their private colloquies, can be\nbut guessed. It is quite possible that he _was_ publicly named, and\nnot by mere implication, among the Sects and Sectaries generally. There\nmay even be record of the fact somewhere, though I have found none in\nLightfoot's Notes of the Assembly, nor in Gillespie's, nor in Baillie's\nLetters. But the peal was coming, and this daring challenge to the\nAssembly in his Bucer tract may have helped to provoke it.\n\nWhen the tract was published, the Assembly was about to break up for that\nfortnight's vacation (July 23-Aug. 7) which we have represented as so\nimportant a notch in its proceedings. Or, indeed, the Assembly may have\nbeen _in_ its vacation when the tract appeared; for, though\nregistered at the Stationers' Hall July 15, it may not have been in\ncirculation till a week later. At all events, when the Assembly met\nagain, and when, as we have seen, it fell, as if by concert, on the\nsubject of the multiplication of the Sectaries and their insolences, then\nMilton was among the first attacked. He was one of a batch of eleven\npersons, including also Roger Williams, John Goodwin, Clement Wrighter,\nand some Anabaptists and Antinomians, whom the Assembly denounced to\nParliament as prime offenders. This fact, already noticed in its place in\nour general history, has now again to be presented more in detail.\n\nThe first publicly to blow the trumpet against Milton, the reader already\nknows, was Mr. Herbert Palmer. He did so in his Sermon before the two\nHouses of Parliament in St. Margaret's, Westminster, on the Extraordinary\nDay of Humiliation, Tuesday, Aug. 13, six days after the Assembly had\nresumed its sittings. Here is the particular passage in the Sermon:--\n\n\"But against a Toleration in general even the COVENANT itself, in that\nvery Article [Article II.], hath a reason suitable to the Text [Psalm\nxcix, 8]. 'Lest we partake of other men's sins, and be in danger to\nreceive of their plagues.' saith the Covenant; which in the language of\nthe Text is 'Lest God take vengeance on their inventions' and ours\ntogether. It is true that the name of Conscience hath an awful sound unto\na conscientious ear. But, I pray, judge but in a few instances whether\nall pretence of Conscience ought to be a sufficient plea for Toleration\nand Liberty:--1. There be those that say their conscience is against all\ntaking of an oath before a magistrate. Will you allow an universal\nliberty of this? What then will become of all our legal and judicial\nproceedings? which are confined to this way of proof: and so it was by\nGod appointed, and hath been by all nations practised. 2. There be some\nthat pretend Liberty of Conscience to equivocate in an oath even before a\nmagistrate, and to elude all examinations by mental reservations. Will\nyou grant them this liberty; or can you, without destroying all bonds of\ncivil converse, and wholly overthrowing of all human judicature? 3. If\nany plead Conscience for the lawfulness of Polygamy; or for Divorce for\nother causes than Christ and His Apostles mention (_of which a wicked\nlook is abroad and uncensured, though deserving to be burnt, whose Author\nhath been so impudent as to set his name to it and dedicate it to\nyourselves_); or for liberty to many incestuously--will you grant a\ntoleration for all this?\"\n\nPalmer goes on to instance four other opinions which might ask for\ntoleration, but which are in their nature so subversive of all authority\nand all civil order that the bare imagination of their being tolerated\nis, he thinks, a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the idea of a Universal\nToleration. What has been quoted, however, will show whereabouts among\nthe Sectaries he placed Milton. He cited him as the advocate of an\nopinion so monstrous that no sane person could think of tolerating\n_it_. And it is to be noted that, though he gives other instances of\nsuch monstrous opinions tending to practical anarchy, Milton is the only\nperson openly referred to in this extreme category, and his book the only\nbook. On the same day, Mr. Hill, Palmer's fellow-preacher before\nParliament, referred by implication to Roger Williams's _Bloody\nTenent_, which had been burnt by the hangman a day or two before; and\nhere was Palmer mentioning with less reserve, Milton's _Doctrine and\nDiscipline of Divorce_ as richly deserving the same fate. Williams, we\nknow, was happily on his way back to America at the time; but Milton was\nat hand, in his house in Aldersgate Street, whenever he should be wanted.\n\nTo be preached at before the two Houses of Parliament, on a solemn Fast\nDay, by an eminent Divine of the Westminster Assembly, was, I should say,\na ten times greater trial of a man's equanimity in those days than it\nwould be in these to waken one morning and find oneself the subject of a\nscathing onslaught in the columns of the leading newspaper. It was\npositively the worst blast from the black trumpet of the wind-god \u00c6olus\nthen possible for any inhabitant of England; and not even that poor\ncompany of suitors to whom, in Chaucer's poem, fickle Queen Fame awarded\nthis black blast from the wind-god, instead of the blast of praise from\nhis golden trumpet which they were expecting, can have been more\ndiscomfited than most persons would have been had they been in Milton's\nplace a day or two after Palmer's sermon. [Footnote: Cromwell was away\nwith the Arms, but Vane may have heard Palmer's sermon. Baillie was\ncertainly present, with the other Scottish Commissioners; and he was\ndelighted with Palmer's outspokenness. See _ant\u00e8_, p 162]\n\n  What did this \u00c6olus, but he\n  Took out his black trumpe of brass,\n  That fouler than the Devil was,\n  And gan this trumpe for to blow\n  As all the world should overthrow.\n  Throughout every regioun\n  Went this foule trumpe's soun,\n  As swift as pellet out of gun\n  When tire is in the powder run;\n  And such a smoke gan outwend\n  Out of the foule trumpe's end,\n  Black, blue, greenish, swartish, red,\n  As dote where that men melt lead,\n  Lo! all on high from the tewelle.\n  And thereto one thing saw I well--\n  That, the farther that it ran,\n  The greater waxen it began,\n  As doth the river from a well;\n  And it stank as the pit of Hell.\n[Footnote: Chaucer's \"House of Fame\" III. 516-564. _Teaelle_ is the\ntrumpet's mouth (French _tuyau_, pipe or nozzle).]\n\n\nTHE STATIONERS' COMPANY AND ENGLISH BOOK-CENSORSHIP: THE PRINTING\nORDINANCE OF JUNE 1643: MILTON COMPLAINED OF TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS FOR\nBREACH OF THE SAME.\n\nAmong the haunts and corners of London into which the smoke of Mr.\nPalmer's pulpit-blast against Milton had penetrated, and where it had\nwhirled and eddied most persistently, was the Hall of the Stationers'\nCompany, the centre of the London book-trade. Actually, as the reader has\nbeen informed Palmer's sermon, and the general frenzy of the Assembly on\nthe subject of the increase of heresy and schism, had so perturbed the\nwhole society of booksellers that, on Saturday the 24th of August, the\neleventh day after the sermon, they presented a petition to the Commons,\nexonerating themselves from all responsibility in the growing evil, and\npointing out that the blasphemous and pernicious opinions complained of\nwere ventilated in unlicensed and unregistered pamphlets, grievous to the\nsoul of the regular book-trade, injurious to its pockets, and contrary to\nthe express ordinance of Parliament. That such was the tenor of the\nPetition of the Stationers, and that they gave instances of illegal\npamphlets of the kind described, and laid stress on Milton's _Doctrine\nand Discipline of Divorce_ as one most flagrant instance, appears from\nthe action of the House of Commons in consequence. Without a day's delay\n(Aug. 26), the Commons referred the Petition to \"the Committee for\nPrinting,\" with instructions to hear parties, consider the whole\nbusiness, consult the existing Parliamentary Ordinance for the regulation\nof Printing, and bring in a new or supplementary Ordinance with all\nconvenient speed. They were likewise \"diligently to inquire out\" the\nauthors, printers, and publishers of the Divorce Pamphlet, and of\nanother, then in circulation, against the Immortality of the Soul. That\nthe Committee might have fresh energy in it for the purpose, four new\nmembers were added, viz. Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir Thomas Widdrington,\nMr. Stephens, and Mr. Baynton. [Footnote: See the text of the order,\n_ant\u00e8_, pp. 1645, I now add the names of the new members of\nCommittee from the Commons Journal, Aug. 26, 1641.]\n\nHere then, in the end of August 1644, Milton was not only within the\nsmoke of infamy blown upon him by Palmer's sermon, but also within the\nclutches of a Parliamentary Committee. They might call him to account not\nonly for publishing dangerous and unusual opinions, but also for having\nbroken the Parliamentary Ordinance for the regulation of Printing. We\nmust now explain distinctly what that Ordinance was.\n\nFrom the beginning of the Long Parliament, as we know sufficiently by\nthis time, there had been a relaxation, or rather a total breakdown, of\nthe former laws for the regulation of the Press. In the newly-found\nliberty of the nation to think and to speak, all bonds of censorship were\nburst, and books of all kinds, but especially pamphlets on the current\nquestions, were sent forth by their authors very much at their own\ndiscretion. The proportion of those that went through the legal\nceremonial of being authorized by an appointed licenser, and registered\nin the Stationers' books by the Company's clerk under farther order from\none of the Company's wardens, must, I should say, have been quite\ninconsiderable in comparison with the number that flew about printed\nanywhere and anyhow. Milton had been conspicuously careless or bold in\nthis respect. Not one of his five Anti-Episcopal pamphlets, published in\n1641 and 1642, had been licensed or registered; nor did any one of them\nbear his name, though he made no real concealment of that, and though\neach of them bore the printer's or publisher's name, or the address of\nthe shop where it was on sale. Milton's friends, the Smectymnuans, had\nattended to the legal punctualities in some of _their_ publications;\nbut Milton's practice seems to have been the more general one among\nauthors and pamphleteers. Nor did they need to resort any longer to\nclandestine presses, or to printers and booksellers who, not being\nmembers of the Stationers' Company, had no title to engage in such book-\ncommerce at all, and were liable to prosecution for doing so. Even\nregular booksellers and printers who _were_ freemen of the Stationers'\nCompany had been infected by the general lawlessness, and had fallen into\nthe habit of publishing books and pamphlets without caring whether they\nwere licensed, and without taking the trouble of registering their\ncopyright; which, indeed, they could hardly do if the books were\nunlicensed. All Milton's Anti-Episcopal pamphlets, I think, were\npublished by such regular printers or booksellers. But worse and worse.\nSome of the less scrupulous members of the Stationers' Company had found\nan undue advantage in this lax conduct of the book-business, and had\nbegun to reprint and vend books the copyright in which belonged to their\nbrethren in the trade. This last being the sorest evil, it was perhaps as\nmuch in consequence of repeated representations of its prevalence by the\nauthorities of the Stationers' Company as on any grounds of public damage\nby the circulation of political libels and false opinions, that the\nParliament still kept up the fiction of a law, and made attempt after\nattempt to regain the control of the Press. That they did so is the fact.\nEntries on the subject--sometimes in the form of notices of petitions\nfrom the Stationers' Company, sometimes in that of injunctions by\nParliament to the Stationers' Company to be more vigilant--are found at\nintervals in the Journals of both Houses through 1641 and 1642.\nParticular books were condemned, and their authors inquired after or\ncalled to account, and offending printers and publishers were also\nbrought to trouble. The Parliament had even tried to institute a new\nagency of censorship in the form of Committees for Printing, and\nlicensers appointed by these Committees. Such licensers were either\nmembers of Parliament selected for the duty, or Parliamentary officials,\nor persons out-of-doors in whom Parliament could trust. Through 1641 and\n1642 I find the following persons, among others. licensing books--John\nPym, Sir Edward Deering, the elder Sir Henry Vane, Mr. (Century) White,\nand a Dr. Wykes, but I find evidence that the Parliament and its\nCommittees for Printing had really, in a great measure, to leave the\nlicensing of books to the Wardens of the Stationers' Company. [Footnote:\nMy MS notes from the Stationers' Register for the years named] In short,\nthe Press had escaped all effective supervision whatsoever. This is most\nstrikingly proved by the Stationers' Registers for 1642. While for the\nprevious year, ending Dec. 31, 1641, the total number of entries on the\nRegister had been 240, the total number in this year, ending Dec. 31,\n1642, was only 76; of which 76 less than half fell in the second half of\nthe year, when the Civil War had just commenced. Actually, of all the\npublications which came out this year in England, not more than at the\nrate of three a fortnight regularly registered throughout the whole year,\nand hardly more than one a week during the second half of the year!\nClearly, censorship and registration had then become an absolute farce.\n\nThe same state of things continued into the first half of the year 1643.\nBetween Jan. 1 of that year (Jan. 1, 1642-3, as we now mark it) and July\n4, I find the number of entries to have been not more than 35--still a\npreposterously small number in proportion to the crowd of publications\nwhich these six months must have produced. But exactly at the middle of\nthis year the Registers exhibit a remarkable phenomenon. Although in the\nfirst half of the year only 35 new publications had been registered, the\nentries in the second half of the year swell suddenly to 333, or ten\ntimes as many as in the first half. In the month of July alone there were\n63 entries, or nearly twice as many as in the preceding six months\ntogether; in August there were 57; in September 58; in October 48; in\nNovember 56; and in December 51. Little wonder that, on going over the\nRegisters long ago, I made this note in connexion with the year 1643:\n\"Curious year: the swelling out in the latter half, so that only 35 in\nfirst half and 333 in second: inquire into causes.\" I ought to have known\nthe chief cause at the time I made the note. It was the parsing, in June\n1643, of a new, strict, and minutely framed Ordinance for Printing.\n\nForced by the public necessities of the case, including the necessity of\npreventing the diffusion of Royalist tracts and sheets of intelligence,\nor by the trade complaints of the Stationers' Company, or by both\ncombined, the Commons at last addressed themselves to the subject\nresolutely. On June 10 an \"Ordinance to prevent and suppress the Licence\nof Printing\" was read in their House, agreed to, and sent to the Lords;\non June 14 the Lords concurred, and signified their concurrence to the\nCommons; and, certain farther arrangement of detail having been made by\nthe Commons on the 16th, the 20th, and the 21st of the same month, the\nOrdinance forthwith came into operation. The Ordinance (with the omission\nof clauses relative to printing of Parliamentary papers and to mere\npiracy of copyrights) is as follows:--\n\n\"Whereas divers good orders have been lately made by both Houses of\nParliament for suppressing the late great abuses and frequent disorders\nin printing many forged, scandalous, seditious, libellous and unlicensed\nPapers, Pamphlets and Books, to the great defamation of Religion and\nGovernment--which orders (notwithstanding the diligence of the Company of\nStationers to put them in full execution) have taken little or no effect,\nby reason the Bill in preparation for the redress of the said disorders\nhath hitherto been retarded through the present distractions, and very\nmany, as well Stationers and Printers, as others of sundry other\nprofessions not free of the Stationers' Company, have taken upon them to\nset up sundry private printing-presses in corners, and to print, vend,\npublish and disperse Books, Pamphlets and Papers, in such multitudes that\nno industry could be sufficient to discover or bring to punishment all\nthe several abounding delinquents.... It is therefore ordered that no ...\nBook, Pamphlet, Paper, nor part of any such Book, Pamphlet or Paper,\nshall from henceforth be printed, bound, stitched, or put to sale by any\nperson or persons whatsoever, unless the same be first approved of and\nlicensed under the hands of such person or persons as both or either of\nthe said Houses shall appoint for the licensing of the same, and entered\nin the Register Book of the Company of Stationers according to ancient\ncustom, and the Printer thereof to put his name thereto.... And the\nMaster and Wardens of the said Company, the Gentleman-Usher of the House\nof Peers, the Sergeant of the Commons House, and their Deputies ... are\nhereby authorized and required from time to time to make diligent search\nin all places where they shall think meet for all unlicensed printing\npresses ... and to seize and carry away such printing-presses ... and\nlikewise to make diligent search in all suspected printing-houses,\nwarehouses, shops and other places ... and likewise to apprehend all\nAuthors, Printers, and other persons whatsoever employed in compiling,\nprinting, stitching, binding, publishing and dispersion of the said\nscandalous, unlicensed and unwarrantable Papers, Books and Pamphlets  ...\nand to bring them, afore either of the Houses, or the Committee of\nExaminations, that so they may receive such farther punishments as their\noffences shall demerit.... And all Justices of the Peace, Captains,\nConstables and other officers, are hereby ordered and required to be\naiding and assisting to the foresaid persons in the due execution of all\nand singular the premises, and in the apprehension of offenders against\nthe same, and, in case of opposition, to break open doors and locks.--And\nit is further ordered that this Order be forthwith printed and published,\nto the end that notice may be taken thereof, and all contemners of it\nleft inexcusable.\"\n\nSuch was the famous _Ordinance for Printing_ of the Long Parliament,\ndated June 14, 1643. Within a week afterwards it was brought into working\ntrim by the nomination of the persons to whom the business of licensing\nwas to be entrusted. For Books of Divinity a staff of twelve Divines was\nappointed, the _imprimatur_ of any one of whom should be sufficient--to\nwit: Mr. THOMAS GATAKER, Mr. CALIBUTE DOWNING, Dr. THOMAS TEMPLE, Mr.\nJOSEPH CARYL, Mr. EDMUND CALAMY, Mr. CHARLES HEKLE, Mr. OBADIAH SEDGWICK,\nMr. CARTER of Yorkshire, Mr. JOHN DOWNHAM, Mr. JAMES CRANFORD, Mr.\nBACHELER, and Mr. JOHN ELLLS, junior. The first seven of these, it will\nbe noted (if not also the eighth), were members of the Westminster\nAssembly; the others were, I think, all parish-ministers in or near\nLondon. For what we should call Miscellaneous Literature, including\nPoetry, History, and Philosophy, the licensers appointed were Sir\nNATHANIEL BRENT (Judge of the Prerogative Court), Mr. JOHN LANGLEY\n(successor of Gill the younger in the Head-mastership of St. Paul's\nSchool), and Mr. FARNABIE. The licensing of Law-Books was to belong to\ncertain designated Judges and Serjeants-at-law; of Books of Heraldry, to\nthe three Herald Kings at Arms; of Mathematical Books, Almanacks, and\nPrognostications, to the Reader in Mathematics at Gresham College for the\ntime being, or a certain Mr. Booker instead; and for things of no\nconsequence--viz. \"small pamphlets, portraitures, pictures and the like\"\n--the Clerk of the Stationers' Company for the time being was to be\nauthority enough.[Footnote: The Ordinance is printed in the Lords\nJournals under date June 14, 1644. Rushworth prints it under the same\ndate (V. 335-6), and adds the names of the licensers, as appointed by the\nCommons June 20 and 21.]\n\nThe effects of this new Ordinance of Parliament were immediately visible.\nWhether because Parliament itself now seemed in earnest for the control\nof the Press, or because the new staff of licensers were determined to\nexercise their powers and earn their perquisites, or because the Master\nand Wardens of the Stationers' Company then in. office felt their hands\nstrengthened and worked hard (Mr. Samuel Bourne was Master, and Mr.\nSamuel Man and Mr. Richard Whittaker were Wardens), certain it is that\nauthors, printers, and publishers were brought at once into greater\nobedience. Ten times as many books, pamphlets and papers, we have shown,\nwere duly licensed and registered in the second half of the year 1643, or\nfrom the date of the new Ordinance onwards, as had been licensed and\nregistered in the preceding half-year.[Footnote: I ought to note,\nhowever, that the swelling out is caused chiefly by the shoals of\n_Mercuries, Diurnals, Scouts, Intelligencers_,&c. that were now\nregistered. These news-sheets of the Civil War, the infant forms of our\nnewspapers, had previously appeared at will; and there seems to have been\nparticular activity in bringing them under the operation of the\nOrdinance, so as to deprive Royalism of the aid of the Press.]\n\nNow, it so chanced that the first edition of Milton's _Doctrine and\nDiscipline of Divorce_ had been ready for the press exactly after the\nnew Ordinance had come into operation. What had been his behaviour? He\nhad paid no attention to the Ordinance whatever. He had been one of those\n\"contemners\" of it whom the Ordinance itself had taken the precaution of\nrendering inexcusable by the clause ordering its own publication! The\ntreatise had appeared on or about the 3rd of August, unlicensed and\nunregistered, just as its predecessors, the Anti-Episcopal pamphlets, had\nbeen. Nay, there was this difference, that there was no printer's full\nname on the title-page of the Divorce treatise, but only the semi-\nanonymous, declaration \"Printed by T. P. and M. S. in Goldsmiths' Alley\"\n[Footnote: See full title-page, _ant\u00e8_, p. 44. ] That Milton had\nacted deliberately in all this there can be no doubt. Not that we need\nsuppose him to have made it a point of honour to outbrave the new law in\ngeneral by continuing to publish without a licence; but because, in this\nparticular case, he had no choice but to do so, and did not mind doing\nso. He wanted to publish his new Doctrine of Divorce: was he to go the\nround of the twelve Reverend Gentlemen who had just been appointed\nlicensers of all books of Theology and Ethics, and wait till he found one\nof them sufficiently obtuse, or sufficiently asleep, to give his\n_imprimatur_ to a doctrine so shocking? Clearly, nothing remained\nbut to get any printer to undertake the treatise that would print it in\nits unlicensed state, the printer trusting the author and both running\nthe risk. Whatever hesitations the printer may have had, Milton had none.\nHe had taken no pains to conceal the authorship; and, when he found the\ndoctrine of the treatise in disrepute, he had disdained even the pretence\nof the anonymous. The second edition, published in February 1643-4,\nappeared, as the first had done, without licence or registration, and\nindeed with no more distinct imprint at the foot of the title-page than\n\"_London, Imprinted in the yeare_ 1664\"; but, to make up for this\ninformality, it contained Milton's dedication to the Parliament and the\nAssembly signed with his name. It was as if he said, \"I do break your\nOrdinance for Printing, but I let you know who I am that do so.\" Since\nthen Milton had published two more pamphlets--his _Tract on Education_,\naddressed to Hartlib (June 1644), and his _Bucer Tract_, continuing the\nDivorce subject (July 1644). In both of these he had conformed to the\nOrdinance. Both are duly registered in the Stationers' Books, the former\nas having been licensed by Mr. Cranford (_ant\u00e8_, p. 233), the latter by\nMr. Downham (_ant\u00e8_, p. 255). In licensing the new Divorce Tract, even\nthough it did consist mainly of extracts from Bucer, Mr. Downham must\nhave been either off his guard or very good-natured.\n\nMilton's carelessness or contempt of the Ordinance for Printing had now\nfound him out. The charge of heresy, or of monstrous and dangerous\nopinion, preferred against him by Palmer and the clergy, was one about\nwhich there might be much argument _pro_ and _con_, and with\nwhich most Parliamentary men might not be anxious to meddle. But here, in\naid of that charge, another charge, much more definite, had been brought\nforward. The officials of the Stationers' Company were chosen from year\nto year; and the Master for the year beginning in the middle of 1644 was\nMr. Robert Mead, with Mr. John Parker and Mr. Richard Whittaker for\nWardens. It was these persons, if I mistake not, who thought themselves\nbound, either by sympathy with the horror caused by Milton's doctrine, or\nby sheer official duty, to oblige Mr. Palmer and his brethren of the\nAssembly by pointing out that both the editions of Milton's obnoxious\npamphlet had been published in evasion of the law. There can be little\ndoubt that the Assembly divines and the London clergy generally were at\nthe back of the affair; but it was convenient for them to put forward\nothers as the nominal accusers. \"The Stationers' Company,\" these accusers\nvirtually said, \"knows nothing of these two publications, and has none of\nthe discredit of them; they are not registered in the Company's books,\nand do not appear to have been ever licensed; and, if Mr. Milton, who has\navowed himself the author, is to be questioned for the doctrine advanced\nin them, perhaps it would be well that he should at the same time have\nthe imprints on his two title-pages put before him--_'Printed by T. P.\nand M. S. in Goldsmiths' Alley,'_ and _'London, Imprinted in the\nyeare_ 1644'--and asked how he dared defy the law in that way, and who\nthe printers are that abetted him.\" Such, studying all the particulars,\nis the most exact interpretation I can put on the Petition of the\nStationers' Company to the Commons, Aug. 24, as it affected Milton. There\nwas a trade-feeling behind it. There was a resentment against certain\nprinters and booksellers (probably quite well known to the Master and\nWardens) for their contempt of trade-discipline, as well as against\nMilton for his part in the matter. It was really rather hard on Milton.\nFor, doubtless, the new Ordinance for Printing had been passed by\nParliament not with a view to any application of it to sound\nParliamentarians like him, but as a check upon writers of the other side;\nand, doubtless, he was not singular in having neglected the Ordinance.\nProbably scores of Parliamentarian writers had taken the same liberty.\nStill, as he had offended against the letter of the law, and as those\nwhom his doctrine had shocked now chose to avail themselves of this\noffence of his against the letter of the law, he found himself in an\nawkward position. All depended on the discretion of that \"Committee of\nPrinting,\" reinforced by four additional members, to which the Commons\n(Aug. 26) had entrusted the delicate task of dealing with him, and the\nfarther task of revising the Ordinance of the previous year and seeing\nwhether it could be improved or extended. They might trouble him much, or\nthey might let him alone.\n\nThey let him alone. The Committee, I find, did indeed proceed so far in\nthe general business assigned to them. They must have even drafted some\nnew or supplementary Ordinance for the regulation of Printing, and\nobtained the agreement of the House to the draft; for, though I am unable\nto find any record of such proceeding in the _Commons' Journals_,\nthere is this distinct entry in the _Lords' Journals_ under date\nSept. 18, 1644: \"A message was brought from the House of Commons by Mr.\nRous and others, to desire concurrence in two Ordinances--(1) Concerning\nOrdination of Ministers, (2) Concerning Printing. The answer returned\nwas, That this House will send an answer to this message by messengers of\ntheir own.\" The Lords, it appears in the sequel, did apply themselves to\nthe Ordination Ordinance, so that the Commons received it back amended,\nand it passed, Oct. 1. But I find no farther mention of the new Printing\nOrdinance. Cromwell's great Accommodation or Toleration motion, passed in\nthe Commons, in Solicitor St. John's modified form, on the 13th of\nSeptember, had, it may be remembered, caused a sudden pause among the\nPresbyterian zealots. It may have helped indirectly to strangle many\nthings; and I should not wonder if among them was the prosecution of the\nbusiness prescribed to the Committee of Printing by the Order of Aug. 26.\nThe Accommodation Order was a demand generally for clearer air and\nbreathing-room for everybody, more of English freedom, and less of\nScottish inquisitorship. If there had been ever any real intention among\nthe Parliamentary people to proceed against Milton, it had now to be\ndropped.\n\n\nTHE AREOPAGITICA; A SPEECH FOR THE LIBERTY OF UNLICENSED PRINTING.\n\nOne good effect the incident had produced. It had prescribed for Milton a\nnew piece of work. This Parliamentary Ordinance for Printing with which\nit had been proposed to crush him; this whole system of Censorship and\nlicensing of books that had prevailed so long in England and almost\neverywhere else; this delegation of the entire control of a nation's\nLiterature to a state-agency consisting of a few prejudiced parsons and\nschoolmasters seated atop, to decide what should go into the funnel, and\na Company of Stationers seated below, to see that nothing else came out\nof the funnel:-was not this a subject on which something might be said?\nWould it not be more than a revenge if Milton were to express his\nthoughts on this subject? Would it not be a service of moment to England?\nWhat might not be hoped for from the Parliament if they were fitly\naddressed on such a theme? It was the great question of Liberty in all\nits forms that England was then engaged in. Civil Liberty, Liberty of\nWorship, Liberty of Conscience, were the phrases ringing in the English\nair. But in the midst of this general clamour for Liberty no one yet had\nmoved for one form of Liberty, which would be a very substantial\ninstalment of the whole, and yet was practicable and perhaps within\nsight--the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing. Let this then be Milton's new\nundertaking! In the fact that it had been so clearly assigned to him,\nnay, forced upon him by circumstances, he began to discern a certain\nregulation, not quite dependent on his own forethought, of the recent\ncourse of his life. \"When the Bishops at length had fallen prostrate,\naimed at by the shafts of all, and there was no more trouble from\n_them_,\" he afterwards wrote, reviewing this portion of his life,\n\"then I turned my thoughts to other matters--if I might in anything\npromote the cause of true and solid liberty; which is chiefliest to be\nsought for not without, but within, and to be gained not by fighting, but\nby the right basing and the right administration of life. When,\ntherefore, I perceived that there are in all three sorts of liberty,\nwithout the presence of which life can hardly anyhow be suitably gone\nthrough--Ecclesiastical, Domestic or Private, and Civil--then, as I had\nalready written on the first, and as I saw that the Magistrate was\nsedulously occupied with the third, I took to myself that which was left\nsecond, viz. Domestic Liberty. That also appearing to consist of three\nparts--whether Marriage were rightly arranged, whether the Education of\nChildren were properly conducted, and whether, finally, there were the\npower of free Philosophising--I explained what I thought, not only\nconcerning the due contracting of Marriage, but also, if it were\nnecessary, the due dissolution of the same.... On that subject I put\nforth some books, exactly at that time when husband and wife were often\nthe bitterest enemies, he at home with his children, and she, the mother\nof the family, busy in the camp of the enemy, threatening death and\ndestruction to her husband.... Then I treated the Education Question\nmore briefly in one little book.... Finally, on the subject of the\nliberation of the Press, so that the judgment of the true and the false,\nwhat should be published and what suppressed, should not be in the hands\nof a few men, and these mostly unlearned and of common capacity, erected\ninto a censorship over books--an agency through which no one almost\neither can or will send into the light anything that is above the vulgar\ntaste--on this subject, in the form of an express oration, I wrote my\n_Areopagitica_.\" [Footnote: The Latin of the passage will be found\nin the _Defensio Secunda pro Popalo Anglicano._] In this passage,\nwritten in 1654, there is a slight anachronism. _All_ Milton's\nMarriage and Divorce tracts had not yet been published: two of them were\nstill to come. At the moment at which we have arrived, however, that\nmapping out of his labours on the Domestic or Private form of the general\nquestion of Liberty which the passage explains must have already been in\nhis mind. He had written largely on a Reform in Marriage and Divorce, and\nmore briefly on a Reform in Education. In the Marriage and Divorce\nsubject he had found himself met with an opposition which did not permit\nhim yet to lay it aside; but meanwhile, in consequence of that\nopposition, nay, of the very form it had taken, there had dawned on him,\nby way of interlude and yet of strictly continuous industry, a great\nthird enterprise. In any lull of war with the Titans what is Jove doing?\nFingering his next thunderbolt. Released from all trouble by the\nCommittee of the Commons, and left at leisure in Aldersgate Street,\nthrough September, October, and November, 1644, what was Milton doing?\nPreparing his _Areopagitica_.\n\nIt appeared November 24, a month after the Second Battle of Newbury, and\nthe very day before that outbreak by Cromwell, against the Earl of\nManchester for slackness in the battle, which led to the Self-Denying\nOrdinance and the New-Modelling of the Army. It was a small quarto of 40\npages with this title:--\n\nAREOPAGITICA;\n\nA Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicens'd Printing, to\nthe Parlament of England.\n\n  [Greek: Touleutheron d'ekeino, ei tis thelei polei\n  Chr\u00e6ston ti bouleum eis meson pherein, echon.\n  Kai tauth o chr\u00e6zon, lampros esth, o m\u00e6 thelon,\n  Siga ti touton estin isaiteron polei;]\n                             _Euripid. Hicetid._\n\n  This is true Liberty, when free-born men\n  Having to advise the public may speak free,\n  Which he who can, and will, deserv's high praise,\n  Who neither can nor will, may hold his peace;\n  What can be juster in a State than this?\n                             _Euripid. Hicetid_.\n  London, Printed in the yeare 1644.\n\nThere was no printer's or bookseller's name to the pamphlet; and it came\nforth unlicensed and unregistered. It would have been indeed absurd to\nask one of the Censors to license a pamphlet cutting up the whole system\nof Censorship. Still here was another deliberate breach of the law by\nMilton. It was probably to soften and veil the offence that the pamphlet\nwas cast into the form of a continuous Speech or Pleading by Milton to\nParliament directly, without recognition of the public in preface or\nepilogue. [Footnote: That Nov. 24, 1644, was the day of the publication\nof the _Areopagitica_ I learn from Thomason's MS. note \"Novemb. 24\"\nin the copy among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum; Press Mark\n12. G. e.9./182.]\n\nThe _Areopagitica_ is now by far the best-known of Milton's\npamphlets, and indeed the only one of his prose-works generally read.\nKnowing his other prose-writings, I have sometimes been angry at this\nchoice of one of his pamphlets by which to recollect him as an English\nprose-writer. I have ascribed it to our cowardly habit of taking delight\nonly in what we already agree with, of liking to read only what we\nalready think, or have been schooled into considering glorious,\naxiomatic, and British. As there are parts of Milton's prose-writings\nthat would be even now as discomposing and irritating to an orthodox\nBriton as to an orthodox Spaniard or Russian, a genuine British reader\nmight be expected perhaps to tend to those parts by preference. Hence\nthere is something not wholly pleasing in the exclusive rush in our\ncountry now-a-days upon the _Areopagitica_ as representative of\nMilton's prose. And yet the reasons for the fact are perhaps sufficient.\nThough the doctrine of the Treatise is now axiomatic, one remembers, as\none reads, that the battle for it had then to be fought, that Milton was\nthe first and greatest to fight it, and that this very book did more than\nany other to make the doctrine an axiom in Britain. But, besides this\nhistorical interest, the book possesses an interest of peculiar literary\nattractiveness. It is perhaps the most skilful of all Milton's prose-\nwritings, the most equable and sustained, the easiest to be read straight\nthrough at once, and the fittest to leave one glowing sensation of the\npower of the author's genius. It is a pleading of the highest eloquence\nand courage, with interspersed passages of curious information, keen wit,\nand even a rich humour, such as we do not commonly look for in Milton. He\nmust have taken great pains to make the performance popular.\n\nAfter an exordium of respectful compliment to the Parliament, the\nrhetorical skill of which is as masterly as the sincerity is obvious,\nMilton announces his purpose. He thinks so highly of the Parliament that\nhe will pay them the supreme compliment of questioning the wisdom of one\nof their ordinances and asking them to repeal it. He then quotes the\nleading clause of the Printing Ordinance of June 14, 1643, enacting that\nno Book, Pamphlet, or Paper should thenceforth be printed unless it had\npreviously been approved and licensed by the official censors or one of\nthem. He is to challenge, he says, only that part of the Ordinance. He is\nnot to challenge the part for preventing piracy of copyright; which he\nthinks quite just, though he can see that it may be abused so as to annoy\nhonest men and booksellers. From a passage farther on we learn also that\nMilton did not object to a prohibition of anonymous publication; for he\nrefers with entire approbation to a previous Parliamentary Ordinance,\nenacting that no book should be printed unless the names of the author\nand printer, or at least that of the printer, were registered. If\nParliament had stopped at that Order, they would have been well advised;\nit is the licensing Enactment of the subsequent Order of June 1643 that\nhe is to reason against. Books, indeed, were things of which a\nCommonwealth ought to take no less vigilant charge than of their living\nsubjects, \"For Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a\npotency of life in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they\nare.\" All the more reason to beware of violence against books. \"As good\nalmost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable\ncreature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason\nitself, kills the image of God as it were in the eye. Many a man lives a\nburden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a\nmaster-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond\nlife.\" And how had this slaying of books, and even the prevention of\ntheir birth, by a Censorship, grown up? After a historical sketch of the\nstate of the law and practice respecting books among the Greeks, the\nRomans, and the early and mediaeval Christians, Milton arrives at the\nconclusion that the system of Censorship and Licensing was an invention\nof the worst age of the Papacy, perfected by the Spanish Inquisition. He\ngives one or two specimens of the elaborate _imprimaturs_ prefixed\nto old Italian books, and makes much fun of them. The Papal invention, he\ncontinues, had passed on into Prelatic England. \"These are the pretty\nresponsories, these are the dear antiphonies that so bewitched our late\nprelates and their chaplains with the goodly echo they made, and besotted\nus to the gay imitation of a lordly _imprimatur_, one from the\nLambeth House [the Archbishop of Canterbury's Palace, where MSS. had to\nbe left by their authors for revision by his chaplains], another from the\nwest end of Paul's [the site of Stationers' Hall].\"\n\nYes! but, whoever were the inventors, might not the invention itself be\ngood? To this question Milton next proceeds, and it leads him into the\nvitals of the subject.\n\nHe contends, in the first place, for the scholar's liberty of universal\nreading at his own peril, his right of unlimited intellectual\ninquisitiveness. What though there are bad and mischievous books? \"Books\nare as meats and viands are, some of good, some of evil substance, and\nyet God in that unapocryphal vision said, without exception, 'Rise,\nPeter, kill and eat.'\" Good and evil are inextricably mixed up together\nin everything in this world; and the very discipline to virtue and\nstrength consists in full walking amid both, distinguishing, avoiding,\nand choosing. \"I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue,\nunexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out to see her adversary,\nbut slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for\nnotwithstanding dust and heat. Assuredly we bring not innocence into the\nworld, we bring impurity much rather; that which purifies is trial, and\ntrial is by what is contrary.\" There is much more in the same strain, a\nfavourite one with Milton, with instances of readings in evil books\nturned to good account. Plato's Censorship of Books, or general\nregulation of literature by the magistrate, is handled gently, as only\nPlato's whimsy for his own airy Republic. What if the principle of State-\nlicensing were carried out? \"Whatever thing we hear or see, sitting,\nwalking, travelling, or conversing, may be fitly called our book.\" Well,\nshall the State regulate singing, dancing, street-music, concerts in the\nhouse, looking out at windows, standing on balconies, eating, drinking,\ndressing, love-making? \"It would be better done to learn that the law\nmust needs be frivolous which goes to restrain things uncertainly, and\nyet equally, working to good and to evil. And, were I the chooser, a dram\nof well-doing should be preferred before many times as much the forcible\nhindrance of evil-doing.\" Besides, suppression even of such tangible\nthings as books by a Censorship was really impracticable, and everybody\nknew it. In spite of the existing Censorship, were not Royalist libels\nagainst the Parliament in everybody's hands in London every week, wet\nfrom the press? The system was a monstrous injustice and annoyance, and\nit did not answer its own end.\n\nIf the end were honestly the suppression of false and bad books, and if\nthat end were in itself proper, and also practicable with sufficient\nmeans, all would still depend on the qualifications of the Licensers. And\nhere Milton frankly lets the existing English licensers of Books, and\nespecially the twelve parish-ministers among them, know his opinion of\ntheir office:--\n\n\"It cannot be denied but that he who is made judge to sit upon the birth\nor death of Books, whether they may be wafted into this world or not, had\nneed to be a man above the common measure, both studious, learned, and\njudicious: there may be else no mean mistakes in the censure of what is\npassable or not; which is also no mean injury. If he be of such worth as\nbehoves him, there cannot be a more tedious and unpleasing journey-work,\na greater loss of time levied upon his head, than to be made the\nperpetual reader of unchosen books and pamphlets, ofttimes huge volumes.\nThere is no book that is acceptable unless at certain seasons; but to be\nenjoined the reading of that at all times, and in a hand scarce legible,\nwhereof three pages would not down at any time in the fairest print, is\nan imposition which I cannot believe how he that values time and his own\nstudies, or is but of a sensible nostril, should be able to endure. In\nthis one thing I crave leave of the present Licensers to be pardoned for\nso thinking: who doubtless took this office up, looking on it through\ntheir obedience to the Parliament, whose command perhaps made all things\nseem easy and unlaborious to them. But that this short trial hath wearied\nthem out already, their own expressions and excuses to them who make so\nmany journeys to solicit their license (!) are testimony enough. Seeing\ntherefore those who now possess the employment by all evident signs wish\nthemselves well rid of it, and that no man of worth, none that is not a\nplain unthrift of his own hours, is ever likely to succeed them, except\nhe mean to put himself to the salary of a press-corrector, we may easily\nforesee what kind of Licensers we are to expect hereafter--either\nignorant, imperious, and remiss, or basely pecuniary.... How much it\nhurts and hinders the Licensers themselves in the calling of their\nministry, more than any secular employment, if they will discharge that\noffice as they ought, so that they must neglect either the one duty or\nthe other, I insist not, because it is a particular, but leave it to\ntheir own conscience how they will decide it there.\"\n\nClosely following this glance at the Licensers and _their_ business\nis a description of the true Author and _his_ business, and of the\nindignities and discomforts put upon him by the Licensing system:--\n\n\"When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and\ndeliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and\nlikely consults and confers with his judicious friends: after all which\ndone he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any\nthat writ before him. If in this, the most consummate act of his fidelity\nand ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities,\ncan bring him to that state of maturity as not to be still mistrusted and\nsuspected unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight\nwatchings and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an\nunleisured Licenser--perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior\nin judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labour of book-writing; and,\nif he be not repulsed or slighted, must appear in print like a punie\n[child] with his guardian, and his censor's hand on the back of his\ntitle, to be his bail and surety that he is no idiot or seducer;--it\ncannot be but a dishonour and derogation to the Author, to the Book, to\nthe privilege and dignity of Learning. And what if the Author shall be\none so copious of fancy as to have many things well worth the adding come\ninto his mind, after licensing, while the book is yet under the press--\nwhich not seldom happens to the best and diligentest writers, and that\nperhaps a dozen times in one book? The Printer dares not go beyond his\nlicensed copy: so often then must the Author trudge to his leave-giver,\nthat those his new insertions may be viewed; and many a jaunt will be\nmade ere that Licenser (for it must be the same man) can either be found,\nor found at leisure. Meanwhile either the press must stand still (which\nis no small damage) or the Author lose his accuratest thoughts, and send\nthe book forth worse than he had made it; which is the greatest\nmelancholy and vexation that can befall. And how can a man teach with\nauthority, which is the life of teaching, how can he be a _doctor_\nin his book, as he ought to be or else had better be silent, whenas all\nhe teaches, all he delivers, is but under the tuition, under the\ncorrection, of his patriarchal Licenser, to blot or alter what precisely\naccords not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his judgment?\"\n\nThe last half of the pamphlet is perhaps more knotty and powerful than\nthe first. Milton's well-known retrospect of what he had seen in Italy,\nwith his reminiscence of Galileo, occurs here. But his drift has now been\nmade sufficiently apparent; and we shall best discharge what remains of\nour duty by presenting certain pieces of autobiographical information\nwhich the pamphlet supplies:--\n\nWe learn, for one thing, that Milton did not stand alone in his\ndetestation of the Censorship, but represented a considerable\nconstituency in the matter, and had even been solicited to be their\nspokesman and write this pamphlet. Those very words of complaint, he\nsays, which he had heard, six years before, uttered by learned men in\nItaly against the Inquisition, it had been his fortune to hear uttered of\nlate by \"as learned men\" in England against the Licensing Ordinance of\nthe Parliament. \"And that so generally,\" he adds, \"that, when I had\ndisclosed myself a companion of their discontent, I might say, if without\nenvy, that he whom an honest qu\u00e6storship had endeared to the Sicilians\n[Cicero] was not more by them importuned against Verres than the\nfavourable opinion which I had among many who honour ye, and are known\nand respected by ye, loaded me with entreaties and persuasions that I\nwould not despair to lay together that which just reason should bring\ninto my mind toward the removal of an undeserved thraldom upon Learning.\nThat this is not therefore the disburdening of a particular fancy, but\nthe common grievance of all those who had prepared their minds and\nstudies above the vulgar pitch to advance truth in others, thus much may\nsatisfy.\"\n\nAgain, in a pamphlet the subject of which is Books and Authors, we have\nnaturally some incidental indications of Milton's literary tastes and\npreferences. The most interesting of these are perhaps the following:--He\nwas as fond as ever of Spenser, \"our sage and serious poet\" as he calls\nhim, \"whom I dare be known to think a better teacher than Scotus or\nAquinas.\" He thought Arminius \"acute and distinct,\" though perverted. He\nwould be no slave even to Plato, but would take the liberty of quizzing\nany of the oddities even of that gorgeous intellect. On moral grounds, he\ncould not bear Aristophanes, and wondered how Plato could have\nrecommended \"such trash\" as the comedies of that writer to the tyrant\nDionysius. His great liking for Euripides is shown by his taking four\nlines from that poet's _Hiketides_ as the motto for the pamphlet.\nLord Bacon is again mentioned reverently, once as \"Sir Francis Bacon\" and\nagain as \"Viscount St. Albans.\" There is a tribute of high admiration to\nthe Parliamentarian peer, Lord Brooke, so recently lost to England, and\nto the tract on the _Nature of Episcopacy_ he had left behind him:\nthose last words of his dying charge which \"I know will ever be of dear\nand honoured regard with _ye_, so full of meekness and breathing\ncharity that, next to His last testament who bequeathed love and peace to\nhis disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words\nmore mild and peaceful.\" Selden is again referred to and complimented:\n\"one of your own now sitting in Parliament, the chief of learned men\nreputed in this land.\" Acquaintance, on the other hand, is implied or\navowed, on Milton's part, with some of the most notoriously ribald\nwriters that the world had produced: with Petronius Arbiter, and him of\nArozzo \"dreaded and yet dear to the Italian Courtiers,\" and an Englishman\nwhom he will not name, \"for posterity's sake,\" but \"whom Harry the Eighth\nnamed in merriment his Vicar of Hell.\" We may add, that Wycliffe and Knox\nare both honourably mentioned in the _Areopagitica_: Knox as the\n\"Reformer of a Kingdom,\" and Wycliffe as an Englishman who had perhaps\nhad potentially in him all that had since come from the Bohemian Huss,\nthe German Luther, or the French Calvin.\n\nA more special piece of information supplied, or rather only confirmed,\nby the _Areopagitica_, is that Milton, when he wrote it, had broken\noff utterly from the Presbyterians, and regarded the domination of that\nparty in the Westminster Assembly with complete disgust. \"If it come to\ninquisitioning again, and licensing,\" he says, \"and that we are so\ntimorous of ourselves, and so suspicious of all men, as to fear each\nbook, and the shaking of every leaf, before we know what the contents\nare,--if some, who but of late were little better than silenced from\npreaching, shall come now to silence us from reading, except what they\nplease,--it cannot be guessed what is intended by some but a second\ntyranny over Learning; and will soon put it out of controversy that\nBishops and Presbyters are the same to us, both name and thing.\" Again, a\nlittle farther on, \"This is not, ye Covenants and Protestations that we\nhave made, this is not to put down Prelaty: this is but to chop an\nEpiscopacy; this is but to translate the Palace _Metropolitan_ from\none kind of dominion into another.\" Again, \"A man may be a heretic in the\nTruth; and, if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the\nAssembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief\nbe true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.\" Again, \"He who\nhears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge to be sent\ndown among us would think of other matters to be constituted, beyond the\ndiscipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands.\" Again,\nof Ecclesiastical Assemblies in general, and the Westminster Assembly in\nparticular, \"Neither is God appointed and confined where and out of what\nplace these his chosen shall be first heard to speak; for He sees not as\nman sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves\nagain to set places, and Assemblies, and outward callings of men,\nplanting our faith one while in the old Convocation House, and another\nwhile in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith that shall be\nthere canonized is not sufficient, without plain convincement and the\ncharity of patient instruction, to supple the least bruise of conscience,\nto edify the meanest Christian who desires to walk in the spirit and not\nin the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can there\nbe made--no, though Harry the Seventh himself there, with all his liege\ntombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead to swell their\nnumber,\" [Footnote: The original meeting-place of the Westminster\nAssembly, and their meeting-place in the summer months, was Henry the\nSeventh's Chapel. In winter it was the Jerusalem Chamber--which had been\nthe Convocation House of the English clergy before the Long Parliament.]\nAgain, he says that, if the Presbyterians, themselves so recently\nreleased from Episcopal tyranny, should not have been taught by their own\nsuffering, but should continue active in suppressing others, \"it would be\nno unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors\nthemselves.\"\n\nMilton, however, the _Areopagitica_ proves, had not passed away from\nPresbyterianism only to become an ordinary Congregationalist or\nIndependent. In the fight between the Presbyterians and the Independents\nof the Assembly he would now, undoubtedly, have taken part with the\nIndependents; but Messrs. Goodwin, Nye, and the rest of them, had they\ninterrogated him why, would have found him a strange adherent. For he had\npassed on into an Independency, if it could be called \"Independency,\"\nmore extreme than theirs, and resembling rather the vague Independency\nthat Cromwell represented, and that was rife in the Army. The very notion\nof an official \"minister of Religion,\" anyhow appointed, had become\ncomical to him. It had come to seem to him supremely ridiculous that\nthere should be anything like a caste of Brahmins or officers of Religion\nin England, by whatever means that caste should be formed or recruited.\nTo curtail proof under this head, let me give but one extract. It is the\nrichest bit of sheer humour that I have yet found in Milton, and is\nbetter and deeper, in that kind, than anything in Sydney Smith:--\n\n\nBEING RELIGIOUS BY DEPUTY: OR THE USE OF A POPULAR LONDON CLERGYMAN.\n\n\"There is not any burden that some would gladlier post off to another\nthan the charge and care of their Religion. There be--who knows not that\nthere be?--of Protestants and professors who live and die in as arrant\nand implicit faith as any lay Papist of Loretto. A wealthy man, addicted\nto his pleasure and profits, finds Religion to be a traffic so entangled,\nand of so many piddling accounts, that of all mysteries he cannot skill\nto keep a stock going on that trade. What should he do? Fain he would\nhave the name to be religious; fain he would bear up with his neighbours\nin that. What does he therefore but resolves to give over toiling, and to\nfind himself out some factor, to whose care and credit he may commit the\nwhole managing of his religious affairs: some Divine of note and\nestimation _that_ must be. To him he adheres; resigns the whole\nwarehouse of his Religion, with all the locks and keys, into his custody;\nand indeed makes the very person of that man his Religion--esteems his\nassociating with him a sufficient evidence and commendatory of his own\npiety. So that a man may say his Religion is now no more within himself,\nbut is become a dividual movable, and goes and comes near him according\nas that good man frequents the house. He entertains him, gives him gifts,\nfeasts him, lodges him; his Religion comes home at night, prays, is\nliberally supt and sumptuously laid to sleep, rises, is saluted; and,\nafter the malmsey or some well-spiced brewage, and better breakfasted\nthan He whose morning appetite would have gladly fed on green figs\nbetween Bethany and Jerusalem, his Religion walks abroad at eight, and\nleaves his kind entertainer in the shop, trading all day without his\nReligion.\"\n\nWhat light does the _Areopagitica_ throw on Milton's notion of\nToleration, or Liberty of Conscience, and on his feelings towards the\nSects and Sectaries generally among whom he was now ranked? It is not\nuncommon to regard the _Areopagitica_ as one of the first and\ngreatest English pleas for Liberty of Conscience; and, broadly viewed, it\nis. But strictly it is not a plea for Liberty of Conscience or for\nToleration, but only for the liberty of unlicensed Printing. Milton's\nviews of Liberty of Conscience appear only by implication in the course\nof this one argument. So far as they do appear, it cannot be said that\nMilton advocated a Liberty of Conscience so complete and absolute as\nRoger Williams's or John Goodwin's. He even saves himself from the\nimputation of doing so. \"If all cannot be of one mind,\" he says, \"this\ndoubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian, that many\nbe tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated Popery and\nopen superstition; which, as it extirpates all religious and civil\nsupremacies, so itself should be extirpate--provided first that all\ncharitable and a compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak\nand the misled. That also which is impious or evil absolutely, either\nagainst faith or manners, no law can possibly permit that intends not to\nunlaw itself.\" There are hints also to the effect that, while Milton\nwanted liberty of unlicensed publication for all kinds of books, he did\nnot deny the right of the magistrate to call writers to account, in\ncertain cases, for the opinions they had published. On the whole,\ntherefore, in his theory of Toleration, Milton was decidedly behind some\nof his contemporaries. One can see, however, that he was uneasy in his\nexceptions, and had little care for them in comparison with the principle\nhe meant them to limit. Practically he stands forth in the _Areopagitica_\nas the advocate of a Toleration that would have satisfied all the\nnecessities of the juncture, by giving full liberty not only to orthodox\nCongregationalists, but also to Baptists, so-called Antinomians, and\nSeekers, and perhaps all other Protestant sects that had any real rooting\nat that time in English society. His whole oration breathes the full\nprinciple rather than the exceptions. \"Give me,\" he says, \"the liberty to\nknow, to utter and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all\nliberties.\" And he makes a brave defence of the existing Sects, without\nputting a mark of exclusion on any. Those Sects and Schisms, Sects and\nSchisms, which weak men were bewailing, and the Presbyterians were\ncalling on Parliament to crush, appeared to Milton not only something\nthat must be permitted because it could not be prevented, but positively\nthe finest English phenomenon of the time, and the richest in promise:--\n\n\"The light which we have gained was given us not to be ever staring on,\nbut by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge. It is\nnot the unfrocking of a Priest, the unmitring of a Bishop, and the\nremoving him from off the Presbyterian shoulders, that will make us a\nhappy nation. No, if other things as great in the Church, and in the rule\nof life both economical and political, be not looked into and reformed,\nwe have looked so long upon the blaze that Zuinglius and Calvin hath\nbeaconed up to us that we are stark blind. There be who perpetually\ncomplain of Schisms and Sects, and make it such a calamity that any man\ndissents from _their_ maxims.... Lords and Commons of England,\nconsider what Nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the\ngovernors: a Nation not slow and dull, but of a quick, ingenious, and\npiercing spirit, acute to invent, subtle and sinewy to discourse, not\nbeneath the reach of any point the highest that human capacity can soar\nto.... Now once again, by all concurrence of signs, and by the general\ninstinct of holy and devout men, as they daily and solemnly express their\nthoughts, God is decreeing to begin some new and great period in his\nChurch, even to the reforming of Reformation itself. What does He then\nbut reveal himself to his servants, and, as his manner is, first to his\nEnglishmen--I say, as his manner is, first to us, though we mark not the\nmethod of his counsels and are unworthy? Behold now this vast City, a\ncity of refuge, the mansion-house of Liberty, encompassed and surrounded\nwith His protection. The shop of war hath not there more anvils and\nhammers working, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed\nJustice in defence of beleaguered Truth, than there be pens and heads\nthere, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new\nnotions and ideas, wherewith to present, as with their homage and their\nfealty, the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all\nthings, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a\nman require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after\nknowledge? What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soil, but\nwise and faithful labourers, to make a knowing people, a Nation of\nprophets, of sages, and of worthies?... Where there is much desire to\nlearn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many\nopinions; for Opinion in good men is but Knowledge in the making. Under\nthese fantastic terrors of Sect and Schism we wrong the earnest and\nzealous thirst after knowledge and understanding which God hath stirred\nup in this city. What some lament of we rather should rejoice at, should\npraise rather this pious forwardness among men to reassume the ill-\ndeputed care of their Religion into their own hands again.... As in a\nbody, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to\nvital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest and the\npertest operations of art and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and\nconstitution the body is, so, when the cheerfulness of the people is so\nsprightly up as that it has not only wherewith to guard well its own\nfreedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and\nsublimest points of controversy and new invention, it betokens us not\ndegenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, but casting off the old and\nwrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again,\nentering the glorious ways of Truth and prosperous virtue destined to\nbecome great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my\nmind a noble and puissant Nation rousing herself like a strong man after\nsleep, and shaking her invincible locks; methinks I see her as an eagle\nmewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full\nmidday beam; purging and unsealing her long-abused sight at the fountain\nitself of heavenly radiance, while the whole noise of timorous and\nflocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about,\namazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate\na year of Sects and Schisms.\"\n\nAfter this it is bathos to speak of the Stationers' Company; but we must\ndo so. For, at the end of the _Areopagitica_ there is a distinct\ninsinuation by Milton that the Ordinance he was asking the Parliament to\nrepeal was less the invention of Parliament itself than of some cunning\nStationers. \"If we may believe those men,\" he says, \"whose profession\ngives them cause to inquire most [_i.e._ some worthy booksellers of\nMilton's acquaintance] it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of\nsome old patentees and monopolisers in the trade of bookselling; who,\nunder pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the\njust retaining of each man his several copy--which God forbid should be\ngainsaid--brought divers glozing colours to the House, which were indeed\nbut colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority\nover their neighbours.\" Milton makes a farther and worse insinuation.\n\"Another end,\" he says, \"is thought was aimed at by some of them in\nprocuring by petition this order--that, having power in their hands,\nmalignant books might easier scape abroad [_i.e._ get about the\ncountry], as the event shows.\" Here was a hit for some of the good people\nabout Paternoster Row.\n\n\nSECOND PROSECUTION OF MILTON BY THE STATIONERS' COMPANY: CONDUCT OF THE\nHOUSE OF LORDS IN THE CASE.\n\nIt might have been safer for Milton to let the Stationers alone. For,\nwithin five weeks after the publication of the _Areopagitica_, I\nfind him again in trouble, and all by the doing of the Stationers'\nCompany, in revenge for his past offences and this new insult. The story,\nas I have dug it out of the _Lords' Journals_, with some help from\nold pamphlets, is as follows:--\n\nMonday the 9th of December, 1644, there being twenty-one Peers present,\nand Lord Grey of Wark in the chair, \"a scandalous printed libel against\nthe Peerage of this realm was brought into the House and read; and this\nHouse ordered, that the Master and Wardens of the Company of Stationers\nshall attend this House at four of the clock this afternoon, to know of\nthem whether they do know of the print and can discover the author of\nit.\" That same afternoon, accordingly, there being now but fifteen peers\npresent, the three gentlemen who had been sent for--Messrs. Mead, Parker,\nand Whittaker--appeared, and with this result: \"The Master and Wardens of\nthe Company of Stationers desired some longer time, and they will do\ntheir best endeavours to find out the printer that printed the scandalous\nlibel brought into this House this day; and this House gave two or three\ndays longer.\" On Friday the 13th of December they have not yet found\neither the author or the printer; but they have caught a poor fellow,\nGeorge Jeffrey, apprentice to a hosier in Cornhill, who had been\ndispersing copies of the libel in London. Examined by the Earls of\nSalisbury and Kent, aided by the Judges, this George Jeffrey confesses\nall about it. On Monday morning last (the very day on which the Lords\nfirst discussed the subject) he had found two-and-twenty copies of the\nthing between the stall-boards of his master's stall, put there by he\nknew not whom. He had taken them into the shop, read one of them, and\nbeen so greatly amused by it that he had told his neighbours of the\nprize. Some of the more unruly of the neighbours had snatched at copies\nand carried them off, so that he had only two left. When he found that\nthere was a hue and cry on the matter, and that he had got himself into\ntrouble, he had done what he could. He had sent his own two remaining\ncopies to the Lord Mayor, and had recovered six of the other copies and\nsent them to the Mayor too, naming the persons from whom he got them\nback. One was an exciseman, one an oilman; and one or two were\napprentices like himself; but there was also one Thomas Heath, who was\nactually the Lord Mayor's kinsman. This was positively all he knew of the\nmatter; and he could not tell where the papers came from, nor where any\nmore were to be found. Apparently the Peers believed him, for he was\ndischarged on his own promise to attend again if he should be called for.\n\nThe libel, however, seems to have been unusually flagrant. The Peers sent\na copy of George Jeffrey's examination to the Lord Mayor, with\ninstructions that he should both give an account of what he had already\ndone in the business and also prosecute it farther. It is not till Dec.\n26 that we hear more. On that day, two-and-twenty Peers being present,\nand nothing having been farther reported either by the Lord Mayor or the\nStationers, it was ordered \"that the Lord Mayor of London and the\nPrinters be sent to, to give an account of the scandalous paper printed\nand dispersed, what they have done in discovering the Author, Printer,\nand Publisher.\" The Mayor and the Stationers still not responding, the\norder was repeated more peremptorily on Saturday, Dec. 28, one-and-twenty\nPeers being present. The gentleman-usher of the House went there and then\nfor the two Wardens of the Stationers' Company, who forthwith appeared\nand gave this account: \"They have used their best endeavours to find out\nthe printer and author of the scandalous libel, but they cannot yet make\nany discovery thereof, the letter [type] being so common a letter; and\nfurther _complained of the frequent printing of scandalous Books by\ndivers, as Hezekiah Woodward and Jo. Milton._\"--Here was an extremely\nclever trick of Messrs. Parker and Whittaker! They were themselves in\ntrouble for not being good detectives: what if they diverted the\nattention of the Peers, while they were in this angry mood, upon other\nobjects? It is as if they said to the Peers, \"It is a very hard matter\nsometimes to find out the authors and printers of scandalous tracts; but\nreally the abuse has attained to frightful dimensions, and perhaps the\nleniency of your Lordships in cases where the authors of scandalous\ntracts are well enough known encourages others. Last August, for example,\nwe took the liberty of calling the attention of the House of Commons to a\nTract on Divorce by Mr. John Milton, which the Assembly unanimously\ncondemns as containing horrid doctrine, and which Mr. Palmer denounced on\nthat ground in the hearing of your Lordships. It was our duty to do so,\nbecause the Tractate, in any case, was unlicensed and unregistered, and\ntherefore a violation of the Printing Ordinance. The Commons referred the\nsubject to their Committee for Printing, but nothing appears to have been\ndone. And now, as your Lordships have sent for us on this other matter,\nin which we are sorry not to have succeeded as we could have wished,\nallow us to mention that the same Mr. Milton has since then--in fact,\nonly last month-put forth another pamphlet, called _Areopagitica_,\nwith his name to it certainly and addressed to your Lordships and the\nother House, but with no printer's name, and unlicensed and unregistered,\nlike most of its predecessors. The pamphlet contains some very injurious\npersonal reflections on us; but we should not think of mentioning it\nmerely on that ground. It is very bold and strange altogether, very\ndisrespectful to the Assembly, and is an attack on the whole Ordinance\nfor Printing which it wilfully breaks. Besides Mr. Milton there are\nothers as bad: for instance, Mr. Hezekiah Woodward.\"\n\nWho Mr. Hezekiah Woodward was the reader already, in some degree, knows.\nHe was that old friend of Samuel Hartlib's to whom Hartlib, in Aug. 1644,\nhad addressed a letter requesting his opinion of Edwards's _Antapologia_,\nand who had furnished that opinion, which was published, with Hartlib's\nletter, in the following month (_ant\u00e8_). He must have been fond of using\nhis pen; for I find him to have been the author of at least seven other\npamphlets, published before our present date, viz. _The Kings Chronicle_\n(1643); _Three Kingdoms made One_ (1643); _The Cause, Use, and Cure of\nFear_ (1643); _A Good Soldier maintaining his Militia_ (1644); _The\nSentence from Reason and Scripture against Archbishops and Bishops, with\ntheir Curates_ (1644); _As you were_ (1644); _Inquiries into the Causes\nof our Miseries_ (1644). The last-named but one of these pamphlets gives\nat least one additional particular about Woodward. Its full title is \"_As\nyou were: or a Reducing (if possibly any) seduc't ones to facing-about,\nturning head-front against God, by the Recrimination (so intended) upon\nMr. J. G. (Pastor of the Church in Coleman Street) in point of fighting\nagainst God. By an unworthy auditor of the said (Juditious pious Divine)\nMaster John Goodwin._\" This may have been the very pamphlet, or one of\nthe pamphlets, of Woodward which the Stationers had in view when they\ncomplained of him; for it was published Nov. 13, 1644, or exactly eleven\ndays before the _Areopagitica_, and it appeared anonymously and without a\nlicence. Out of the confused wording of the title we gather that Woodward\nwas a hearer and admirer of John Goodwin, and that the tract was intended\nas in some sort a vindication of that Sectary against attacks that had\nbeen made upon him in connexion more especially with a pamphlet of his\nentitled _Theomachia_. All this, though slight, is not uninteresting. It\npresents to us Woodward as a London citizen of what maybe called the\nHartlib-Goodwin connexion, and possibly therefore known to Milton\npersonally. He lived in Aldermanbury, and was addicted to writing\npamphlets. From what I have read of them I judge him to have been a mild,\nhazy-headed person, with a liking for indefiniteness and elbow-room\nrather than Presbyterian strictness, and therefore ranking among the\nSectaries, but of such small mark individually that, but for his\nincidental association with Milton in the business under notice, we\nshould not now have had any particular interest in inquiring about him.\nFor some reason or other, however, the Stationers thought him worth their\nhostility. Had they any trade dislike to Hartlib? It is somewhat curious\nthat the two persons they selected to be complained against were two of\nHartlib's friends. [Footnote: For particulars here about Woodward, in\naddition to those already given (_ant\u00e8_ pp. 230-1), my authorities are\n(1) The British Museum Library Catalogue: _Woodward, Hezekiah_; (2) The\ntwo publications named as consulted by myself, viz., Woodward's _As You\nWere_, and his joint-tract with Hartlib, _A Short Letter, &c., with a\nlarge but modest answer_, which last is not given in the Museum Catalogue\namong Woodward's publications, but came in my way in my researches for\nHartlib; (3) MS. notes of Thomason in Museum copies of these two\npublications: viz., in the first the words \"suposed to be Ezech.\nWoodward's,\" and the date \"Novemb. 13, London;\" in the second the date\n\"Sept 14.\"]\n\nTo resume our story from the _Lords' Journals_:--The device of the\ntwo Wardens for diverting the attention of the Peers was for the moment\nsuccessful. The Peers on the same day (Sat. Dec. 28), as soon as the\nWardens had withdrawn, passed this order: \"Hereupon it is ordered, that\nit be referred to Mr. Justice Reeves and Mr. Justice Bacon to examine the\nsaid Woodward and Milton, and such others as the Master and Wardens of\nthe Stationers' Company shall give information of, concerning the\nprinting and publishing their Books and Pamphlets, and to examine also\nwhat they know concerning the Libel [the Libel against the Peers of which\nGeorge Jeffrey had dispersed copies], who was the author, printer, and\ncontriver of it; and the Gentleman-Usher shall attach the parties, and\nbring them before the Judges; and the Stationers are to be present at\ntheir examinations, and give evidence against them.\"\n\nThis was clearly a tighter action against Milton than the former one by\nthe Commons. What came of it?--Woodward's business came up on the next\nTuesday, Dec. 31, when Mr. Justice Bacon informed this House of some\npapers which Ezechiell Woodward [it was \"Hezekiah\" before] confessed he\nmade: \"Hereupon it is ordered, that Mr. Serjeant Whitfield shall peruse\nthem over, and report them to this House; and, because the said Woodward\nis now in custody of the Gentleman-Usher, it is ordered, He shall be\nreleased, giving his own bond to appear before this House when he shall\nbe summoned.\" Woodward's offence, it would therefore seem, was considered\nvenial. He had nothing to do with the Libel that was the special subject\nof inquiry; and, though he had confessed to the authorship of some\nanonymous papers recently published, there seemed to be nothing\nformidable in them. He might go back to his house in Aldermanbury on his\nown recognisances. [Footnote: \"_Soft Answers unto Hard Censures_,\nLondon 1645,\" is the title of a tract of Woodward's subsequent to the\nincident of the text, and possibly referring to it; after which I find\nhim, so far as there is evidence, totally silent till 1656. In that year\nhe published four new religious or politico religious pamphlets; which is\nthe last I know of him at present.] But what of Milton? Not a word about\n_him_ in the Journals of the same day. He was not in the custody of\nthe Gentleman-Usher then at all events; and so far he had been more\nfortunate than Woodward. Possibly, he had had a call from the Usher in\nhis house in Aldersgate Street on the Saturday or Monday, had accompanied\nhim to the chambers of Mr. Justice Reeve or Mr. Justice Bacon, had\nconfronted the Master and Wardens of the Stationers' Company there, and\nhad there given such a satisfactory and straightforward account of his\nquestioned pamphlets that there was no need for detaining him, or\ntroubling him farther. Some report may have been made to the Peers by the\nJustices; but if so, it was of such a kind, and the Peers themselves had\nsuch information about Milton, that they thought it best to let the\nmatter drop without the least farther mention of it. If even two or three\nof them had read the _Areopagitica_ (and probably even more had),\nthat alone would have honourably acquitted him. It appears, however, from\na subsequent allusion by Milton himself, as if the _Doctrine and\nDiscipline_ of Divorce was still the real stumbling-block. On that\nsubject too the Peers may have been a little liberal by this time. Was\nnot the great Mr. Selden understood to hold opinions on Marriage and\nDivorce very much the same as those Mr. Milton had published? So the\nPeers may have reasoned for themselves; and it is not at all improbable\nthat Selden, Vane, and others of the Lower House may have given them a\nhint what to do. And so the Booksellers were baulked again. Baillie and\nGillespie, who did not leave London for their Scottish holiday till Jan.\n6, 1644-5, may have been a little disappointed, and the Presbyterians\ngenerally. [Footnote: Authorities for this curious story are the entries\nin the Lords' Journals of the dates named--Vol. VII. pp. 91, 92, 97, 115,\n116, and 118. The one-and-twenty Peers who were present on Saturday, Dec.\n28, when the order for Milton's examination was issued were--Lord Grey of\nWark, as Speaker; the Lord General the Earl of Essex; the Lord High\nAdmiral the Earl of Warwick; Earls Rutland, Kent, Pembroke, Salisbury,\nBolingbroke, Manchester, Nottingham, Northumberland, Denbigh, and\nStamford; Viscount Saye and Sele; and Lords North, Montague, Howard of\nEscrick, Berkeley, Bruce, Willoughby of Parham, and Wharton. The same\nPeers, with the omission of the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Wharton,\nand the addition of the Earl of Suffolk (_i.e._ twenty Peers in\nall), were present on Dec. 31, when a report was made on Woodward's case,\nbut none on Milton's.--Selden's _Uxor Ebraica_ was published in\n1646, and was then much welcomed by Milton.--That the Divines of the\nWestminster Assembly were at the back of this second prosecution of\nMilton, though the authorities of the Stationers' Company were the\nnominal accusers, is not only probable in itself, but is distinctly\nimplied by Anthony Wood's reference to the affair (Fasti I. 483). \"Upon\nthe publication of the said three books of marriage and divorce,\" says\nWood, with a slight error as to the number of the books on that subject\nthen published, \"the Assembly of Divines then sitting at Westminster took\nspecial notice of them; and thereupon, though the author had obliged them\nby his pen in his defence of _Smectymnuus_, and other their controversies\nhad with the Bishops, they, impatient of having the clergy's jurisdiction\n(as they reckoned it) invaded, did, instead of answering or disproving\nwhat those books had asserted, cause him to be summoned before the House\nof Lords: but that House, whether approving the doctrine, or not\nfavouring the accusers, did soon dismiss him.\"]\n\n\nTHE DIVORCE CONTROVERSY CONTINUED: HERBERT PALMER'S SERMON PUBLISHED:\nOTHER ATTACKS ON MILTON.\n\nAnd now we are in the winter of 1644-5, when Parliament and all London,\nand all England, were astir with the two great businesses of the New-\nModelling of the Parliamentary Army and the Self-Denying Ordinance. It\nwas with public talk about these matters, and about such contemporary\nmatters as the execution of Laud, the death of Century White, and the\nabortive Treaty of Uxbridge, that any immediate influence from Milton's\n_Areopagitica_ must have mingled. In the midst of it all he had\nother labours on hand. They were still on the woful subject of Divorce.\n\nNot only had the subject fastened on Milton with all the force of a\npropagandist passion, urging him to repeated expositions of it; there\nwere, moreover, fresh external occasions calling on him not to desist. Of\nfour such external occasions, amid others now unknown to us, we may here\ntake note:--[Footnote: Palmer's Dedication of the Sermon.] Herbert\nPalmer's sermon, with the attack on Milton still remaining in it, had now\nbeen published. \"Some bodily indispositions\" had prevented Palmer from at\nonce complying with the request of the two Houses that he would print the\nsermon; but at length, in September or October 1644, it had appeared.\n[Footnote: \"By William Prynne, of Lincoln's Inn, Esquier: London, Printed\nfor Michael Sparke, Sem., and are to be sold at the Blew Bible in Green\nArbour, 1644.\" The Exact date of publication I ascertain from Thomason's\nnote, \"Sept. 16,\" in a copy in the British Museum.] About the same time\n(more precisely the 16th of September, 1644) there appeared one of\nPrynne's interminable publications, entitled \"_Twelve considerable\nserious Questions touching Church government: sadly propounded (out of a\nReel Desire of Unitie and Tranquillity in Church and State) to all sober-\nminded Christians, cordially affecting a speedy settled Reformation and\nBrotherly Christian Union in all our Churches and Dominions, now\nmiserably wasted with Civill Unnaturall Wars, and deplorably lacerated\nwith Ecclesiastical Dissensions._\" Though with so long a title, the\nthing consists but of eight largish quarto pages, with a bristle of\nmarginal references. \"Having neither leisure nor opportunity,\" says\nPrynne, \"to debate the late unhappy differences sprung up amongst us\ntouching Church-government (disputed at large by Master Herle, Doctor\nSteward, Master Rutherford, Master Edwards, Master Durey, Master Goodwin,\nMaster Nye, Master Sympson, and others), ... I have (at the importunity\nof some Reverend friends) digested my subitane apprehensions of these\ndistracting controversies into the ensuing considerable Questions.\"\nAccordingly, the Tract consists of 12 Queries propounded for\nconsideration, each numbered and beginning with the word \"Whether.\" We\nare concerned mainly with Query 11. It runs as follows:--\"Whether that\nIndependent Government which some contend for ... be not of its own\nnature a very seminary of schisms and dangerous divisions in the Church\nand State? a floodgate to let in an inundation of all manner of heresies,\nerrors, sects, religions, destructive opinions, libertinism and\nlawlessness, among us, without any sufficient means of preventing or\nsuppressing them when introduced? Whether the final result of it (as\nMaster Williams, in his late dangerous licentious work, _A Bloudy\nTenent_, determines) will not really resolve itself into this\ndetestable conclusion, that every man, whether he be Jew, Turk, Pagan,\nPapist, Arminian, Anabaptist, &c., ought to be left to his own free\nliberty of conscience, without any coercion or restraint, to embrace or\npublicly to profess what Religion, Opinion, Church government, he\npleaseth and conceiveth to be truest, though never so erroneous, false,\nseditious, detestable in itself? And whether such a government as this\nought to be embraced, much less established among us (the sad effects\nwhereof we have already experimentally felt by the late dangerous\nincrease of many Anabaptistical, Antinomian, Heretical, Atheistical\nopinions, as of _The Soul's Mortality, Divorce at Pleasure_, &c.,\nlately broached, preached, printed in this famous city; which I hope our\nGrand Council will speedily and carefully suppress), &c.\" Here, and by no\nless a man than Prynne, Milton's Divorce Doctrine is publicly referred to\nas one of the enormities of the time, and coupled, as of coequal infamy,\nwith the contemporary doctrine of the Mortality of the Soul vented in an\nanonymous tract. (3) Farther, in the month of November, or while the\n_Areopagitica_ was in the press, there had appeared the first\ndistinct Reply to Milton's original Divorce Treatise. It was a pamphlet,\nin 44 pages of small quarto, with this title:--\"_An Answer to a Book,\nIntituled, The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, or A Plea for Ladies\nand Gentlewomen, and all other Married Women, against Divorce. Wherein\nBoth Sexes are vindicated from all bondage of Canon Law, and other\nmistakes whatsoever: And the Unsound Principles of the Author are\nexamined and fully confuted by Authority of Holy Scripture, the Laws of\nthis Land, and Sound Reason. London, Printed by G. M. for William Lee at\nthe Turk's-Head in Fleet Street, next to the Miter Taverne._ 1644.\"\n[Footnote: Entered at Stationers' Hall, Oct. 31, 1644 (my notes from the\nRegisters); Licensed Nov. 14 (the pamphlet itself); out in London, Nov.\n19 (Thomason's note in copy in British Museum, Press Mark 12 G. o.\n12/181)] Milton had now his wish: one of his adversaries had written a\nbook, and could be wrestled with. Nay more, though the writer had not\ngiven his name, the licenser, Mr. Joseph Caryl, had, in his prefixed\n\"Imprimatur,\" applauded the sentiments of the tract, and spoken\nslightingly of Milton. Mr. Caryl, therefore, on his own account, might\ndeserve a word. (4) Finally, in January 1644-5, Dr. Daniel Featley, from\nhis prison in \"the Lord Peter's house in Aldersgate Street,\" close to\nMilton's own dwelling, had sent forth his \"_Dippers Dipt, or the\nAnabaptists Duck'd and Plung'd over Head and Eares_\" [Footnote: See\n_ant\u00e8, p._ 138.] dedicating it publicly to the Parliament and\nprivately to his \"Reverend and much-esteemed friend, Mr. John Downam,\"--\nthe very person, by the bye, who had good-naturedly licensed Milton's\nBucer pamphlet. Now, Featley, in this book, had been at Milton among\nothers. Denouncing the Anabaptists on all sorts of grounds in his Epistle\nDedicatory to the Parliament, he charges them especially with originating\nodious heresies beyond their own. \"For they print,\" he says, \"not only\nAnabaptism, from whence they take their name, but many other most\ndamnable doctrines, tending to carnal liberty, Familism, and a medley and\nhodge-podge of all Religions. Witness the Book, printed 1644, called\n_The Bloudy Tenent_, which the author affirmeth he wrote in milk;\nand, if he did so, he hath put some ratsbane in it [Footnote: Featley\nblunders here. Roger Williams did not say he had written his book in\nmilk, but that the Baptist Tract of 1620 which he reprints in his book\nwas said to have been written in milk in prison on pieces of paper sent\nto the writer as stoppers to his milk-bottle--his friends outside\ndeciphering the writing by heating the papers.]--as, namely, 'that it is\nthe will and command of God that, since the coming of his son the Lord\nJesus, a permission of the most Paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or Anti-\nChristian consciences and worships, be granted to all men in all nations\nand countries,' ... Witness a Tractate on Divorce, in which the bonds of\nmarriage are let loose to inordinate lust and putting away wives for many\nother causes besides that which our Saviour only approveth, viz. in case\nof Adultery. Witness a Pamphlet newly come forth, entitled _Man's\nMortality_, in which the soul is cast into an Endymion sleep from the\nhour of death to the day of Judgment. Witness,\" &c. One other dreadful\npamphlet is mentioned; but it is worthy of note that the persons with\nwhom Milton now, as before, is most pertinaciously associated are Roger\nWilliams and the author of _Man's Mortality_.\n\nThese external occasions and provocations co-operating with his unabated\ninterest in the Divorce doctrine on personal and general grounds, Milton\nwas busy, through the winter of 1644-5, on two new Divorce Treatises.\nThey both appeared on the same day--March 4, 1644-5. The one was his\nTETRACHORDON; the other was his COLASTERION. Neither was licensed, and\nneither was registered. [Footnote: The date of publication is ascertained\nfrom copies of both among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum--\nboth with the Press Mark 19. G. e. 11/195. In both the printed year of\npublication on the title-page is 1645; but in both Thomason, the\nCollector, has put his pen through the 5, and has annexed in manuscript\nthe date \"March 4, 1644.\" Books published near the 25th of March were\ngenerally dated in the year then to begin.] Some account of these two\nTreatises must conclude our present section of Milton's Biography.\n\n\nTETRACHORDON.\n\nWe shall take the TETRACHORDON first. It is a bulky treatise, consisting,\nin the original edition, of 104 small quarto pages; of which 6, not\nnumbered, are occupied with a Dedication to Parliament, and the remaining\n98 are numbered and form the body of the work. The following is the\ncomplete title:--\n\n\nTETRACHORDON:\n\nExpositions upon the foure chief places in Scripture, which treat of\nMarriage, or nullities in Marriage.\n\n  On:\n  Gen. i. 27-28, compar'd and explain'd by Gen. ii. 18, 23, 24\n  Dent. xxiv. 1-2.\n  Matth. v. 31-32, with Matth. xix., from the 3 v. to the 11th.\n  1 Cor vii., from the 10th to the 16th.\n\nWherein the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, as was lately publish'd,\nis confirm'd by explanation of Scripture, by testimony of ancient\nFathers, of civill lawes in the Primitive Church, of famousest Reformed\nDivines, and lastly, by an intended Act of the Parlament and Church of\nEngland in the last yeare of Edward the Sixth. By the former Author J.\nM.--\n\n  [Greek: skaioisi kaina prospheron sopha\n  doxeis achreios k oy sophos pephykenai\n  ton d ay dokounton eidenai ti poikilon\n  kreisson nomistheis en polei lupros phan\u00e6.]\n                        _Euripid. Medea_\n  London: Printed in the yeare 1645.\n\nAs the title indicates, the body of the Treatise consists mainly of an\nelaborate examination and comparison of the four chief passages of\nScripture relating to Marriage and Divorce, viz. _Genesis_ i. 27-28, with\nii. 18, 23, 24; _Deuteronomy_ xxiv. 1-2; _Matthew_ v. 31-32, with xix.\n3-11; and 1 Corinth, vii. 10-16. This labour of Biblical exegesis Milton\nhad undertaken, he tells us, in consequence of the representations of\nsome judicious friends, who thought that, while there was \"reason to a\nsufficiency\" in his first Divorce Treatise, a fuller discussion of the\ntexts of Scripture there alleged might be desirable. How he performed the\nlabour--how he plods through the four passages in succession, explaining,\ncommenting, answering objections, and in the end construing each and all\ntogether into a ratification of his own Doctrine of Divorce, or at least\ninto consistency with it--must be learnt, if it is learnt at all, from\nthe _Tetrachordon_ itself. Very few now-a-days will care to read it. For\nit is decidedly, according to our modern ideas, a heavy pamphlet. The\n_Areopagitica_ bites into modern interests and the constitution of the\nmodern intellect; the _Tetrachordon_, though it must have occupied the\nauthor longer, has, I should say, quite lost its bite, except for\nstudents of Milton, and for reasoners who would debate his Divorce\nDoctrine over again by the same method of the interpretation of Biblical\ntexts. For Milton is most submissive to the Bible throughout. Clearly it\nwas his opinion that whatever the Bible could be found to have ruled on\nany point must be accepted as the decision. There is no sign of any\ndissent by him from the most orthodox idea of the verbal inspiration of\nScripture. Not the less he contrives that the Bible shall support his own\nfree conclusions. It is evident that the method of his exegesis was not\nso much to extract positive injunctions from particular texts as to let\nthe doctrine of the Bible as a whole invade and pervade his mind, uniting\nthere with whatever of clear sense or high views of affairs it could\nfind, and so forming a kind of organ of large and enlightened Christian\nreason, by which the Bible itself could then, in all mere particulars, be\nsafely interpreted. Once and again, in the course of his _Tetrachordon_,\nhe expresses his contempt for the grubbing literalists, who, in their\nmicroscopic infatuation over one text at a time, miss the view of the\nwhole waving field of all the texts together. Yet he shows much ingenuity\nin parts of the verbal proof, and produces also commentators of repute\nwho agreed with him.\n\nThere is, and doubtless purposely, in order to give weight to the new\nbook, a large display of learning in its pages. Besides the motto from\nEuripides to begin with, there are references, in the course of the\ncommentary, to Plato, Philo, Josephus, Cicero, Horace, Cellius, Justin\nMartyr, Eusebius, Tertullian, St. Augustine, Beza, Par\u00e6us, Rivetus,\nVatablus, Dr. Ames, Spanheim, Diodati, Marinaro, Cameron, and many more.\nAt the end of the commentary on the Texts, also, there is an express\nsynopsis of testimonies, for the benefit, as Milton is careful to\nexplain, of the weaker sort who are led by authorities, and not because\nhe sets much store on that style of proof himself. Here we have Justin\nMartyr again, Tertullian again, Origen, Lactantius, several early\nCouncils, Basil, Epiphanius, Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine again, the Laws\nof Theodosius and Valentinian, Leo, Wycliffe, Luther, Melanchthon,\nErasmus, Bucer of course, Fagius of course, the Confession of the Church\nof Strasburg, Peter Martyr, Musculus, Gualter of Zurich, Hemingius,\nHunnius, Bidenbachius, Harbardus, Wigandus, Beza again, Aretius of Berne,\nAlciat of Milan, Corasius, Wesembechius, and Grotius. When he quotes one\nof the Fathers, I may observe in passing, Milton is true to the Puritan\ninstinct, and never prefixes to the name the title of Saint; it is always\n\"Austin,\" for example, and not \"St. Austin.\" Also it may be noted that he\nis punctual in making it clear whether he quotes from his own knowledge\nor at second hand. Thus, referring to Wycliffe's view of Marriage as put\nforth in one of his writings, he says, \"This book, indeed, through the\npoverty of our Libraries, I am forced to cite from Arnis\u00e6us of\nHalberstadt on the Right of Marriage, who cites it from Corasius of\nToulouse, _c._ 4., _Cent. Set._, and he from Wicklef _l._ 4. _Dial c._\n2l.\"--Appended to the collation of Testimonies, and winding up the whole\ntreatise, is a historical statement to which Milton attached great\nimportance, and which is really interesting. It was only by chance, he\nsays, that a notion of Divorce not far short of his own was not then\nactually part and parcel of the Law of England. For, when young Edward\nVI. had abolished the Canon Law out of his dominions, a Committee of two-\nand-thirty select persons, Divines and Lawyers, had been appointed by\nParliament--Cranmer, Peter Martyr, Walter Haddon, and Sir John Cheke, the\nKing's tutor, being members of this Committee--to frame a new set of\necclesiastical laws. The draft was actually finished, and it included a\nlaw of Divorce substantially such as Bucer had then recommended to the\nEnglish. It allowed complete Divorce not only for the causes usually\nesteemed grave and capital, but for such causes as desertion, cruel\nusage, or even continued contentiousness and wrangling. The untimely\ndeath of the young King alone had prevented this Law from coming into\neffect. This fact in English history, it is evident, together with the\nknowledge of such an amount of scattered opinion in his favour lying in\nthe works of other authors besides his formerly quoted Bucer, Fagius,\nErasmus and Grotius, had been acquired by Milton by fresh research since\nhe had published his Bucer Tract. And here again there is the curious\nstruggle between Milton's delight in finding auxiliaries and his feeling\nof property in his own idea. \"God, I solemnly attest him,\" he says,\n\"withheld from my knowledge the consenting judgment of these men so late\nuntil they could not be my instructors, but only my unexpected witnesses\nto partial men that in this work I had not given the worst experiment of\nan industry joined with integrity, and the free utterance though of an\nunpopular truth.\" Again, in a passage where he points out that a truth is\nnever thoroughly sifted out in one age, and that some of those who had\npreceded him in the Divorce notion had only hinted it in vague terms, and\nothers who had been more explicit in the assertion of it had still left\nit to be fully argued, he concludes with a gentle remark that perhaps,\nafter all, it will be his fortune \"to meet the praise or dispraise of\nbeing something first.\"\n\nThere is no abatement in the _Tetrachordon_ of the bitterness of\nMilton's feeling on the subject of an unsuitable marriage. Rather the\nbitterness is more concentrated and intense. It is as if eighteen months\nof rumination over his own unhappy condition had made him savage. There\nis careful abstinence still from all direct allusion to his own case; but\nthere are again the repeated phrases of loathing with which he\ncontemplates, chiefly from the man's side, the forced union of two\nirreconcileable or ill-matched minds:--\"a creature inflicted on him to\nthe vexation of his righteousness\"; \"a carnal acrimony without either\nlove or peace\"; \"a ransomless captivity\"; \"the dungeon-gate as\nirrecoverable as the grave\"; \"the mere carcase of a marriage\"; \"the\ndisaster of a no-marriage\"; \"counter-plotting and secret wishing one\nanother's dissolution\"; \"a habit of wrath and perturbation\"; \"heavenly\nwith hellish, fitness with unfitness,\" &c. \"God commands not\nimpossibilities,\" he bursts out, \"and all the ecclesiastical glue that\nLiturgy or Laymen can compound is not able to sodder up two such\nincongruous natures into the one flesh of a true beseeming marriage.\" Or\ntake this remarkable passage, repeating an opinion we have already had\nfrom him, \"No wise man but would sooner pardon the act of adultery once\nand again committed by a person worth pity and forgiveness than to lead a\nwearisome life of unloving and unquiet conversation with one who neither\naffects nor is affected, much less with one who exercises all bitterness,\nand would commit adultery too, but for envy lest the persecuted condition\nshould thereby get the benefit of his freedom.\" This assertion that\nadultery is more venial than mental unfitness is reiterated in another\nplace, with a bold addition: \"Adultery does not exclude her other\nfitness, her other pleasingness; she may be otherwise loving and\nprevalent.\" Occasionally, it may be added, in a less startling way than\nthis, Milton leaves the man's point of view and tries to be considerate\nabout the woman. Not that he recants his doctrine of the inferiority of\nher sex to man's. On the contrary he repeats it, extracting out of\nGenesis the absolute certainty that it was Man that was made primarily\nand immediately in the image of God, and that the image of God is in\nWoman only by derivation from Man. But he qualifies the doctrine at once\ngallantly and shrewdly. \"Nevertheless,\" he says, \"man is not to hold\nwoman as a servant, but receives her into a part of that empire which God\nproclaims him to,--though not equally, yet largely, as his own image and\nglory; for it is no small glory to him that a creature so like him should\nbe made subject to him. Not but that particular exceptions may have\nplace, if she exceed her husband in prudence and dexterity, and he\ncontentedly yield; for then a superior and more natural law comes in,\nthat the wiser should govern the less wise, whether male or female.\"\n\nThis may be taken as the summary of Milton's doctrine about Woman's\nRights. Incidentally also the Treatise furnishes us with his opinion on\nTeetotalism and the Permissive Bill. It comes in thus:--The Mosaic Law\n(Deut. xxiv. 1-2) allowing a man to give his wife a writing of\ndivorcement and send her away, if he did not like her, had been\ninterpreted by some, in consequence of Christ's comment upon it (Matt.\nxix. 8), as only a Permissive Bill on this subject to the hard-hearted\nJews. To continue it in modern times would be to open the door to\nlicense: it would be abused; everybody would be putting away his wife;\nthere must therefore be no longer any such Permissive Bill, but a strict\nLaw of indissoluble marriage. Well then, by the same reasoning, Milton\nargues, there ought to be a great many more strict laws, that nobody had\never thought of. \"What more foul and common sin among us than\ndrunkenness; and who can be ignorant that, if the importation of wine,\nand the use of all strong drink, were forbid, it would both clean rid the\npossibility of committing that odious vice, and men might afterwards live\nhappily and healthfully without the use of those intoxicating liquors?\nYet who is there, the severest of them all, that ever propounded to lose\nhis sack, his ale, toward the certain abolishing of so great a sin; who\nis there of them, the holiest, that less loves his rich canary at meals,\nthough it be fetched from places that hazard the religion of them who\nfetch it, and though it make his neighbour drunk out of the same tun?\nWhile they forbid not, therefore, the use of that liquid marchandise,\nwhich forbidden would utterly remove a most loathsome sin, and not impair\neither the health or the refreshment of mankind, supplied many other\nways, why do they forbid a Law of God, the forbidding whereof brings into\nan excessive bondage oft-times the best of men, and betters not the\nworse? He, to remove a national vice, will not pardon his cups, nor think\nit concerns him to forbear the quaffing of that outlandish grape in his\nunnecessary fulness, though other men abuse it never so much; nor is he\nso abstemious as to intercede with the magistrate that all manner of\ndrunkenness be banished the Commonwealth: and yet, for the fear of a less\ninconvenience, unpardonably requires of his brethren in their extreme\nnecessity to debar themselves the use of God's Permissive Law, though it\nmight be their saving, and no man's endangering the more! Thus, this\nperemptory strictness, we may discern of what sort it is, how unequal and\nhow unjust.\" Lest the meaning of this passage should be mistaken, we may\npoint out that the Permissive Bill in the matter of drinking which it\ndefends by implication is a Permissive Bill to drink and not a Permissive\nBill to prevent drinking. The passage, therefore, cannot be quoted as\nMilton's testimony in favour of the so-called modern Permissive Bill. It\nis dead the reverse. And yet there is a lurking kindness in the passage\ntowards a Permissive Bill of that sort, contemplated as possible, though\nyet unheard of; and, though Milton's principle of Liberty would have\nbound him to oppose it, he would perhaps have done so reluctantly. The\nidea of a country cleared of all its apparatus of Bacchus, and in which\nwine, or ale, or any other form of intoxicating fluid, ruby, amber, or\ncrystal at its purest, should be unattainable by any mortal breathing on\nits surface, had, so far as his personal tastes and habits were\nconcerned, no terrors for Milton. Had it been a matter of personal\npreference, instead of principle, he would gladly, I doubt not, have\nconsented to a Permissive Bill in England to prevent absolutely the\ndrinking of intoxicating liquors, if it had been accompanied by a\nratification of Moses's Permissive Bill in quite the contrary sense, by\nwhich the sobered nation should have the right of divorcing.\n\nNothing has been said yet about the few pages prefixed to the\n_Tetrachordon_, in which Milton dedicates the treatise, as he had\ndone three already (the _Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, the\n_Buear Tract_, and the _Areopagitica_), to the Parliament of\nEngland. These pages, though put first, were doubtless written last. They\nare signed with the writer's name in full. In respect of biographical\ninformation, of the external kind at least, they are more interesting\nthan the treatise itself. Most of the information, however, will now be\nsufficiently intelligible, if given in the form of mere extracts, without\nmore of explanation than may be supplied by Italic headings:--\n\n_Thanks to Parliament for Past Favour and Protection_:--\"Although it\nbe generally known how and by whom ye have been instigated to a hard\ncensure of that former Book entitled _The Doctrine and Discipline of\nDivorce_--an opinion held by some of the best among Reformed writers\nwithout scandal or confinement, though now thought new and dangerous by\nsome of our severe Gnostics, whose little reading and less meditating\nholds ever with hardest obstinacy that which it took up with easiest\ncredulity--I do not find yet that aught, for the furious incitements that\nhave been used, hath issued by your appointment that might give the least\ninterruption or disrepute either to the Author or the Book. Which he who\nwill be better advised than to call your neglect, or connivance at a\nthing imagined so perilous, can attribute it to nothing more justly than\nto the deep and quiet stream of your direct and calm deliberations, that\ngave not way either to the fervent rashness or the immaterial gravity of\nthose who ceased not to exasperate without cause. For which uprightness,\nand incorrupt refusal of what ye were incensed to, Lords and Commons--\nthough it were done to justice, not to me, and was a peculiar\ndemonstration how far your ways are different from the rash vulgar--\nbesides those allegiance of oath and duty which are my public debt to\nyour public labours, I have yet a store of gratitude laid up which cannot\nbe exhausted; and such thanks perhaps they may live to be as shall more\nthan whisper them to the next ages.\"\n\n_Punishment for Mr. Herbert Palmer_:--\"I shall here briefly single\none of them [his detractors], because he hath obliged me to it--who, I\npersuade me, having scarce read the book, nor knowing him who writ it, or\nat least feigning the latter [!], hath not forborne to scandalize him,\nunconferred with, unadmonished, undealt with by any pastorly or brotherly\nconvincement, in the most open and invective manner, and at the most\nbitter opportunity that drift or set design could have invented. And\nthis, whenas the Canon Law, though commonly most favouring the boldness\nof their priests, punishes the naming or traducing of any person in the\nPulpit, was by him made no scruple. If I shall therefore take licence by\nthe right of nature, and that liberty wherein I was born, to defend\nmyself publicly against a printed calumny, and do willingly appeal to\nthose Judges to whom I am accused, it can be no immoderate or unallowable\ncourse of seeking so just and needful reparations. Which I had done long\nsince, had not these employments which are now visible deferred me.--It\nwas preached before ye, Lords and Commons, in August last, upon a special\nDay of Humiliation, that 'there was a wicked book abroad;' and ye were\ntaxed of sin. that it was yet 'uncensured, the book deserving to be\nburnt;' and 'impudence' also was charged upon the Author, who durst 'set\nhis name to it, and dedicate it to yourselves.' First, Lords and Commons,\nI pray to that God before whom ye then were prostrate so to forgive ye\nthose omissions and trespasses which ye desire most should find\nforgiveness, as I shall soon show to the world how easily ye absolve\nyourselves of that which this man calls your sin, and is indeed your\nwisdom and your nobleness, whereof to this day ye have done well not to\nrepent. He terms it 'a wicked book,' and why but 'for allowing other\ncauses of Divorce than Christ and his Apostles mention;' and with the\nsame censure condemns of wickedness not only Martin Bucer, that elect\ninstrument of Reformation, highly honoured and had in reverence by Edward\nthe Sixth and his whole Parliament--whom also I had published in English,\nby a good providence, about a week before this calumnious digression was\npreached, so that, if he knew not Bucer then, as he ought to have known,\nhe might at least have known him some months after, ere the Sermon came\nin print; wherein, notwithstanding, he persists in his former sentence,\nand condemns again of wickedness, either ignorantly or wilfully, not only\nMartin Bucer, and all the choicest and holiest of our Reformers, but the\nwhole Parliament and Church of England in those best and purest times of\nEdward the Sixth. All which I shall prove with good evidence at the end\nof these Explanations. And then let it be judged and seriously considered\nwith what hope the affairs of our Religion are committed to one among\nothers [the Westminster Assembly] who hath now only left him which of the\ntwain he will choose--whether this shall be his palpable ignorance, or\nthe same 'wickedness' of his own Book which he so lavishly imputes to the\nwritings of other men; and whether this of his, that thus peremptorily\ndefames and attaints of wickedness unspotted Churches, unblemished\nParliaments, and the most eminent Restorers of Christian Doctrine,\ndeserve not to be 'burnt' first. And, if his heat had burst out only\nagainst the _opinion_, his wonted passion had no doubt been silently\nborne with wonted patience. Eut, since, against the charity of that\nsolemn place and meeting, it served him further to inveigh opprobriously\nagainst the _person_, traducing him with no less than 'impudence,'\nonly for setting his name to what he had written, I must be excused not\nto be so wanting to the defence of an honest name, or to the reputation\nof those good men who afford me their society, but to be sensible of such\na foul endeavoured disgrace--not knowing aught, either in mine own\ndeserts or the laws of this land, why I should be subject, in such a\nnotorious and illegal manner, to the intemperancies of this man's\npreaching choler. ... But, if only to have writ my name must be accounted\n'impudence' how doth this but justify another, who might affirm, with as\ngood warrant, that the late Discourse of _Scripture and Reason_,\nwhich is certain to be chiefly his [Palmer's] own draft, was published\nwithout a name out of base fear, and the sly avoidance of what might\nfollow if the party at Court should hap to reach him! And I, to have set\nmy name where he accuses me to have set it, am so far from recanting that\nI offer my hand also, if need be, to make good the same opinion which I\nthere maintain by inevitable consequences drawn parallel from his own\nprincipal arguments in that of _Scripture and Reason_; which I shall\npardon him if he can deny without shaking his own composition to pieces.\nThe 'impudence,' therefore, since he weighed so little what a gross\nrevile that was to give his equal, I send him back again for a phylactery\nto stitch upon his arrogance, that censures not only before conviction so\nbitterly without so much as one reason given, but censures the\nCongregation of his Governors to their faces, for not being so hasty as\nhimself to censure.\" [Footnote: The discourse _Scripture and\nReason_, which Milton here ascribes to Palmer, charging him with\ncowardice in having published it anonymously, was a quarto pamphlet of 80\npages, published in April 1643, and purporting to be \"by divers Reverend\nand Learned Divines.\" More fully its title was _Scripture and Reason\nPleaded for Defensive Armes: or the whole Controversie about Subjects\ntaking up Armes_. It was, in fact, an elaborate proof, from Scripture\nand Reason, of the right of the English Parliament and People to make war\nupon the King. Doubtless Milton had ascertained that Palmer was its chief\nauthor: hence, rather unnecessarily, his taunt. Palmer had also published\nmore recently (Dec. 1644), but _with_ his name, the First Part of a\nBook called _Memorials of Godliness and Christianity_. It was afterwards\ncompleted by two additional Parts, also with his name, Part II.\ncontaining, among other things, a set of aphorisms entitled \"The\ncharacter of a Christian in Paradoxes and seeming Contradictions.\" It had\nso chanced, however, that, before he had published this Part II. of his\n_Memorials_, a surreptitious edition of the aforesaid Aphorisms had found\nits way into print, with no author's name attached (July 1645). Hence a\nstrange result. Palmer died in 1647, _\u00e6tat _. 46; and in the following\nyear--though his _Memorials_, containing the \"Christian Paradoxes,\" were\nin circulation with his name--the \"Christian Paradoxes\" by themselves, as\nthey had been published anonymously in the surreptitious edition of July\n1645, were published as Lord Bacon's in a quarto volume of Bacon's\n\"Remaines.\" The blunder was probably then detected; but it was again\ncommitted in 1730, when the \"Paradoxes\" were included in Blackburn's\nEdition of Bacon's works. From that date till 1864 the \"Paradoxes\" were\nprinted as Bacon's, and, though suspected by some, yet often written\nabout as Bacon's; but in the last-mentioned year the mistake was\nrectified, and Herbert Palmer reinstated in the authorship of the\n\"Paradoxes,\" by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart (See his little volume\n_Lord Bacon not the Author of \"The Christian Paradoxes:\"_ see also\nSpedding's _Bacon_, VII. 289 _et seq._).]\n\n_Punishment for Dr. Featley_:--\"Some whose necessary shifts have\nlong inured them to cloak the defects of their unstudied years and hatred\nnow to learn under the appearance of a grave solidity--which estimation\nthey have gained among weak perceivers--find the ease of slighting what\nthey cannot refute, and are determined, as I hear, to hold it not worth\nthe answering. In which number I must be forced to reckon that Doctor\nwho, in a late equivocating Treatise plausibly set afloat against the\n_Dippers_, diving the while himself with a more deep prelatical\nmalignance against the present State and Church Government, mentions with\nignominy the 'Tractate of Divorce;' yet answers nothing, but instead\nthereof (for which I do not commend his _marshalling_), sets Moses\nalso among the crew of his Anabaptists, as one who to a holy nation, the\nCommonwealth of Israel, gave laws 'breaking the bonds of marriage to\ninordinate lost' These are no mean surges of blasphemy--not only\n'dipping' Moses the Divine Lawgiver, but dashing with a high hand against\nthe justice and purity of God Himself; as these ensuing Scriptures,\nplainly and freely handled, shall verify to the lancing of that old\napostemated error. Him, therefore, I leave now to his repentance.\"\n[Footnote: Poor Dr. Featley died April 17, 1645 (_\u00e6tat_ 65), only six\nweeks after this punishment of him was published. He had then been\nrestored to liberty, for he died in his house at Chelsea. Milton knew him\nperfectly when he characterized him as one of those who had gained among\n\"weak perceivers\" a reputation for \"grave solidity.\" And yet it is\ntouching to have before me, as I now have in a copy of the Sixth Edition\nof the _Dippers Dipt_ (1651), not only an elaborate portrait of Featley\nby the engraver Marshall, done in the ordinary way, but also an engraving\nrepresenting the old man most painfully  as he looked when lying in his\nwinding-sheet before they put him into his coffin. Over the corpse are\nthese words, \"I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I\nhave kept the faith;\" and underneath is Featley's Latin Epitaph, telling\nthat he was \"Impugnator Papismi, Propugnator Reformationis,\" and\n\"Theologus Insignis, Disputator Strenuus, Conscionator Egregius.\"--The\nword \"_marshalling_\" which I have italicised in the extract from Milton\nabout Featley is, no doubt, a punning allusion to an engraving by\nMarshall in the _Dippers Dipt_, giving caricatures of different kinds of\nSectaries, with a representation of men and women bathing in the centre\n(see _ant\u00e8_, p. 188, Note). ]\n\nA fact which might have been guessed independently, but which it is\ninteresting to have told us by Milton himself, is that there were some\npersons who were particularly courteous in acknowledging the ability\nshown in the Divorce treatise, the \"wit and parts\" of the author, his\n\"elocution,\" and the more than ordinary \"industry, exactness, and labour\"\nhe had expended on the subject, but who made all this only an excuse for\nnot discussing his proposition seriously. On this class of his critics\nMilton is very severe. They were like those, he said, who used to get off\nfrom Socrates, when they could not resist the force of his truths, by\nsaying that Socrates could at any time make the worse cause seem the\nbetter. To what would the world, to what would England, come, if this\nhabit of regarding all novelty as sophistry, of making the very ability\nand learning bestowed upon a doctrine an objection to the receipt of that\ndoctrine, were to become general? \"Ignorance and illiterate presumption,\"\nhe says, \"which is yet but our disease, will turn at length into our very\nconstitution, and prove the hectic evil of this age.\" He hoped better of\nthe Parliament; he hoped that they would not overlook the necessity of a\nchange of the Law in this matter of Divorce. At all events he had done\nhis part. \"Henceforth, except new cause be given, I shall say less and\nless. For, if the Law make not a timely provision, let the Law, as reason\nis, bear the censure of those consequences which her own default now more\nevidently produces. And, if men want manliness to expostulate the right\nof their due ransom, and to second their own occasions, they may sit\nhereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected, through faintness, the\nonly remedy of their sufferings, which a seasonable and well-grounded\nspeaking might have purchased them. And perhaps in time to come others\nwill know how to esteem what is not every day put into their hands, when\nthey have marked events, and better weighed how hurtful and unwise it is\nto hide a secret and pernicious rupture under the ill counsel of a\nbashful silence.\" Here Milton seems to be speaking for himself. He seems\nto be giving warning what he means to do without leave of the Law if the\nLaw will not give him leave,\n\n\nCOLASTERION.\n\nCOLASTERION is Greek for \"Punishment.\" Now Mr. Herbert Palmer and Dr.\nFeatley had each had his _colasterion_ in the Dedication prefixed to\nthe TETRACHORDON. Three other persons were waiting for their turn of the\nlash. These were the anonymous author of that Answer to Milton's Treatise\nwhich had been published in the preceding November; [Footnote: See its\nfull title, _ant\u00e8_, pp. 299-300.] the Rev. Mr. Joseph Caryl, the\nlicenser of that Answer; and the famous Mr. Prynne. The COLASTERION,\nexpressly so called, published by Milton on the same day with the\nTETRACHORDON, settled accounts with these gentlemen. It is a short tract\nof twenty-seven pages, without preface. Its full title was as follows;--\n\"_Colasterion: A Reply to a Nameles Answer against 'The Doctrine and\nDiscipline of Divorce,' Wherein the trivial Author of that Answer is\ndiscovver'd, the licenser conferr'd with, and the Opinion which they\ntraduce defended. By the former author, J. M._ Prov. xxvi. 5. Answer\na Fool according to his folly, lest hee bee wise in his own conceit.\n_Printed in the year_ 1645.\"\n\nFirst for Mr. Caryl. What was _his_ offence? It was that, not\ncontent with merely licensing the anonymous answer to Milton, he had\nbecome godfather to it by expressing the license thus:--\n\n\"To preserve the strength of the Marriage-bond and the Honour of that\nestate against those sad breaches and dangerous abuses of it which common\ndiscontents (on this side Adultery) are likely to make in unstaid minds\nand men given to change, by taking in or grounding themselves upon the\nopinion answered and with good reason confuted in this Treatise, I have\napproved the printing and publishing of it.--November 14, 1644. Joseph\nCaryl.\"\n\nNow Caryl was not a nobody. He was one of the Assembly of Divines, and in\nthat Assembly was tending by this time to the side of the Independents.\nHe was also Lincoln's Inn preacher, had published some sermons, and was\nknown to be engaged on an exposition of the Book of Job; which attained\nat length, when it was published (1648-66), the vast dimensions of twelve\nquarto volumes. [Footnote: Lowndes's Bibliographer's Manual, by Bohn:\nArt. _Caryl_; and Wood's Athen\u00e6, III. 979--983.] He was about four\nyears older than Milton; who thus \"confers with\" him:--\n\n_Punishment for Mr. Caryl_:-\"A Licenser is not contented now to give\nhis single \"Imprimatur,\" but brings his chair into the title-leaf; there\nsits and judges up or judges down what book he pleases. If this be\nsuffered, what worthless author, or what cunning printer, will not be\nambitious of such a stale to put off the heaviest gear?--which may in\ntime bring in round fees to the Licenser, and wretched mis-leading to the\npeople. But to the matter. He approves 'the publishing of this Book, to\npreserve the strength and honour of Marriage against those sad breaches\nand dangerous abuses of it.' Belike then the wrongful suffering of all\nthese sad breaches and abuses in marriage to a remediless thraldom is\n'the strength and honour of Marriage!' A boisterous and bestial strength,\na dishonourable honour, an infatuated doctrine, worse than the _salvo\njure_ of tyrannizing which we all fight against! Next he saith that\n'common discontents make these breaches in unstaid minds and men given to\nchange.' His words may be apprehended as if they disallowed only divorce\nfor 'common discontents in unstaid minds,' having no cause but a 'desire\nfor change;' and then we agree. But, if he take all discontents 'on this\nside adultery' to be common, that is to say, not difficult to endure, and\nto affect only 'unstaid minds,' it might administer just cause to think\nhim the unfittest man that could be to offer at a comment upon Job, as\nseeming by this to have no more true sense of a good man in his\nafflictions than those Edomitish friends had, of whom Job complains, and\nagainst whom God testifies his anger. Shall a man of your coat, who hath\nespoused his flock, and represents Christ more in being the true husband\nof his congregation than an ordinary man doth in being the husband of his\nwife--and yet this representment is thought a chief cause why marriage\nmust be inseparable--shall this spiritual man, ordinarily for the\nincrease of his maintenance, or any slight cause, forsake that wedded\ncure of souls that should be dearest to him, and marry another and\nanother; and shall not a person wrongfully afflicted, and persecuted even\nto extremity, forsake an unfit, injurious, and pestilent mate, tied only\nby a civil and fleshly covenant? If you be a man so much hating change,\nhate that other change; if yourself be not guilty, counsel your brethren\nto hate it; and leave to be the supercilious judge of other men's\nmiseries and changes, that your own be not judged. The reasons of your\nlicensed pamphlet, you say, 'are good.' They must be better than your own\nthen . ... Mr. Licenser ... you are reputed a man discreet enough,\nreligious enough, honest enough--that is, to an ordinary competence in\nall these. But now your turn is to hear what your own hand hath earned\nye, that when you suffered this nameless hangman to cast into public such\na despiteful contumely upon a name and person deserving of the Church and\nState equally to yourself, and one who hath done more to the present\nadvancement of your own tribe than you or many of them have done for\nthemselves, you forgot to be either honest, religious, or discreet.\"\n[Footnote: In 1645, according to Wood (Ath. III. 979), Mr. Caryl was\nappointed to the living of St. Magnus near London Bridge.  It is probably\nwith this readiness of his to leave one congregation and wed another that\nMilton twits him. Evidently Milton would not spare an Independent, any\nmore than a Presbyterian or Prelatist, who had given him offense.]\n\nThe punishment for Mr. Prynne is milder, and it comes in incidentally at\nthe very beginning of the _Colasterion:_--\n\n_Punishment for Mr. Prynne_:--\"After many rumours of confutations\nand convictions forthcoming against _The Doctrine and Discipline of\nDivorce_, and now and then a bye-blow from the Pulpit, feathered with\na censure, strict indeed, but how true more beholding to the authority of\nthat devout place which it borrowed to be uttered in than to any sound\nreason which it could oracle,--while I still hoped, as for a blessing, to\nsee some piece of diligence or learned discretion come from them--it was\nmy hap at length, lighting on a certain parcel of _Queries_ that\nseek and find not, to find not seeking, at the tail of 'Anabaptistical,'\n'Antinomian,' 'Heretical,' 'Atheistical' epithets, a jolly slander called\n'_Divorce at Pleasure_.' [Footnote: See the quotation from Prynne's\n\"Queries\" ant\u00e8, pp. 298-9.] I stood a while and wondered what we might do\nto a man's heart, or what anatomy use, to find in it sincerity; for all\nour wonted marks every day fail us, and where we thought it was we see it\nis not--for alter and change residence it cannot sure. And yet I see no\ngood of body or of mind secure to a man for all his past labours, without\nperpetual watchfulness and perseverance, whenas one above others\n[_i.e._ Prynne] who hath suffered much and long in the defence of\nTruth shall, after all this, give her cause to leave him so destitute,\nand so vacant of her defence, as to yield his mouth to be the common road\nof Truth and Falsehood, and such falsehood as is joined with the rash and\nheedless calumny of his neighbour. For what book hath he ever met with,\nas his complaint is, 'printed in the city,' maintaining, either in the\ntitle or in the whole persuance, '_Divorce at Pleasure?_' 'Tis true\nthat to divorce upon extreme necessity, when, through the perverseness or\nthe apparent unaptness of either, the continuance can be to both no good\nat all, but an intolerable injury and temptation to the wronged and the\ndefrauded, to divorce then there is a book that writes it lawful. And\nthat this law is a pure and wholesome national law, not to be withheld\nfrom good men because others likely enough may abuse it to their\npleasure, cannot be charged upon that book, but must be entered a bold\nand impious accusation against God himself, who did not for this abuse\nwithhold it from his own people. It will be just, therefore, and best for\nthe reputation of him who in his _Subitanes_ hath thus censured, to\nrecall his sentence. And if, out of the abundance of his volumes, and the\nreadiness of his quill, and the vastness of his other employments,\nespecially in the great Audit for Accounts, he can spare us aught to the\nbetter understanding of this point, he shall be thanked in public, and\nwhat hath offended in the book shall willingly submit to his correction--\nprovided he be sure not to come with those old and stale suppositions,\nunless he can take away clearly what that discourse hath urged against\nthem, by one who will expect other arguments to be persuaded the good\nhealth of a sound answer than the gout and dropsy of a big margent,\nlittered and overlaid with crude and huddled quotations.\"\n\nBut it is the anonymous author of the pamphlet which Mr. Caryl had\nlicensed that comes in for the most ferocious and protracted punishment.\nOn the evidence of the pamphlet itself one can see that he was some very\ninsignificant person, not worth Milton's while on his own account, but\nonly because Milton wanted to toss and gore somebody publicly for a whole\nhour, by way of deterring others.\n\nThe Answerer begins by announcing that he is first to show what the\nDoctrine or Discipline of Divorce really is, then to give some reasons\n\"why a man may not put away his wife for indisposition, unfitness, or\ncontrariety of mind, although manifested in much sharpness,\" and finally\nto reply to the arguments to the contrary brought forward in Milton's\nbook. Nine pages having sufficed for the first two divisions, the\nremaining thirty-five are devoted to Milton. They are dull and plodding,\nthe punctuation and expression showing that the author was ill-educated\nand little accustomed to write; and, from the frequent use of scrivener-\nlike or attorney-like phrases and illustrations, one soon comes to\nconjecture the pamphlet to have been written by some one in a small way\nof law-business. Occasionally there is a little hit of personal\nreference, proving that the writer knew something about Milton and his\nreputed habits. Thus, speaking of Milton's complaint of a wife \"to all\ndue conversation inaccessible,\" he says, \"It is true, if every man were\nof your breeding and capacity, there were some colour for this plea; for\nwe believe you to count no woman to due conversation accessible as to\nyou, except she can speak Hebrew, Greek, Latin and French, and dispute\nagainst the Canon Law as well as you, or at least be able to hold\ndiscourse with you. But other gentlemen of good quality are content with\nfewer and meaner endowments, as you know well enough.\" Sometimes he\ncriticises Milton's phraseology. \"The rankest politician,\" Milton had\nsaid in one of his sentences; on which this is the comment: \"Is this the\nfine language that your book is commended for? Good your worship, look a\nlittle more upon your rhetoric in this one piece, shall I say of\nnonsense? However, I am sure it is contrary to all laws and customs of\nspeaking. 'Rankest politician!' Wonderful!\" Milton's phrase describing a\ndull woman as \"an image of earth and phlegm\" likewise attracts notice.\n\"We confess,\" he says, \"this is something of a sad case; but yet I\nbelieve you speak but hyperbolically (as they use to say): for women are\nusually more than earth and phlegm; they have many times spirit enough to\nwear the breeches, if they meet not with a rare wit to order them. I\nwonder you should use such phrases: I know nor hear of maids or women\nthat are all earth and phlegm, much less images of earth and phlegm. If\nthere be any such, yet you need take no thought for them; there are\nenough dull enough to own them; and, for yourself or any other who desire\nthem, there are spirited dames enough who are something besides mere\nimages of earth and phlegm.\" Here is a specimen of the argumentation:--\n\"Suppose you should covenant with a man at Hackney that he should dwell\nin your house at Aldersgate Street, and you in requital should dwell in\nhis house at Hackney, for a time: I doubt not but your main end in this\nyour covenant was your own solace, peace, refreshing. Well, but suppose,\nwhen you came there, the Cavaliers or other soldiers should trouble you,\nand should be quartered there; who, peradventure, if they did not quite\nput you out, yet would lie in your most pleasant chamber, best situate\nfor your solace, peace, and refreshing, and divers other ways would annoy\nyou, by means whereof you could not enjoy that pleasure and delight which\nyou intended in your covenant when you changed houses with the other.\nThink you in this case it would be lawful or accepted on by the other\nparty if now you should come to him and say 'Sir, I covenanted for your\nhouse at Hackney for my own refreshing, comfort, and solace; but I am\ndisturbed of it, I do not enjoy the end of my covenant: give me my own\nhouse again, and go you and live there.' He would tell you, and so he\nmight justly, 'Stay, Sir; take your own fortune; a bargain is a bargain;\nyou must even stand to it.'\" Sometimes the writer thinks he will rebuke\nsharply. Thus:--\"This is a wild, mad, and frantic Divinity, just like to\nthe opinions of the maids of Aldgate [some Antinomian young women that\nhad been making themselves notorious]. 'Oh,' say they, 'we live in Christ\nand Christ doth all for us: we are Christed in Christ and Godded in God,\nand at the same time that we sin here we, joined to Christ, do justice in\nhim.' ... Fie, fie, blush for shame, and publish no more of this loose\nDivinity.\" But the choicest bit shall come last. Criticising the\nconclusion of a passage in Milton's treatise, the language of the first\nportion of which is pronounced \"too sublime and angelical for mortal\ncreatures to comprehend it,\" the Answerer declares, \"This frothy\ndiscourse, were it not sugared over with a little neat language, would\nappear so immeritous, so contrary to all humane learning, yea truth and\ncommon experience itself, that all that read it must needs count it\nworthy to be burnt by the hangman.\"\n\nMilton's first glance at the anonymous pamphlet, he tells us, had shown\nhim the sort of person he had to deal with. He could be no educated man,\nfor in the very first page of his pamphlet, where he quotes Greek and\nHebrew words, he misspells them. This was no serious crime in itself;\nonly a man falsely pretending to know a language would do worse! \"Nor did\nI find this his want of the pretended languages alone, but accompanied\nwith such a low and homespun expression of his mother-English all along,\nwithout joint or frame, as made me, ere I knew further of him, often stop\nand conclude that this author could for certain be no other than some\nmechanic.\" It was singular also that, while the Second Edition of the\n_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ had been out for months before\nthe publication of this Answer, only the First Edition was referred to in\nthe Answer. This, indeed, had enabled Milton to find out who the Answerer\nwas, and the whole history of his pamphlet. For, in the course of the\npreceding summer, he had been amused by hearing that there was in the\npress, half printed, an Answer to the First Edition of his Divorce Book,\nconcocted by a committee of heads, in the centre of whom was--\"let the\nreader hold his laughter,\" he says, and hear the story out--\"an actual\nserving-man.\" At least, he _had_ been a serving-man, waiting at\ntable, cleaning trenchers, and the like; but he was ambitious of rising\nin the world, and had turned Solicitor. Zeal for public morality, or some\nfarther ambition for literary distinction, had put it into his head to\nanswer the First Edition of Milton's treatise; and, taking into his\nconfidence one or two raw young Divines of his acquaintance, he had\nactually composed something, and sent it to the press. Milton had\nresolved that, if the thing did appear, he would leave it unnoticed. For\nsome months, during which it had been lying unfinished in the press, he\nhad quite dismissed it from his mind. But lo! here it was at length,\nstitched and published--this precious composition of the Serving-man\nturned Solicitor. Not quite as it had come from his pen, however! A\nDivine of note--no other, in fact, than Mr. Caryl himself, the Licenser--\nhad looked over the thing, and \"stuck it here and there with a clove of\nhis own calligraphy to keep it from tainting.\" This, and Caryl's\napprobation prefixed, had rather altered the state of matters; and Milton\nhad resolved that, when he had leisure for a little recreation, his man\nof law \"should not altogether lose his soliciting.\"\n\nNor does he. Never was poor wretch so mauled, so tumbled and rolled, and\nkept on tumbling and rolling, in ignominious mire. Milton indeed pays him\nthe compliment of following his reasonings, restating them in their\norder, and quoting his words; but it is only, as it were, to wrap up the\nreasoner in the rags of his own bringing, and then kick him along as a\nfootball through a mile of mud. We need not trouble ourselves with the\nreasonings, or with the incidental repetitions of Milton's doctrine to\nwhich they give rise; it will be enough to exhibit the emphasis of\nMilton's foot administered at intervals to the human bundle it is\npropelling. \"I mean not to dispute Philosophy with this Pork.\" he says\nnear the beginning; \"this clod of an antagonist,\" he calls him at the\nnext kick; \"a serving-man both by nature and function, an idiot by\nbreeding, and a solicitor by presumption,\" is the third propulsion; after\nwhich we lose reckoning of the number of the kicks, they come sometimes\nso ingeniously fast. \"Basest and hungriest inditer,\" \"groom,\" \"rank\npettifogger,\" \"mere and arrant pettifogger,\" \"no antic hobnail at a\nmorris but is more handsomely facetious;\" \"a boar in a vineyard,\" \"a\nsnout in this pickle,\" \"the serving-man at Addlegate\" (suggested by 'the\nmaids at Aldgate'), \"this odious fool,\" \"the noisome stench of his rude\nslot,\" \"the hide of a varlet,\" \"such an unswilled hogshead,\" \"such a\ncock-brained solicitor;\" \"not a golden, but a brazen ass;\" \"barbarian,\nthe shame of all honest attorneys, why do they not hoist him over the bar\nand blanket him?\"--such are a few of the varied elegancies. Two or three\nof them break the bounds within which modern taste permits quotation. \"I\nmay be driven,\" he says in the end, \"to curl up this gliding prose into a\nrough Sotadic, that shall rime him into such a condition as, instead of\njudging good books to be burnt by the executioner, he shall be readier to\nbe his own hangman. So much for this nuisance.\" After which, as if\nfeeling that he had gone too far, he begs any person dissenting from his\nDoctrine, and willing to argue it fairly, not to infer from this\n_Colasterion_ that he was displeased at being contradicted in print,\nor that he did not know how to receive a fair antagonist with civility.\nPractically, however, I should fancy that, after the _Colasterion_,\nmost people would be indisposed to try the experiment of knowing what\nMilton meant by being civil to an antagonist.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III.\n\nApril 1645-August 1646.\n\n_HISTORY_.--SIXTEEN MONTHS OF THE NEW MODEL, AND OF THE LONG\nPARLIAMENT AND WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY CONTINUED.--BATTLE OF NASEBY AND ITS\nCONSEQUENCES: EPISODE OF MONTROSE IN SCOTLAND: FLIGHT OF THE KING TO THE\nSCOTS AND CONCLUSION OF THE CIVIL WAR.--PROGRESS OF THE TOLERATION\nCONTROVERSY AND OF THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PRESBYTERIANS AND THE\nINDEPENDENTS--LONDON AND LANCASHIRE PRESBYTERIANIZED.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:--RETURN OF MILTON'S WIFE: HIS REMOVAL FROM ALDERSGATE\nSTREET TO BARBICAN: FIRST EDITION OF HIS POEMS: THREE MORE SONNETS:\nCONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS RETALIATION: TROUBLES OF\nTHE POWELL FAMILY.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCOMPOSITION OF THE NEW MODEL, AND VIEW OF THE WORK LYING BEFORE IT--FIRST\nACTIONS OF THE NEW MODEL--CROMWELL RETAINED IN COMMAND: BATTLE OF NASEBY:\nOTHER SUCCESSES OF THE NEW MODEL--POOR PERFORMANCE OF THE SCOTTISH\nAUXILIARY ARMY--EPISODE OF MONTROSE IN SCOTLAND--FAG-END OF THE WAR IN\nENGLAND, AND FLIGHT OF THE KING TO THE SCOTS--FALLEN AND RISEN STARS.\n\n\nBy the Ordinance for New-Modelling the Parliamentarian Army, passed\nFebruary 15, 1644-5, and by the Self-Denying Ordinance, which followed\nApril 3, 1645, excluding all members of either House from commands in the\nNew Army, the prospects of the war had been completely altered. From\nthese dates people everywhere were talking of the _New Model_, and\nwhat it was likely to accomplish, the only difference being that the bulk\nof the Parliamentarians expected great things from it, while the\nRoyalists, and perhaps also those of the Parliamentarians who resented\nthe removal of Essex from the chief command, and their own removal from\ncommands under him, regarded the whole experiment rather sneeringly, and\nridiculed it as the _New Noddle_. Which of these sets of prophets\nwere in the right will appear presently; meanwhile it is desirable that\nwe should know as exactly as possible what the _New Model_ or _New\nNoddle_ really was.\n\n\nCOMPOSITION OF THE NEW MODEL, AND VIEW OF THE WORK LYING BEFORE IT.\n\nThe following is an account of the organization of the New Model, with a\nlist of its chief Officers when it was first organized:--\n\nTOTAL ARMY ESTIMATED AT 22,000.\n\n_Commander-in-Chief_: SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX (_\u00e6tat._ 33).\n\n_Second-in-Command_ (for the present): PHILIP SKIPPON, with the rank\nof Serjeant Major-General.\n\n_Chief of Ordnance_: THOMAS HAMMOND. He was a brother of the\nRoyalist Divine and King's faithful Chaplain, Dr. Henry Hammond (see Vol.\nII. 519 and 526, Note); and the split of the Hammond family into\nRoyalists and Parliamentarians was much noticed.\n\n_Scout-Master-General_: LEONARD WATSON, \"originally a goldsmith in\nLincoln.\"\n\n_Chaplain to the Commander-in-Chief_: Mr. EDWARD BOWLES.\n\n_Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief_: JOHN RUSHWORTH.\n\nI. FOOT = 14,400.\n\nThese consisted of twelve Regiments, each of 1,200 men, and each divided\ninto ten Companies, The officers of the Regiments, respectively, were as\nfollows:--\n\n1. (The Commander-in-Chief's Regiment):--Colonel SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX;\nLieutenant-Colonel JACKSON; Major COOKE; and seven Captains.\n\n2. (The Serjeant-Major-General's Regiment):--Colonel PHILLIP SKIPPON;\nLieutenant-Colonel FRANCIS; Major ASHFIELD; and seven Captains.\n\n3. Colonel HOLBORN; Lieutenant-Colonel COTTESWORTH; Major SMITH; and\nseven Captains.\n\n4. Colonel CRAWFORD or CRAYFORD, succeeded soon by young Colonel ROBERT\nHAMMOND (_\u00e6tat._ 24), a nephew of the chief of the Ordnance and of\nthe Royalist Dr. Henry Hammond; Lieutenant-Colonel ISAAC EWER (reported\nto have been \"a serving man\"); Major SAUNDERS; and seven Captains.\n\n5. Colonel BARCLAY; Lieutenant-Colonel EWINS (INNES?); Major COWELL; and\nseven Captains.\n\n6. Colonel EDWARD MONTAGUE (_\u00e6tat._ only 20: he was cousin of the\nEarl of Manchester, being son of the Earl's brother, Sir Sidney Montague,\nwho had been M.P. for Hunts, but was now dead); Lieutenant-Colonel ELLIS\nGRIMES; Major KELSEY; and seven Captains.\n\n7. Colonel ALDRIDGE; Lieutenant-Colonel WALTER LLOYD (who succeeded to\nthe Colonelcy); Major READ; and seven Captains.\n\n8. Colonel JOHN PICKERING (of the family of the Pickerings, of Tichmarsh,\nNorthamptonshire, \"a little man,\" quite young, and cousin of the boy who\nwas to be known as the poet Dryden); Lieutenant-Colonel JOHN HEWSON\n(originally a shoemaker in Westminster, but who had risen from the ranks\nby his valour); Major JUBBS; and seven Captains, one of whom was a\nCaptain AXTELL.\n\n9. Colonel FORTESCUE; Lieutenant-Colonel BULSTRODE; Major RICHBELL; and\nseven Captains.\n\n10. Colonel RICHARD INGOLDSBY (_\u00e6tat._ 23: his father was Sir\nRichard Ingoldsby of Lenthenborough, and his mother was a cousin of\nCromwell's); Lieutenant-Colonel FARRINGTON; Major PHILIP CROMWELL (a\ncousin of Cromwell's: second son of his uncle Sir Philip Cromwell); and\nseven Captains.\n\n11. (Artillery) Colonel THOMAS RAINSBOROUGH (once \"a skipper of Lynn,\"\nwho had seen service at sea); Lieutenant-Colonel OWEN; Major DOVE;  and\nseven Captains.\n\n12. (Artillery) Colonel RALPH WELDEN, a veteran; whose under-officers I\nhave not ascertained, save that one of them seems to have been ROBERT\nLILBURNE (brother of John Lilburne), who in time succeeded to the\nColonelcy.\n\nII. HORSE AND DRAGOONS = 7,600.\n\nThe Horse (6,600) consisted of eleven Regiments, each of 600, divided\ninto six troops; the Dragoons consisted of one Regiment (1,000), in ten\ntroops of 100 each. They were officered thus:--\n\n1. (The Commander-in-Chiefs Regiment):--Colonel SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX; Major\nJOHN DESBOROUGH (a brother-in-law of Oliver Cromwell's: married to his\nyounger sister, Jane Cromwell); and four Captains, one of them a Captain\nBERRY.\n\n2. Colonel MIDDLETON; Major RICHARD NORTON; and four Captains.\n\n3. Colonel THOMAS SHEFFIELD (a younger son of the aged Earl of Mulgrave,\nand uncle of Sir Thomas Fairfax); Major SHEFFIELD (the Colonel's son or\nbrother?); and four Captains.\n\n4. Colonel CHARLES FLEETWOOD (a young man of a good Buckinghamshire\nfamily, and well known to Milton from his childhood, as Milton himself\ntells us: he had served first as a private trooper in the Earl of Essex's\nguards, and had rapidly distinguished himself); Major THOMAS HARRISON\n(formerly an attorney's clerk in London); and four Captains.\n\n5. Colonel EDWARD ROSSITER; Major TWISTLETON; and four Captains.\n\n6. Colonel VERMUYDEN (a Dutchman, who resigned after a month or two of\ngood service, and returned to Holland, where his father, Sir Cornelius\nVermuyden, was engaged in engineering works); Major HUNTINGDON (who\nsucceeded Vermuyden in the Colonelcy); and four Captains.\n\n7. Colonel ALGERNON SIDNEY (famous long afterwards for his death: now\n_\u00e6tat._ 23: third son of the Earl of Leicester: had served as a\nCaptain in Manchester's army--he and his eldest brother, Philip, Lord\nLisle, being more actively Parliamentarian than their father); Major\nALFORD; and four Captains.\n\n8. Colonel SIR ROBERT PYE, junior (son of the Sir Robert Pye who had been\nM.P. for Woodstock, as colleague with Speaker Lenthall, since the\nbeginning of the Long Parliament, and was now a conspicuous man in the\nHouse); Major MATTHEW TOMLINSON (said to have been \"a gentleman-usher to\na lady\"); and three Captains, one of whom was HENRY IRETON (a B.A. of\nOxford, and barrister of the Middle Temple, _\u00e6tat._ 35, who had\ntaken to soldiering: described as of \"a melancholic, reserved, dark\nnature,\" and great ability).\n\n9. Colonel EDWARD WHALLEY (rumoured by the Royalists to have been \"a\nwoollen-draper or petty merchant in London,\" who had got into debt and\nmigrated to Scotland for a time; but certainly of a Nottinghamshire\nfamily of mark, and certainly a cousin of Cromwell's; recently also known\nfor excellent service under Cromwell as Major in Cromwell's own\nregiment); Major BETHELL; and four Captains.\n\n10. Colonel RICHARD GRAVES; Major ADRIAN SCROOP; and four Captains.\n\n11. Colonel Sir MICHAEL LIVESEY, Bart., of Co. Kent; Major SEDASOUE; and\nfour Captains.\n\n_Regiment of Dragoons_: Colonel JOHN OKEY (originally, it is said, a\n\"drayman,\" then \"stoker in a brewhouse at Islington,\" and next a \"most\npoor chandler in Thames Street;\" said also to have been \"of more bulk\nthan brains;\" but certainly of late an invincible dragoon-officer); Major\nWILLIAMS or GWILLIAMS; and eight Captains.\n\nN.B. Some of the above-mentioned officers (such as Colonels Middleton,\nLivesey, Holborn, and Barclay) do not seem to have taken the places\nassigned them in the New Model. Others therefore had to be brought in by\nFairfax almost at once. Among these were:--1. As _Colonels of\nHorse_: Colonel BUTLER; the Hon. JOHN FIENNES (third son of Viscount\nSaye and Sele); CHARLES RICH (he had been nominated in the Commons for a\nColonelcy Feb. 28 and March 1, 1644-5, and rejected both times; but must\nhave been appointed soon afterwards). 2. As _Colonels of Foot_:\nEDWARD HARLEY (whose Lieutenant-Colonel was THOMAS PRIDE, a foundling who\nhad been a drayman); JOHN LAMBERT (who had been a Colonel under Fairfax\nin the North); SIR HARDRESS WALLER (_\u00e6tat._ 41, cousin of Sir\nWilliam Waller). [Footnote: In the Lords Journals, date March 18, 1644-5,\nthere is a list of the intended officers of the New Model as then agreed\nto, after a month or two of choosing, between the Lords and the Commons.\nThis has been my chief authority; but it has been aided and checked by\nthe _Anglia Rediviva_ of the New Model chaplain Sprigge (pp. 8-10\n_et seq._ of Oxford Edition of 1854) and by Rushworth (VI.13-17\n_et seq._). Mr. Clements Markham's account of the New Model Army in\nhis life of Fairfax (pp. 188-202) has likewise been of use, though it\ndoes not profess to be more than general, nor to be calculated for the\nvery commencement of the New Model. Some particulars of information\nrespecting persons I have taken from Mr. Markham; others I have had to\ngather miscellaneously from the Parliamentary Journals, Wood, Carlyle's\n_Cromwell_, Walker's Hist. of Independency, Reprint of _The\nMystery of the Good Old Cause_ (a satirical tract of 1660) at end of\nVol. III. of Parl. Hist., &c. I have had to rectify the spellings of some\nof the names in the original Lords Journals list, and to find out the\nChristian names where possible. It is not always so easy as one might\nsuppose to ascertain the Christian name of a man who may have been of\nconsiderable note in his day and have left his mark.]\n\nSuch was the famous New Model. [Footnote: In the New Model the reader\nought to note three things:--(1) The comparative youth of the officers.\nThere _were_ veterans; but the Commander-in-chief was but thirty\nthree years of age, and most of the Colonels were still younger. (2) The\nblending of different ranks of society in the body of the officers. The\nmajority were decidedly from the ranks of the aristocracy and gentry--\npeers' younger sons, knights, sons of knights and country-gentlemen, &c.;\nbut in men like Skippon, Colonel Okey, Colonel Rainsborough, Lieutenant-\nColonel Ewer, Lieutenant-Colonel Hewson, Lieutenant-Colonel Pride, Major\nHarrison, and Major Tomlinson, there was a conspicuous sprinkling of\nstout representatives of a lower and more popular stratum. The Royalists,\nand even the Presbyterians, fastened on this fact and exaggerated it. All\nthe army, from the general to the meanest sentinel, could not muster\n\u00a31,000 a year in lands among them; so it was laxly said. (3) Another\nfact, of which the Presbyterians and the Royalists, and other anti-\nCromwellians, afterwards made the most, was the unusual number of\nrelatives of Cromwell that there were among the officers. To those who\nregarded the whole invention and organization of the New Model as a deep\ndesign of Cromwell's craft, with Fairfax as his temporary tool, this fact\nwas blackly significant. But, apart altogether from that theory, the fact\n_is_ important, and ought to be borne in mind. There was not only\nmuch of the Cromwell spirit in the New Model from the first, but a large\nleaven of the Cromwell _kin_.] Where was it first to be employed?\nThis was an anxious question; and, to understand it, we must have the map\nof England before us as it appeared to the Parliamentarians in the early\nmonths of 1645.\n\nEngland then, in the eyes of the Parliamentarians, consisted of four\nregions, as follows:--(I.) The _Pre-eminent and assured Parliamentarian\nRegion_. This included London and Middlesex, with the Eastern and\nSouth-Eastern counties at their back, or immediately flanking them north\nand south--viz.: Herts, Essex, Cambridge, Bedford, Northamptonshire,\nHunts, Suffolk, Norfolk, and almost all Lincoln, together with Kent,\nSurrey, and Sussex. All this sweep of country was now thoroughly in the\npossession of the Parliament, and constituted the region whence it drew\nits main strength. The services of the New Model were not required in it;\nfor it was the main feeder and support of the New Model. (II.) _The\nNorthern Counties_. Here, beyond the Humber and Mersey, or perhaps\neven beyond the Trent, the cause of Parliament was also in the ascendant.\nSince Marston Moor Royalism lingered here only in a few towns and\ngarrisons. In Cumberland, Carlisle still held out for the King, and the\nsiege of this city, together with the preservation of the North\ngenerally, was the work now specially expected from the Scottish\nauxiliary army. In Yorkshire, the castles of Skipton, Pontefract,\nScarborough, Sandal, and Bolton, and, in Lancashire, Latham House and\nGreenhaugh Castle, kept up the King's flag, but were surrounded by local\nParliamentary besiegers. On the whole there was no reason for anxiety now\nabout the North within itself; and the hope was that the Scottish Army\nand other stray forces in those parts might be able soon to move\nsouthwards and co-operate with the New Model. (III.) _The South-West\nand Mid-Southern Counties._ Here the King was vastly in the ascendant.\nCornwall was absolutely his; Devon was wholly his, with the exception of\nthe port of Plymouth, still held for the Parliament, but besieged by the\nKing's forces; Somerset was wholly his, save that Taunton was holding out\nfor Parliament in great distress; all Wilts was his, except Malmesbury\nCastle; in Dorset he was nearly master, though the three port-towns of\nPoole, Lyme, and Weymouth (Melcombe) had Parliamentary garrisons; and\neven in Hants, where the Parliament divided the power with him more\nequally, he held the two strong places of Winchester and Basing. The\nKing's field-forces in all this southwestern and southern region were\nextremely numerous, apart from the garrisons, and were commanded by Lords\nGoring and Hopton, Sir Richard Greenville, Major-General Sir John Digby,\nand others. With them was the Prince of Wales, now fifteen years of age.\nHe had been recently sent from Oxford into those parts, with a view both\nto his own safety and to the effects of his influence. (IV.) _The\nEnglish Midlands, backed by Wales._ Here also the King was firmly\nestablished. Here it was that, with the Princes Rupert and Maurice as his\nchiefs in command, he directly faced the massed Parliamentarianism of\nLondon and the Eastern Counties. In Bucks and Berks, indeed, his forces\nand those of the Parliament overlapped each other. Aylesbury, the chief\ntown in Bucks, was the Parliament's, while Boarstall House, ten or twelve\nmiles east from it, was the King's; and, similarly, the east of Berks,\nwith Windsor, Reading, and Abingdon, were mainly held by Parliament,\nwhile in the same county the King had some strong garrisons. Oxford,\nhowever, the county of the King's head-quarters, was wholly in his\npossession, with the exception of Henley on the Berks border. To the\nnorth of Oxfordshire was Warwickshire, all the King's except Warwick\nCastle, though bordered by Northamptonshire, which was all the\nParliament's; and farther north were the shires of Leicester, Nottingham,\nand Stafford, in each of which, though the Parliament held the county-\ntown, the King had countervailing strongholds. Then, at the back of this\nrow of central counties facing the massed Parliamentarianism of the East,\nthere were the shires of Gloucester, Worcester, Salop, and Chester, in\nwhich Parliament had scarcely any hold; that of Hereford, in which it had\nno hold; and the whole bulk of Wales, in which the two castles of\nPembroke and Montgomery were the sole Parliamentarian specks. Leaning\nback upon Wales, and the English counties of the Welsh border, the King,\nfrom Oxford, with its flanking counties north and south, fronted\nParliament very formidably. [Footnote: In this survey of the state of the\nwar over all England in April 1645, I have availed myself of the\nintroductory Tables in Sprigge (pp. xi-xvi, Edit. 1854), repeated in\nRushworth, VI. pp. 18-22. The geographical information in the Tables is,\nhowever, somewhat confused, and I have recast it.]\n\n\nFIRST ACTIONS OF THE NEW MODEL.\n\nClearly, it was against one or other of the two last-mentioned regions\nthat the New Model must first show its prowess. Which of the two should\nit be?\n\nThe West had many claims. Besides the importance of relieving the\nbesieged Parliamentary garrisons in that direction, there was the\nnecessity of taking precaution against the possible advance from it of\nGoring's forces towards London. Accordingly, even before the Self-Denying\nOrdinance had become law, Cromwell and Sir William Waller had been\nordered on a special expedition into the West (February 27), \"for relief\nof Melcombe and the garrisons and places adjacent, and for preventing and\nbreaking the enemy's levies and recruits.\" Cromwell's men were very\nreluctant to go on this expedition, probably because they did not like to\nserve with Waller. But, Cromwell having managed them, he and Waller did\ngo into the West as far as Dorset and Somerset, and, after as much\nsuccess as was possible, returned about the middle of April. The Self-\nDenying Ordinance was then law; and on the 22nd of April Cromwell was at\nWindsor, to resign his command, and take leave of Fairfax.\n\nSuddenly, on the following morning, a message from the Committee of the\ntwo Kingdoms came to Windsor ordering Fairfax to employ Cromwell on a new\nenterprise of pressing moment. [Footnote: This \"Committee of the two\nKingdoms\" originally appointed in Feb. 1643-4, after the coming in of the\nScots Auxiliary Army (see list of members _ant\u00e8_, p. 41) is found\nvery active after the organization of the New Model--a quorum always\nsitting in Derby House, Canon Row, Westminster, close to Parliament (the\nhouse in which Pym had died) and sending orders, &c., to Fairfax.\nManchester, Saye and Sele, Wharton, and Vane the younger, of the English\nmembers of the Committee, and Loudoun and Sir Archibald Johnstone of the\nScottish members, signed most such orders and letters in May and June\n1645 (see Rushworth, VI. 27-33).] He was to ride with all haste into\nOxfordshire, to intercept, if possible, a convoy of 2,000 horse, which\nPrince Rupert was to detach from Worcester, then the head-quarters of the\nKing's main army, for the purpose of fetching off the King and his\nArtillery-train from Oxford. As the forty days of grace fixed by the\nSelf-Denying Ordinance did not expire till the 13th of May, Cromwell\nwould have time to perform this service before the exact day on which his\nresignation was required! In fact, he performed it thoroughly in two\ndays. On the 24th of April he met the enemy, consisting of the Queen's\nown regiment, the Earl of Northhampton's, and Lord Wilmot's, at Islip\nBridge, routed them utterly, slew many, and took about 200 prisoners and\n400 horses, besides the Queen's standard. Not only so; but, some of the\nfugitives having taken refuge in Bletchington House, then commanded by\nColonel Thomas Windebank, son of the ex-Secretary, with a garrison of 200\nmen, Cromwell had summoned the house to surrender, and, though a defence\nmight easily have been made, Windebank had actually surrendered that same\nnight, giving up all his stores.\n\nSuch were the first actions of the New Model; and, as they carried joy\ninto the Parliamentarian heart, so in the King's quarters they caused\nrage and vexation. Windebank was tried by court-martial for cowardice,\nand, notwithstanding his connexions, was shot to death in the court of\nMerton College, Oxford (May 3). [Footnote: For facts in the preceding\nthree paragraphs see _Commons Journals_, Feb. 27 and 28, and March 4\nand at 20, 1644-5; Sprigge's _Angli\u00e6 Reduc._ (1854) 11-13:\nCarlyle's _Cromwell_ (ed. 1857) I. 163-167; Rushworth, VI. 23-25.\nWe had a glimpse of young Windebank at an earlier period, when he little\nforesaw this end. See Vol. II. p. 70.]\n\n\nCROMWELL RETAINED IN COMMAND: BATTLE OF NASEBY: OTHER SUCCESSES OF THE\nNEW MODEL.\n\nOn the 1st of May, while Cromwell was still absent in Oxfordshire, the\nmain body of the New Model, under Fairfax and Skippon, was on the move in\nanother direction. It had seemed on the whole that it would be of most\nuse in the South-West. In especial, there was great anxiety for the\nrelief of Taunton. But, when Fairfax had got as far as into Dorset, on\nhis way to Taunton, he was overtaken by an Ordinance of the two Houses,\nin conformity with a resolution of the Committee of both Kingdoms (May\n6), recalling him and Skippon, with the bulk of the New Model, for\nservice, after all, in the Mid-English Counties. For Goring had carried\nmuch of the South-Western force thither, and had joined Rupert and\nMaurice, so that there was a great stir of something new intended about\nOxford and round the King's person. Accordingly, detaching only a brigade\nof some 7,000, consisting of Welden's, Lloyd's, Fortescue's, and\nIngoldsby's foot-regiments, and Graves's horse-regiment, with some other\ndistrict forces, all under Welden's chief command, to push on for the\nrelief of Taunton, Fairfax wheeled his main force back north-east, and,\nafter forced cross-country marching, found himself (May 14) at the well-\nknown Newbury, on his way to Oxford. By this time he knew, if he had not\nknown it before, that he was to have the help of other generalship under\nhim than that of Skippon. If it had ever been really intended that\nCromwell should retire from the Army with the others, according to the\nstrict terms of the Self-Denying Ordinance, the successes at Islip Bridge\nand Bletchington House had put it into all men's minds to inquire how the\nArmy could get on without him. The Army itself had but one opinion on the\nsubject. For many months past he had been the darling of the entire\nforce, so that, whenever he appeared unexpectedly on the field, there\nwere shouts of \"_A Cromwell! A Cromwell!_\" Willingly or unwillingly,\nParliament had to defer to this sentiment; and on May 10, three days\nbefore the expiry of the forty days of grace fixed by the Self-Denying\nOrdinance, a special ordinance of the Commons continuing Cromwell in his\nemployment for forty days longer, i.e. till June 22, was agreed to by the\nLords. There was murmuring among the Presbyterians and the friends of the\nlate generals, Essex, Manchester, and Waller; but the thing was\ninevitable. Nay, when Fairfax and other officers of the New Model, not\ncontent with the vague and brief additional use of Cromwell's services\nthus offered, petitioned distinctly for his appointment as Lieutenant-\ngeneral, with chief command of the horse, that also had to be conceded.\nThe petition was read in the Commons and agreed to, June 10; on which day\na letter was drawn up, signed by the Speaker, and despatched to Fairfax,\n\"to desire him, if he shall so think fit, to appoint Lieutenant-general\nCromwell to command the horse during so long time as the House shall\ndispense with his absence.\" [Footnote: Commons Journals of days named.]\n\nWithin four days after the formal appointment of Cromwell to the\nLieutenant-generalship under Fairfax there came that great action of the\nyear which more than justified the appointment. The circumstances were\nthese:--While Fairfax had been on the march towards Taunton, the King,\nwith his Artillery-train, &c., had left Oxford (May 7) and taken the\nfield with his main army of the Midlands under Prince Rupert. Cromwell,\nwho had remained in Oxfordshire, kept hovering after him and watching his\nmovements. These were uncertain; but it appeared as if he were tending\nnorthwards, to relieve Chester, then besieged by a Parliamentarian force\nfrom Lancashire and Cheshire under Sir William Brereton. [Footnote: It is\nto be remembered that, apart from the New Model, there were still English\nParliamentary garrisons, and field forces, here and there, doing\nnecessary district work. Sir William Brereton, M.P. for Cheshire, had had\nin his hands much of the management of the war in those parts; and as he\nwas still useful, Parliament had exempted him as well as Cromwell, from\nthe same hate operation of the Self Denying Ordinance, extending his\ncommand (May 12) for forty days. The same extension, on the same day, was\ngiven to Sir Thomas Middleton, M.P. for Denbighshire, at work on the\nWelsh border, but with a reserve that, after the forty days his command\nwas to be resigned to a Colonel Mitton Common Journal.] When, therefore,\nFairfax had wheeled back from his South-Western expedition, and was once\nmore in the Midlands, the question arose whether he and his New Model\nshould besiege Oxford in the King's absence, or whether they should\npursue his Majesty and fight him in the field. The siege of Oxford seemed\nthe preferable course; and, accordingly (May 22), Fairfax, now rejoined\nby Cromwell, sat down before that city. Soon, however, it became\nquestionable whether the war-committee had judged rightly. For\ndiscomfiting the King's design for the relief of Chester the Parliament\nhad trusted to the Scottish Army, aided by the English Parliamentarians\nof the Northern Counties, and by a band of the New Model horse despatched\nnorth under Colonel Vermuyden. But the Scots, out of humour with the New\nModel altogether, had been backward or careless; the King, through\nWarwickshire, Worcestershire and Shropshire, had made his way into\nCheshire; his approach had relieved Chester; he had then turned eastwards\ninto Staffordshire, had crossed that county, entered Leicestershire, and\n(May 30) taken the town of Leicester by storm. He was thus on the very\nverge of the Parliament's own faithful Association of the Eastern\nCounties, and might be expected to break into that Association.\nImmediately, therefore, the plans of the Parliament were changed. On the\nvery day on which the news of the storming of Leicester arrived, Cromwell\nwas off from Oxford into the Eastern Counties, and on the 5th of June,\nFairfax, with the rest of the New Model, raised the siege of Oxford and\nmarched north. June 13, he was in the north-west of Northamptonshire,\nwithin sight of the King's main force, which had advanced out of\nLeicestershire into that county. Early on that morning, while he was\nholding a council of war, Cromwell came in, fresh from his work in the\nAssociation, and welcomed as the man most wanted. He at once assumed his\nLieutenant-generalship; and on the next day, Saturday, June 14, 1645,\nthere was fought the great BATTLE OF NASEBY. There had been nothing like\nit since Marston Moor. The King's Army, commanded by the King in person,\nPrince Rupert, Prince Maurice, Sir Jacob Astley (now Lord Astley), Lord\nBarnard Stuart, Sir George Lisle, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, and Colonel\nHoward, was utterly defeated and ruined. The prisoners taken amounted to\n5,000, and included many of the King's chief officers; all the artillery\nwas captured, and much baggage, including the King's cabinet, with his\nprivate papers and correspondence. These papers were speedily published\nby Parliament under the title of _The Kings Cabinet Opened_; and, by\nthe revelations they made of the King's duplicity, his absolute\nsubjection to the Queen, and his secret dealings with the Irish and\nPapists, they did as much to discredit his cause as the battle itself.\n[Footnote: Sprigge, 21-51; Rushworth, VI. 29-48; and Carlyle's\n_Cromwell_, I. 169-l76.--Here is a note from the Stationers' Registers,\nJuly 9 (1645): \"Robert Bostock entered for his copy, by special command,\nunder the hands of Mr. Henry Parker and Mr. Thomas May, Secretaries, and\nMr. Miller, Warden, a Book entitled _The King's Cabinet Opened, or\ncertain Packets of Secret Letters and Papers, written by the King's own\nhand, taken in his Cabinet at Naseby Field_.\" For an account of Naseby\nbattle and review of previous accounts, see Markham's _Fairfax_, 213-\n230.]\n\nThough Fairfax was voted everywhere the brave and worthy commander-in-\nchief at Naseby, and though Skippon had behaved like himself and kept his\npost after having been seriously wounded, much of the credit of the\nbattle, as of that of Marston Moor, went to Cromwell. He had commanded\nthe Horse on the right wing, and his success there against the enemy's\nleft had been effectual and decisive. Moreover, in the whole marshalling\nof the battle, and in what had prepared for it, people saw, or thought\nthey saw, Cromwell's influence. The horse regiments engaged were, on the\nright wing, Fairfax's Life-guards, Cromwell's Ironsides, Colonel\nWhalley's, Colonel Sir Robert Pye's, Colonel Rossiter's, Colonel\nSheffield's, and Colonel Fiennes's, and, on the left wing, Colonel\nButler's, Colonel Vermuyden's (now Huntingdon's), Colonel Rich's, Colonel\nFleetwood's, and another; and the foot regiments engaged were Fairfax's\nown, Skippon's, Colonel Sir Hardress Waller's, young Colonel Pickering's,\nyoung Colonel Montague's, young Colonel Hammond's, Colonel\nRainsborough's, and Lieutenant-colonel Pride's. Fairfax in person, with\nSkippon, commanded the foot or main body; Cromwell, as we have seen,\ncommanded the right wing; but who commanded the left wing? It was the\nColonel of that horse-regiment which we have left anonymous. And who was\nhe? No other than that HENRY IRETON, the melancholic, reserved lawyer of\nthe Middle Temple, who was only a Captain in Sir Robert Pye's regiment at\nthe formation of the New Model three months before (_ant\u00e8_, p. 327).\nHe had been recently promoted to a Colonelcy, and on the eve of the\nbattle Fairfax had made him Commissary-general of Horse, with command of\nthe left wing, over the heads of the other Colonels. This was at\nCromwell's request, who had reason to know Ireton, and had special\nconfidence in him. Nor did the result belie Cromwell's judgment. Ireton's\nwing, indeed, had given way and fled under the shock of Rupert's charges,\nbut not till Ireton himself had had his horse shot under him, received\ntwo wounds, and been taken prisoner in a counter-attack. Rescued by the\nturn of the battle, he came in for a share of the praise. [Footnote:\nRushworth, VI. 42, 43. Carlyle's _Cromwell_, I. 176.--It came to be\nan assertion with the Presbyterians, thought I do not believe they\nbelieved it themselves, that Cromwell's military fame had been gained by\nsystematic puffing on the part of the Independents. \"The news books\ntaught to speak no language but Cromwell and his party, and were mute on\nsuch actions as he and they could claim no share in,\" wrote Clement\nWalker a year or two after Naseby (Hist. of Indep. Part I, 30). We have\nsee Baillie writing rather in the same way after Marston Moor.]--When the\nnews of the victory reached London, the Parliament, amid their various\nrejoicings, and their voting of a day of public thanksgiving to God, a\njewel worth 500_l_. to Fairfax, and the like, did not forget one\npractical inference from what had happened. That same day (June 16) the\nCommons signified to the Lords their desire that Cromwell's exceptional\nLieutenant-generalship should be prolonged; and, accordingly, on June 18\nit was agreed by both Houses \"That Lieutenant-general Cromwell shall\ncontinue as Lieutenant-general of the Horse, according the established\npay of the Army, for three months from the end of the forty days formerly\ngranted to him.\" This extended his command under Fairfax only to Sept.\n22; but, that we may not have to refer to the matter again, we may here\nstate that, before that date arrived, the term of his service was\nstretched for other four months, with an understanding in fact that it\nwas to be indefinitely elastic. [Footnote: Commons and Lords Journals of\ndays named.]\n\nNaseby proved the beginning of the end. It was the shivering of the\ncentral mass of Royalism in England, and the subsequent events of the war\nmay be regarded as only so much provincial addition, and tedious pursuit\nof the fragments. A sketch of these events will suffice.\n\nThe beaten King having fled, with the wrecks of his army, back through\nLeicestershire, Staffordshire, and Shropshire, into Wales, and the\nMidlands thus being safe, Fairfax was at liberty to transfer his\nvictorious New Model to the part of England where its presence was then\nmost sorely needed, i.e. the West and South-West.--The brigade which he\nhad detached, under Colonel Welden, for the relief of Taunton, when\nrecalled himself from his former march westward, had successfully\naccomplished that object (May 12), but only itself to be shut up in\nTaunton by a second and severer siege by Goring's forces, returned into\nthose parts. By way of a temporary arrangement for action in the West in\nthese circumstances, Parliament had by an ordinance, May 24, entrusted a\nseparate command in chief of whatever forces could be raised for the West\nto Major-general Edward Massey, an officer well acquainted with that part\nof the country, and distinguished by his previous services in it\nthroughout the war. [Footnote: The Ordinance is in the Lords Journals\nunder the date named.] But Massey was to hold the separate command only\ntill Fairfax could assume it in person. Accordingly, when Fairfax, after\nseeing the King fairly chased away from Naseby, turned once more\nsouthwards, and, by rapid marches through Warwickshire and\nGloucestershire, arrived in Wilts  (June 27), the conduct of the war in\nthe South-West became the regular work of the New Model, with Massey as\nbut an auxiliary. The progress was rapid. July 3, Taunton was relieved\nthe second time, and Goring's forces obliged to retire: July 10, Lamport\nBattle was fought, in which Goring was defeated with great loss; July 23,\nBridgewater was taken by storm; July 30, the city of Bath surrendered.\nThus in one month the King's power was broken all through Somersetshire.\nAugust sufficed for the same result in Dorsetshire, where Sherborne\nCastle was battered and stormed on the 15th. On the 10th of September\ncame the splendid success of the storming of Bristol. This great city was\ndefended by Prince Rupert, who had made his way again into the South-West\nfor the purpose, and who had assured the King that he would hold it to\nthe last. Nevertheless, after a siege of eighteen days, he was glad to\nsurrender--himself and his men marching out with their personal baggage\nand the honours of war, but leaving all the ordnance, arms, and\nammunition in the city as the spoil of the Parliament. [Footnote: Young\nMajor Bethell was mortally wounded in the storming of Bristol; and here\nis a touching little incident of the same action from Mr. Markham's\n_Life of Fairfax_. \"Among the slain (in one of the attacks) was a\nyoung officer named Pugsley, who was buried by Fairfax's order, with\nmilitary honours in a field outside the fort. He was just married, and\nhis wife survived him for 60 years. On her death, in 1705, she was\nburied, according to her expressed wishes, without a coffin, in her\nwedding dress, and with girls strewing flowers and fiddlers playing\nbefore her. In this way she was borne to her final resting place by the\nside of her husband, and the place is still known as Pugsley's Field.\"]\nIt was the greatest blow the King had received since Naseby; and he was\nso enraged with Rupert that he revoked all his commands, and ordered him\nto leave England. Rupert, however, having gone to the King, a\nreconciliation was brought about; and, though he held no high command\nagain during the rest of this war, he remained in the King's service. The\nsurrender of Bristol was followed by that of Devizes Castle (Sept. 23)\nand that of Laycock House (Sept. 24) in Wilts, and by the storming of\nBerkeley Castle (Sept. 23) in Gloucestershire. [Footnote: This summary is\nchiefly from Sprigge; where, in addition to the text there is an\nexcellent chronological table of actions and sieges: one or two of the\nfacts are from Clarendon, and Carlyle's _Cromwell_.]\n\n\nPOOR PERFORMANCE OF THE SCOTTISH AUXILIARY ARMY.\n\nLet us leave the West and South-West for a time, and turn to the North.--\nAs late as May and June 1645, Baillie, then back in London and again on\nduty in the Westminster Assembly, had still been hoping great things from\nhis beloved Scottish Army in the North. Since the taking of Newcastle\n(Oct. 1644), indeed, the services of this army had been mainly dumb-show,\nso that the English had begun to despise it and to ask whether it was\nworth its wages. Baillie's hope, however, was that, somehow or other\nafter all, it would be the Scottish Army, and not this New Model, the\ninvention of the Independents and the Sectaries, that would perform the\nfinishing action, and reap the final credit. What then were his thoughts\nwhen the news of Naseby reached him? \"This accident,\" he writes, June 17,\n1645, three days after the Battle, \"is like to change much the face of\naffairs here. We hope the back of the Malignant [Royalist] Party is\nbroken; [but] some fears the insolence of others, to whom alone the Lord\nhas given the victory of that day.\" The news of the taking of Carlisle at\nlast by the Scots (June 28) may have helped to revive his spirits; but\nthat also may have been an indirect consequence of Naseby, and the\nsubsequent small success of the Scots during those months when Fairfax,\nCromwell, and the New Model were succeeding so splendidly in the South-\nWest, again threw Baillie into despondency. The taking of Pontefract\nCastle (July 21) and of Scarborough (July 25) in Yorkshire, and finally\nthat of Latham House in Lancashire, after its two years' defence by the\nCountess of Derby (Dec. 4), were the work of the English Parliamentarians\nof the Northern Counties; and all the Scots did was very disappointing.\nFrom Carlisle they did, indeed, march south, to keep a watch on the\nKing's movements in the Midlands after Naseby, and, after hovering about\nin those parts, they laid siege to the town of Hereford, by the desire of\nParliament (July 31). But early in September they raised the siege, Leven\npleading that he had not received the promised support and was unable to\nremain. With such grumblings and complaints of arrears in their pay, the\nScots returned northwards, through the mid-counties, to Yorkshire, the\nEnglish Parliament thinking worse and worse of them, but still speaking\nthem fair, and desiring to retain them for minor service somewhere in\nEngland while the New Model was doing the real work. [Footnote:\nRushworth, VI. 118-127; and Baillie, II. 286-316.]\n\n\nTHE EPISODE OF MONTROSE IN SCOTLAND.\n\nIt was not only the small performance and continued grumbling of the\nScottish Auxiliary Army in England that had begun, by September 1645, to\ndisgust the English Parliamentarians with their friends of the Scottish\nnation. In Scotland itself there had been an extraordinary outbreak of\nRoyalism, which had not only perturbed that country throughout, but had\nlatterly advanced to the very borders of England, threatening to connect\nitself with all of English Royalism that was not already beaten, and so\nundo the hard work and great successes of the New Model. Who that has\nread Scott's _Legend of Montrose_ but must be curious as to the\nfacts of real History on which that romance was founded? They are\nromantic enough in themselves, and they form a very important episode in\nthe general history of the Civil War.\n\nOur last sight of the young Earl of Montrose was in November 1641, when\nthe King, during his visit to Scotland, procured his release, and that of\nhis associates in the Merchiston House Compact, from their imprisonment\nin Edinburgh Castle (Vol. II. p. 307). The life of the young Earl had\nthen been given back to him, but in what circumstances! Not only had all\nhis expectations from the Merchiston House Compact been falsified,\nexpectations of the overthrow of the Argyle supremacy in Scotland, and of\nthe establishment of a new government for the King on an aristocratic\nbasis; but, by the King's own acts, Argyle was left doubly confirmed in\nthe supremacy, with the added honour of the Marquisate, and the\nPresbyterian clergy dominant around him. Such a Scotland was no country\nfor Montrose. Away from Edinburgh, therefore, on one or other of his\nestates, in Perthshire, Forfarshire, Stirlingshire, or Dumbartonshire,\nand only occasionally in the society of his wife and his four little\nboys, we see him for some months, thrown back moodily upon himself,\nhunting now and then, corresponding with his friends Napier and Keir, but\nfinding his chief relief in bits of Latin reading, dreams of Plutarch's\nheroes, and the writing of scraps of verse. Thus:--\n\n  \"An Alexander I will reign,\n    And I will reign alone;\n  My thoughts did evermore disdain\n    A rival on my throne:\n  He either fears his fate too much,\n    Or his deserts are small,\n  That dares not put it to the touch\n    To gain or lose it all.\"\n\nAlas! in a Scotland abject under a squint-eyed Argyle, with Loudoun and\nWarriston for his lieutenants, and a thousand rigid and suspicious black-\ncoats giving the law singly in their pulpits and parishes, and thundering\nit collectively from their Assemblies, what room or opening was there for\nany such Plutarchian life? It was little better in England, from which\nanyhow he was debarred. He would go abroad. Were there not great strifes\nin Europe, struggles other than Presbyterian, into which a young Scottish\nEarl might fling himself, to win a glorious name, or die sword in hand?\n[Footnote: Napier's _Montrose_ (1856), 371-3, and Appendix to Vol.\nI. p. xxxiv.; Wishart's Memoirs of Montrose (translation of 1819 from the\noriginal Latin of 1648), Preface, p. vi.] So till August 1642, when the\nKing raised his standard for the Civil War in England. Then there was\nagain hope. The King remembered the fiery young Scottish Earl, and\ncommunications had passed between them. Montrose went into England; saw\nthe Queen immediately after her landing at Burlington Bay (February 1642-\n3); and pressed upon her his views as to the way in which Scotland might\nbe roused in the King's behalf. He seemed to her Majesty but a brave\nyoung enthusiast; and, the Marquis of Hamilton having hastened from\nScotland to counteract him, and to promise that he himself and his\nbrother Lanark would keep Scotland firm to the King's interest without\nthat open rising against the Argyle government which Montrose\nrecommended, the cooler counsel had prevailed, Hamilton and Montrose had\nthus gone back into Scotland together, Hamilton with the new title of\nDuke (April 12, 1643) to encourage him in his difficult labour, and\nMontrose disappointed, watched, and in fresh danger. Again, however, as\nmonths had passed on, the chance of some such bold enterprise for\nMontrose as he himself had projected had become more likely. How ill\nHamilton and Lanark had succeeded in _their_ milder undertaking we\nalready know. They had not been able to check the tide of sympathy in\nScotland with the English Parliamentarians; they had not been able to\nprevent that sudden Convention of the Scottish Estates which Argyle\nthought necessary in the crisis (June 1643); they had not been able to\nprevent the cordial reception there of the Commissioners from the English\nParliament, nor the offer of armed aid from Scotland to the cause of the\nParliament on the terms of Henderson's _Solemn League and Covenant_\n(August 1643). Montrose, who had foreseen this result, and had been\ntrying in vain to engage the Marquis of Huntley and other Scottish nobles\nin an independent coalition for the King, had not gone near the\nConvention, but, while it was yet deliberating in Edinburgh, had taken\ncare to be again in England, on his way to the King with his budget of\nadvices. A Scottish Covenanting army would certainly invade England in\nthe cause of the Parliament: let their Majesties be in no doubt about\nthat! He had himself the best reason to know the fact; for had not the\nCovenanting chiefs been secretly negotiating with him, and offering to\nforgive him all the past, if only now he would return to his allegiance\nto the Covenant, and accept the Lieutenant-generalship of their projected\narmy under the Earl of Leven? If he had seemed to dally with this\ntemptation, it had only been that he might the better fathom the purposes\nof the Argyle government, and report all to their Majesties! No service,\nhowever eminent, under Argyle, or with any of the crafty crew of the\nCovenant, was that on which his soul was bent, but a quite contrary\nenterprise, already explained to the Queen, by which the Argyle\ngovernment should be laid in the dust, Scotland recovered for the King,\nand all her resources put at his disposal for the recovery of his power\nin England also! Hitherto their Majesties had not seen fit to confide in\nhim, but had trusted rather the Hamiltons, with their middle courses and\ntheir policy of compromise! Were their Majesties aware what grounds might\nbe shown for the belief that these Hamiltons, with all their\nplausibilities and fair seeming, were in reality little better than\ntraitors, who had wilfully mismanaged the King's affairs in Scotland for\ninterests and designs of their own? So, through the autumn of 1643, had\nMontrose been reasoning with the King and Queen, as yet to little\npurpose. But, when the autumn had passed into winter, and there had\ngathered round the King, in his head-quarters at Oxford, other refugee\nScottish Royalists, driven from their country by the stress of the new\nLeague and Covenant, and bringing intelligence that Leven's invading army\nwas actually levied and ready to march, then the tune of the Royal mind\ndid somewhat change. The Duke of Hamilton and his brother Lanark, coming\nto Oxford, December 16, to clear themselves, were immediately arrested on\ncharges suggested by Montrose and the other Scots at Court. To wait trial\non these charges, the Duke was sent as a prisoner to Pendennis Castle;\nwhence he was removed to St. Michael's Mount in the same county of\nCornwall. Lanark, escaping from his arrest at Oxford, took refuge for a\ntime in London, was cordially received there by the Scottish\nCommissioners and the English Parliamentarians, and returned thence to\nScotland, converted by the King's treatment of him into an anti-Royalist\nand Covenanter to all temporary appearance, whatever he might still be at\nheart. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 73, 74; Wishart, 31-47; Napier, 373-384;\nBurnet's _Hamiltons_ (edit. 1852), 280-349. Burnet gives the charges\nagainst the Hamiltons, with their answers, at length, and narrates events\nanxiously in their behalf.]\n\nThe Hamiltons being out of the way, Montrose obtained a better hearing\nfor his plan. In the main, it was that the King should openly commission\nhim as his Majesty's Lieutenant in Scotland, and furnish him with some\nsmall force with which to cut his way back into the heart of the country,\nand there rouse the elements, whether Lowland or Highland, that were\nready for revolt against the Argyle supremacy. In connexion with this,\nhowever, there was the scheme of an Irish contingent. Was not the Earl of\nAntrim then with his Majesty at Oxford--that very Randal Macdonnell, Earl\nof Antrim, whom it had been proposed, as far back as 1638, to send\nsecretly into Argyleshire with a force of Irishry, to aid the King in his\nfirst strife with the Covenanters (Vol. II. p. 23)? Six years had elapsed\nsince then; but there was still extant in Antrim, as the head of the\ngreat Scoto-Irish clan of the Macdonnells and Macdonalds, that power for\nmischief in Scotland which consisted in the hereditary feud between this\nclan and all the family of the Campbells. Let Antrim go back to Ireland,\nraise a force of his Macdonnells and Macdonalds and whatever else, and\nmake a landing with these on the West Scottish coast; and then, if the\ntime could be so hit that Montrose should be already in Scotland as his\nMajesty's commissioned Lieutenant, might there not be such a junction of\nthe two movements that the Argyle government would be thrown into the\nagonies of self-defence, and the recall of Leven's army from England\nwould be a matter of immediate necessity? So much at least might be\nsurely anticipated; but Montrose promised still larger results. Listening\nto his arguments, iterated and reiterated at Oxford through January 1643-\n4, the King and Queen hardly knew what to think. Montrose's own\ncountrymen round about the King were consulted. What thought Traquair,\nCarnwath, Annandale, and Roxburgh? They would have nothing to do with\nMontrose's plan, and talked of him as a would-be Hotspur. Only a few of\nthe younger Scottish lords at Oxford, including Viscount Aboyne (the\nMarquis of Huntley's second son) and Lord Ogilvy (the Earl of Airlie's\nson and heir), adhered to him. Among the King's English counsellors, of\ncourse, there were few that could judge of his enterprise. One of these,\nhowever, whom a kindred daring of spirit drew to Montrose, helped him all\nhe could. This was the young Lord Digby. Chiefly by his means, the King's\nhesitations were at length overcome. Late in January, Antrim, created a\nMarquis for the occasion, did go over to Ireland, vowing that, by the 1st\nof April 1644, he would land so many thousands of men in Scotland with\nhimself at their head; and on the 1st of February 1643-4, or when Leven's\nScottish army had been ten days in England, a commission was made out\nappointing Montrose Lieutenant-general of all his Majesty's forces in\nScotland. It had been proposed to name him Viceroy and Commander-in-\nchief; but he had himself suggested that this nominal dignity should be\nconferred rather on the King's nephew, Prince Maurice. For his own work\nin Scotland the subordinate commission, with some small force of\nvolunteer Scots and English troopers to assist him in displaying it,\nwould in the meantime be quite enough. [Footnote: Wishart, 47-52;\nBaillie, II.73, 74, and 164; Clarendon, 533-537; Rushworth, V. 927; and\nNapier, 385-388.]\n\nLeaving Oxford, with a slender retinue of Scots, among whom were Aboyne\nand Ogilvy, Montrose went to York, and thence to Durham, where he\nattached himself to the Marquis of Newcastle, then engaged in resisting\nthe advance of Leven's army. From that nobleman he implored, in the\nKing's name, some troops for his convoy into Scotland. Newcastle, himself\nill-supplied, could spare him but 200 horse, with two brass field-pieces.\nThere was an accession from the Cumberland and Northumberland militia, so\nthat the band with which Montrose entered Scotland (April 13, 1644) was\nabout 1,000 strong. Hardly, however, had he entered Scotland when most of\nthe English mutinied and went back. With what force he had left he pushed\non to Dumfries, surprised that town into surrender, and displayed his\nstandard in it with a flourish of trumpets. But nothing more could be\ndone. Of Antrim's Irish contingent, which was to have been in the West\nHighlands by the 1st of April, there were no tidings; and Scotland all to\nthe north of Dumfries was full of Covenanters now alarmed and alert. To\ntry to dash through these at all hazards, so as to lodge himself in the\nHighlands, was his thought for a moment; but he had to give up the\nattempt as impossible. From Dumfries, therefore, he backed again, most\nreluctantly, into the North of England, pursued by the execration of all\nPresbyterian Scotland, and by a sentence of excommunication pronounced\nagainst him in the High Church of Edinburgh. [Footnote: Wishart, 52-55,\nNapier, 385-397, Rushworth, V. 927-9.]\n\n\"Montrose's foolish bravado is turned to nothing,\" Baillie was able to\nwrite early in May 1644. This was the general impression. True, in\nrecognition of his bravery, a patent for his elevation to the Marquisate\nhad been made out at Oxford. It was fitting that, if ever he did come to\nrepresent the King in Scotland, it should be a Marquis of Montrose that\nshould contend with the Marquis of Argyle. But would there ever be such a\ncontest? Few can have entertained the belief besides Montrose himself.\nFor some weeks after his retreat into England we hear of him as mingling\nactively in the war in Northumberland and Durham, taking and pillaging\nMorpeth, and the like; then we hear of him hurrying southwards to join\nPrince Rupert in his effort to raise the siege of York, but only to meet\nthe Prince beaten and fugitive from the field of Marston Moor (July 2).\n\"Give me a thousand of your horse; only give me a thousand of your horse\nfor another raid into Scotland,\" was the burthen of his talk with Rupert.\nThe Prince promised, and then retracted. Though a younger man than\nMontrose, he had more faith in what he could himself do with a thousand\nhorse in England than in what any Scot could do with them in Scotland.\nAnd so, though Lord Digby, Endymion Porter, and some others still spoke\nmanfully for Montrose with the King, he is found back in Carlisle, late\nin July, with only his little band of Scottish adherents. Then ensued the\nstrangest freak of all. With this very band he set out again distinctly\nsouthwards, as if all thought of entering Scotland were over, and nothing\nremained but to rejoin the King at Oxford. The band, however, had been\nbut two days on their march when they found that their leader had given\nthem the slip, and left the duty of taking them to Oxford to his second,\nLord Ogilvy. He himself had returned to Carlisle. It was barely known\nthat he had done so when he mysteriously disappeared (Aug. 18). No one,\nexcept Lord Aboyne, whom he had left in Carlisle with certain secret\ninstructions, could tell what had become of him; but it was afterwards\nremembered, like the beginning of a novel, that on such an autumn day\nthree persons had been seen riding from Carlisle towards the Scottish\nborder, two gentlemen in front, one of whom had a club foot, and the\nthird behind, as their groom, mounted on a sorry nag, and leading a spare\nhorse. The two gentlemen were a Colonel Sibbald and a lame Major Rollo,\nintimate friends of Montrose, and the supposed groom was Montrose\nhimself. [Footnote: Wishart, 56-64; Napier 396-413; Rushworth, V. 928]\n\nThere was a distinct cause for Montrose's entry into Scotland in this\nfurtive manner. The Scottish Parliament (a regular Parliament, and not an\ninformal Convention of Estates like that of the previous year) had met on\nthe 4th of June, with Argyle, Loudoun, and twenty other Peers, more than\nforty lesser Barons, and about the same number of Commissioners from\nBurghs, present at the opening. On the 12th of July, when they were\napproaching the end of their business, there had been this occurrence:\n\"Five several letters read in the House from divers persons of credit,\nshowing of the arrival of fifteen ships, with 3,000 rebels in them, from\nIreland, in the West Isles, with the Earl of Antrim's brother, and the\nsons of Coll Kittoch, and desiring the States with all expedition to send\nthe Marquis of Argyle there by land, with some ships likewise by sea, and\npowder and ammunition.\" On subsequent days there were corrections of this\nintelligence, bringing it nearer to the exact fact. That fact was that\nAntrim's invasion of Scotland, arranged by him with the King and Montrose\nat Oxford six months before, had at last come to pass, not indeed in the\nshape of that full Irish army with Antrim himself in command which had\nbeen promised, but in the shape of a miscellany of about 2,000 Irish and\nScoto-Irish who had landed at Ardnamurchan in the north of Argyleshire\nunder the command of a redoubtable vassal of Antrim's, called (and here,\nfor Miltonic reasons, the name must be given in full) Alastair Mac\nCholla-Chiotach, Mhic-Ghiollesbuig, Mhic-Alastair, Mhic-Eoin Chathanaich,\n_i.e._ Alexander, son of Coll the Left-Handed, son of Gillespie, son\nof Alexander, son of John Cathanach. This long-named Celt was already\npretty well known in Scotland by one or other of the abbreviations of his\nname, such as Mac-Coll Mac-Gillespie, or Alaster Mac-Colkittoch, or\nAlexander Macdonald the younger of Colonsay. His father, Alexander\nMacdonald the elder, was a chief of the Scottish Island of Colonsay, off\nthe Argyleshire coast, but nearly related by blood to the Earl of Antrim,\nprofessing himself therefore of the same race, kin, and religion as the\nIrish Macdonnells, and sharing their ancient grudge against the whole\nrace of the Campbells. He had the personal peculiarity of being\nambidexter, or able to wield his claymore with his left hand as well as\nwith his right; and hence his Gaelic name of Coll Kittoch, or Coll the\nLeft-Handed. The peculiarity having been transmitted to his son Alaster,\nit was not uncommon to distinguish the two as old Colkittoch and young\nColkittoch. The old gentleman had for some time been in durance in\nEdinburgh; but his sons had remained at large, and Alaster had been\nrecently figuring in Antrim's train in Ulster, and acting for Antrim\namong the Irish rebels, with great repute for his bravery, and his huge\nstature and strength. Not inclined at the last moment for the command of\nthe Scottish expedition himself, Antrim had done his best by sending this\ngigantic kinsman as his substitute. It was certainly but a small force,\nand most raggedly equipped, that he led; but, thrown as it was into the\nterritories of King Campbell, and with a hundred miles of Highland glens\nbefore it, all rife and explosive with hatred to the name of Campbell, it\nmight work havoc enough. So the Parliament in Edinburgh thought. On the\n16th of July, or four days after the first rumour of the invasion, the\nMarquis of Argyle received a full commission of military command against\nthe invaders, and left Edinburgh for the region of danger. [Footnote:\nBalfour's Annals, III. 215 _et seq._; Napier, 416-7 and 504; Wishart, 67;\nBaillie, II. 217; Rushworth, V. 928. There is a curious, but confused,\nstory of the wrongs which old Colkittoch and his family had received at\nthe hands of Argyle in Walker's Hist. of Independency (1660), Appendix to\nPart I. pp. 3-6.]\n\nThis was what had caused Montrose's inexplicable restlessness about\nCarlisle through the latter part of July, and at length, on the 18th of\nAugust, his desperate plunge into Scotland in disguise, and with only two\ncompanions. By what route the three adventurers rode one does not know;\nbut on the 22nd of August they turned up at the house of Tullibelton in\nPerthshire, near Dunkeld. It was the seat of Patrick Graham of\nInchbrakie, a kinsman of Montrose. Received here by Inchbrakie himself,\nand by his eldest son, Patrick Graham the younger, locally known as\n\"Black Pate,\" Montrose lay close for a few days, anxiously collecting\nnews. As respected Scottish Royalism, the reports were gloomy. The Argyle\npower everywhere was vigilant and strong; no great house, Lowland or\nHighland, was in a mood to be roused. Only among the neighbouring\nHighlanders of Athole, or North Perthshire, known to Montrose from his\nchildhood and knowing him well, could he hope to raise the semblance of a\nforce. All this was discouraging, and made Montrose more eager for\nintelligence as to the whereabouts of Colkittoch and his Irish. He had\nnot long to wait. Since their landing at Ardnamurchan (July 8) they had\nbeen making the most of their time in a wild way, roving hither and\nthither, ravaging and destroying, taking this or that stronghold, sending\nout the fiery cross and messages of defiance to Covenanting Committees.\nThey had come inland at length as far as Badenoch, the wildest part of\nInverness-shire, immediately north of Athole and the Grampians; and there\nwere reasons now why they should be inquiring as anxiously after Montrose\nas he was inquiring after them. For their condition was becoming\ndesperate. The great clan of the Seaforth Mackenzies, north of\nArgyleshire, from whom they had expected assistance, had failed to give\nany; other clans refused to be led by a mere Macdonald of Colonsay; the\nfleet of vessels in which they had landed had been seized and burnt by\nArgyle; that nobleman was following them; and orders were out for a\ngeneral arming for the Covenant north of the Grampians. Accordingly,\nColkittoch, imagining that Montrose was still in Carlisle, had written to\nhim there. The rude postal habits of those parts being such that the\nletters came into the hands of Black Pate, Montrose received them sooner\nthan the writer could have hoped. His reply, dated from Carlisle by way\nof precaution, was an order to Macdonald to descend at once into Athole\nand make his rendezvous, if possible, at Castle Blair. [Footnote: Napier,\n413-419; Wishart, 64-68; Rushworth, V. 928-9. I have had the satisfaction\nof rectifying a portion of the tale of Montrose's romantic adventure into\nScotland as it is told by his biographers. Wishart distinctly makes him\nfirst hear of the landing of Colkittoch and his Irish _after_ he had\ncome into Scotland and was hiding about Tullibelton; and Mr. Napier's\nnarrative conveys the same impression. But the idea is absurd. As the\nlanding of Colkittoch and his Irish at Ardnamurchan on the 8th of July\nwas known in Edinburgh, and discussed in the Parliament there, on the\n12th of the same month, it must have been well known about Tullibelton at\nthat time too, or six weeks before Montrose appeared there; and the news\nmust have reached Montrose about July 13 or 14, when he was yet in the\nNorth of England, and must have been, in fact, the cause of his\nresolution to make his way into the Highlands. It is possible, of course,\nthat, after Montrose came to Tullibelton, he may have been uncertain for\na time of Colkittoch's exact whereabouts; and there is a seemingly\nauthentic anecdote to the effect that Montrose himself related that he\nfirst learnt that Colkittoch had broken into Athole by meeting in the\nwood of Methven a man running with a fiery cross to carry the dreadful\nnews to Perth. A misconstruction of this anecdote, with inattention to\ndates, has led to the larger, and intrinsically absurd, hypothesis.]\n\nA walk of twenty miles over the hills brought Montrose and Black Pate to\nthe rendezvous. They found there a mixed crowd, comprising, on the one\nhand, the Irish, with a few Badenoch Highlanders, whom Colkittoch had\nbrought with him, and on the other, the native Athole Highlanders,\nlooking askance at the intruders, and, though willing enough to rise for\nKing Charles, having no respect for an outlandish Macdonald from\nColonsay. The appearance of Montrose put an end to the discord. He had\nput on the Highland dress, and looked \"a very pretty man,\" fair-haired,\nwith a slightly aquiline nose, grey eyes, a brow of unusual breadth, and\nan air of courage and command; but the Irish, noting his rather small\nstature, could hardly believe that he was the great Marquis. The wild joy\nof the Athole-men and the Badenoch-men on recognising him removed their\ndoubts; and, amid shouts from both sides, Montrose assumed his place as\nLieutenant-general for his Majesty, adopting the tall Macdonald as his\nMajor-general. The standard was raised with all ceremony on a spot near\nCastle Blair, now marked by a cairn; and, when all was ready, the troops\nwere reviewed. They consisted of about 1,200 Irish, with a following of\nwomen and children, and 1,100 Scottish Highlanders (Stuarts, Robertsons,\nGordons, &c.). Artillery there was none; three old hacks, one of them for\nthe lame Major Rollo, were the cavalry; money there was none; arms and\nammunition were, for the most part, to seek, even clothing was miserably\ndeficient. So began Montrose's little epic of 1644-5. He was then thirty-\ntwo years of age. [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 928-9; Napier, 419-422.]\n\nIt was the track of Mars turned into a meteor. Marches and battles,\nbattles and marches: this phrase is the summary of the story. Flash the\nphrase through the Highlands, flash it through the Lowlands, for a whole\nyear, and you have an epitome of this epic of Montrose and his triumph.\nOur account of the details shall be as rapid as possible.\n\nBreaking forth southwards from Athole, to avoid Argyle's advance from the\nwest, Montrose crossed the Tay, and made for Perth. Having been joined by\nhis kinsman, Lord Kilpont, eldest son of the Earl of Menteith, Sir John\nDrummond, son of the Earl of Perth, and David Drummond of Maderty, he\ngave battle, at Tippermuir, near Perth, on Sunday, Sept. 1, 1644, to a\nCovenanting force of some 6,000 men, gathered from the shires of Perth\nand Fife, and under the command of Lord Elcho, the Earl of Tullibardine,\nLord Drummond and Sir John Scot. The rout of the Covenanters, horse and\nfoot, was complete. They were chased six miles from the field, and about\n2,000 were slain. Perth then lying open for the victors, Montrose entered\nthat town, and lie remained there three days, issuing proclamations,\nexacting fines and supplies, and joined by two of his sons, the elder of\nwhom, Lord Graham, a boy of fourteen, accompanied him from that time. But\nmovement was Montrose's policy. Recrossing the Tay, and passing north-\neastwards, he came in sight of Dundee; but, finding that town too well\ndefended, he pushed on, still north-east, joined on the way by the Earl\nof Airlie, and his two younger sons, Sir Thomas and Sir David Ogilvy, and\ncame down upon Aberdeen. That city, too familiar with him in the days of\nhis Covenanting zeal, was now to experience the tender mercies of his\nRoyalism. Defeating (Sept. 12) a Covenanting force of Forbeses, Erasers,\nand others, who opposed him at the Bridge of Dee under Lord Burleigh and\nLord Lewis Gordon (third son of the Marquis of Huntley, and for the time\non this side), he let his Irish and Highlanders loose for four days on\nthe doomed Aberdonians. Then, as Argyle was approaching with a\nconsiderable army, and no reinforcement was forthcoming from\nAberdeenshire and Banffshire, he withdrew west, into the country of the\nupper Spey. Thence again, on finding himself hopelessly confronted by a\nmuster of Covenanters from the northern shires of Moray, Ross,\nSutherland, and Caithness, he plunged, for safety, into the wilder\nHighlands of Badenoch, and so back into Athole (Oct. 4). Not, however, to\nremain there! Again he burst out on Angus and Aberdeenshire, which Argyle\nhad meanwhile been traversing on behalf of the Covenant. For a week or\ntwo, having meanwhile despatched his Major-general, Macdonald, into the\nWest Highlands to fetch what recruits he could from the clans there, he\nmade it his strategy, with the small force he had left, to worry and\nfatigue Argyle and his fellow-commander the Earl of Lothian, avoiding\nclose quarters with their bigger force, and their cannon and horse. Once\nat Eyvie Castle, which he had taken October 14, they did surprise him;\nbut, with his 1,500 foot and 50 horse, he made a gallant stand, so that\nthey, with their 2,500 foot and 1,500 horse, had no advantage. As much of\nthis time as he could give was spent by him in the Marquis of Huntley's\nown domain of Strathbogie, still in hopes of rousing the Gordons. At\nlength, winter coming on, and the distracted Gordons refusing to be\nroused, and Argyle's policy of private dealings with Montrose's\nsupporters individually having begun to tell, so that even Colonel\nSibbald had deserted him, and few people of consequence remained to face\nthe winter with him except the faithful Ogilvies, Montrose, after a\ncouncil of war held in Strathbogie, retired from that district (Nov. 6),\nagain by Speyside, into savage Badenoch. But here, ere he could take any\nrest, important news reached him. Argyle had certainly sent his horse\ninto winter-quarters; but he had gone with all his foot to Dunkeld,\nwhence the more easily to ply his craft of seduction among Montrose's\ntrustiest adherents, the men of Athole. No sooner had Montrose heard this\nthan, clambering the Grampian barrier between Badenoch and Athole, he\nbrought his followers, by one tremendous night-march of twenty-four\nmiles, over rocks and snow, down into the region in peril. He was yet\nsixteen miles off, when Argyle, bidding his men shift for themselves,\nfled from Dunkeld, and took refuge with the Covenanting garrison of\nPerth, on his way to Edinburgh. [Footnote: Wishart, 71-105; Napier, 426-\n469; Rushworth, V. 929-931.]\n\nArgyle's soldiering, it had been ascertained, was not the best part of\nhim. He knew this himself, and, on his return to Edinburgh in the end of\nNovember, insisted on resigning his military commission. It was difficult\nto find another commander-in-chief; but at length it was agreed that the\nfit man was William Baillie, the Lieutenant-general, under Leven, of the\nauxiliary Scottish army in England. He had recently been in Edinburgh on\nprivate business, and was on his way back to England when he was recalled\nby express. Not without some misgivings, arising from his fear that\nArgyle would still have the supreme military direction, he accepted the\ncommission. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 262: also at 416 _et seq._,\nwhere there is an interesting letter of General Baillie to his namesake\nand kinsman.] Then Argyle went off to his own castle of Inverary, there\nto spend the rest of the winter.\n\nIt was time that Argyle should be at Inverary. Montrose, left in assured\npossession of his favourite Athole, had been rejoined by his Major-\ngeneral, Mac-Colkittoch, bringing reinforcements from the Highland clans.\nThere was the chief of Clanranald with 500 of his men; there were\nMacdonalds from Glengarry, Glencoe, and Lochaber; there were Stuarts of\nAppin, Farquharsons of Braemar, Camerons from Lochiel, Macleans,\nMacphersons, Macgregors. What was winter, snow more or less upon the\nmountains, ice more or less upon the lakes, to those hardy Highlanders?\nWinter was their idlest time; they were ready for any enterprise: only\nwhat was it to be? On this point Montrose held a council of war. \"Let us\nwinter in the country of King Campbell,\" was what the Macdonalds and\nother clans muttered among themselves; and Montrose, who would have\npreferred a descent into the Lowlands, listened and pondered. \"But how\nshall we get there, gentlemen? It is a far cry to Lochawe, as you know;\nhow shall we find the passes, and where shall we find food as we go?\"\nThen up spoke Angus MacCailen Duibh, a warrior from dark Glencoe. \"I\nknow,\" he said, \"every farm in the land of MacCallummore; and, if tight\nhouses, fat cattle, and clean water will suffice, you need never want.\"\nAnd so it was resolved, and done. From Athole, south-west, over hills and\nthrough glens, the Highland host moves, finding its way somehow--first\nthrough the braes of the hostile Menzieses, burning and ravaging; then to\nLoch Tay (Dec. 11); and so through the lands of the Breadalbane\nCampbells, and the Glenorchy Campbells, still burning and ravaging, till\nthey break into the fastnesses of the Campbell in chief, range over\nLorne, and assault Inverary. Argyle, amazed by the thunder of their\ncoming, had escaped in a fishing-boat and made his way to his other seat\nof Roseneath on the Clyde; but Inverary and all Argyleshire round it lay\nat Montrose's mercy. And, from the middle of December 1644 to about the\n18th of the January following, his motley Highland and Irish host ranged\nthrough the doomed domain in three brigades, dancing diabolic reels in\ntheir glee, and wreaking the most horrible vengeance. No one knows what\nthey did. One sees Inverary in flames, the smoke of burning huts and\nvillages for miles and miles, butcheries of the native men wherever they\nare found, drivings-in of cattle, and scattered pilgrimages of wailing\nwomen and children, with relics of the men amongst them, fugitive and\nstarving in side glens and corries, where even now the tourist shudders\nat the wildness. [Footnote: Rushworth, V. 930, 931; Baillie, II. 262;\nWishart, 106-108; Napier, 470-473.]\n\nThe Scottish Parliament had reassembled for another Session on the 7th of\nJanuary, without Argyle in it, but in constant communication with him;\nand about the same time General Baillie and a Committee of the Estates\nhad gone to consult with Argyle at Roseneath. About the middle of the\nmonth they became aware that Montrose was on the move northward, out of\nArglyeshire by Lorne and Lochaber in the direction of the great Albyn\nchain of lakes, now the track of the Caledonian Canal. They knew,\nmoreover, that directly ahead of him in this direction there was a strong\nCovenanting power, under the Earl of Seaforth, and consisting of the\ngarrison of Inverness and recruits from Moray, Ross, Sutherland and\nCaithness. Evidently it was Montrose's intention to meet this power and\ndispose of it, so as to have the country north of the Grampians wholly\nhis own. In these circumstances the arrangements of Baillie and Argyle\nseemed to be the best possible. Baillie, instead of going on to\nArgyleshire, as he had intended, went to Perth, to hold that central part\nof Scotland with a sufficient force; and Argyle, with 1,100 seasoned\ninfantry, lent him by Baillie, and with what gathering of his own broken\nmen he could raise in addition, went after Montrose, to follow him along\nthe chain of lakes. Of this army Argyle was to be nominally commander;\nbut he had wisely brought over from Ireland his kinsman Sir Duncan\nCampbell of Auchinbreck, a brave and experienced soldier, to command\nunder him. The expectation was that between Seaforth, coming in strength\nfrom the north end of the trough of lakes, and Argyle, advancing\ncautiously from the south end, Montrose would be caught and crushed, or\nthat, if he did break eastward out of the trough between them, he would\nfall into the meshes of Baillie from his centre at Perth. [Footnote:\nBalfour's Annals, III. 246 _et seq._; Wishart, 109, 110; Napier,\n475-477; and General Baillie's letter to his cousin Robert Baillie, in\nBaillie's Letters, II. 417t.]\n\nThen it was that Montrose showed the world what is believed to have been\nhis most daring feat of generalship. On the 29th and 30th of January he\nwas at Kilchuilem on Loch Ness near what is now Fort Augustus. Thence it\nwas his purpose to advance north to meet Seaforth, when he received news\nthat Argyle was thirty miles behind him in Lochaber, at the old cattle of\nInverlochy, at the foot of Ben Nevis, near what is now Fort William. He\nsaw at once the device. Argyle did not mean to fight him directly, but to\nkeep dogging him at a distance and then to come up when he should be\nengaged with Seaforth! Instantly, therefore, he resolved not to go on\nagainst Seaforth, but to turn back, and fall upon Argyle first by\nhimself. Setting a guard on the beaten road along the lakes, to prevent\ncommunication with Argyle, he ventured a march, where no march had ever\nbeen before, or could have been supposed possible, up the rugged bed of\nthe Tarf, and so, by the spurs of big Carryarick and the secrets of the\ninfant Spey, now in bog and wet, now knee-deep in snow, over the\nmountains of Lochaber. It was on Friday the 31st of January that he began\nthe march, and early in the evening of Saturday the 1st of February they\nwere down at the foot of Ben Nevis and close on Inverlochy. It was a\nfrosty moonlight night; skirmishing went on all through the night; and\nArgyle, with the gentlemen of the Committee of Estates who were with him,\nwent on board his barge on Loch Eil. Thence, at a little distance from\nthe shore, he beheld the battle of the next day, Sunday, Feb. 2. It was\nthe greatest disaster that had ever befallen the House of Argyle. There\nwere slain in all about 1,500 of Argyle's men, including brave\nAuchinbreck and many other important Campbells, while on Montrose's side\nthe loss was but of a few killed, and only Sir Thomas Ogilvy, among his\nimportant followers, wounded mortally. And so, with a heavy heart, Argyle\nsailed away in his barge, wondering why God had not made him a warrior as\nwell as a statesman; and Montrose sat down to write a letter to the King.\n\"Give me leave,\" he said, \"after I have reduced this country to your\nMajesty's obedience and conquered from Dan to Beersheba, to say to your\nMajesty then, as David's general did to his master, 'Come thou thyself,\nlest this country be called by _my_ name.'\" [Footnote: Rushworth, V.\n931-2; Wishart, 110-114; Napier, 477-484. Mr. Napier winds up his account\nof the Battle of Inverlochy by quoting entire (484-488) Montrose's\nsupposed letter to the King on the occasion. The letter, he says, was\nfirst \"obscurely printed by Dr. Welwood in the Appendix to his Memoirs,\n1699;\" but he adds an extract from the _Analecta_ of the Scottish\nantiquary Wodrow, to the effect that Wodrow had been told, by a person\nwho had seen the original letter, that Welwood's copy was a \"vitiated\"\none. No other copy having been found among the Montrose Papers, Mr.\nNapier has had to reprint Welwood's; which he does with great ceremony,\nthinking it a splendid Montrose document. It certainly is a striking\ndocument; but I cannot help suspecting the genuineness of it as it now\nstands. There are anachronisms and other slips in it, suggesting\nposthumous alteration and concoction.]----The Battle of Inverlochy was\nmuch heard of throughout England, where Montrose and his exploits had\nbeen for some time the theme of public talk. The King was greatly elated;\nand it was supposed that the new hopes from Scotland excited in his mind\nby the success of Montrose had some effect in inducing him to break off\nthe Treaty of Uxbridge then in progress. The Treaty was certainly broken\noff just at this time (Feb. 24, 1644-5).\n\nOn Wednesday the 12th of February, ten days after Inverlochy, the Marquis\nof Argyle was in Edinburgh, and presented himself in the Parliament,\n\"having his left arm tied up in a scarf.\" The day before, the Parliament\nhad unanimously found \"James, Earl of Montrose\" (his title of Marquis not\nrecognised) and nineteen of his chief adherents, including the Earl of\nAirlie, Viscount Aboyne, Alexander Macdonald MacColkittoch, and Patrick\nGraham younger of Inchbrakie, \"guilty of high treason,\" and had\nforfaulted \"their lives, honours, titles, lands and goods;\" also ordering\nthe Lyon King of Arms, Sir James Balfour, to \"delete the arms of the\ntraitors out of his registers and books of honour.\" The General Assembly\nof the Kirk was then also in session, rather out of its usual season\n(Jan. 22-Feb. 13), on account of important ecclesiastical business\narising out of the proceedings of the Westminster Assembly; and Baillie\nand Gillespie had come from London to be present. Of course, the\nrebellion of Montrose was much discussed by that reverend body; and, in a\ndocument penned by Mr. Gillespie, and put forth by the Assembly (Feb.\n12), there was this passage:--\"In the meantime, the hellish crew, under\nthe conduct of the excommunicate and forfaulted Earl of Montrose, and of\nAlaster Macdonald, a Papist and an outlaw, doth exercise such barbarous,\nunnatural, horrid, and unheard-of cruelty as is beyond expression.\" But,\nthough Parliament might condemn and proscribe Montrose, and the General\nAssembly might denounce him, the real business of bringing him to account\nrested now with General Baillie. To assist Baillie, however, there was\ncoming from England another military Scot, to act as Major-general of\nhorse. He was no other than the renegade Urry, or Hurry, who had deserted\nfrom the English Parliament to the King, and been the occasion of\nHampden's death in June 1643 (Vol. II. 470-1). Though the King had made\nhim a knight, he had again changed sides. [Footnote: Sir James Balfour's\nAnnals, III. 270-273; Baillie's Letters II. 258-263; Acts of General\nAssembly of the Church of Scotland (edition of 1843), p. 126.]\n\nAfter Inverlochy, Montrose had resumed his northward march along the\nchain of lakes to meet Seaforth. That nobleman, however, had been cured\nof any desire to encounter him. Feb. 19, Elgin surrendered to Montrose;\nand here, or at Gordon Castle, not far off, he remained some little time,\nissuing Royalist proclamations, and receiving new adherents, among whom\nwere Lord Gordon and his younger brother Lord Lewis Gordon, nay Seaforth\nhimself! Lord Gordon remained faithful; Lord Lewis Gordon was more\nslippery; Seaforth had yielded on compulsion, and was to break away as\nsoon as he could. At Gordon Castle Montrose's eldest son and heir, who\nhad been with him through so many hardships, died after a short illness.\nHardly had the poor boy been buried in Bellie church near, when his\nfather, now reinforced by the Gordons, so that he could count 2,000 foot\nand 200 horse, was on his \"fiery progress\" south through Aberdeenshire,\n\"as if to challenge Generals Baillie and Urry.\" March 9, he was at\nAberdeen; March 21, he was at Stonehaven and Dunnottar in\nKincardineshire, burning the burgh and its shipping, and the barns of\nEarl Marischal's tenants under the Earl's own eyes. Baillie and Urry kept\nzig-zagging in watch of him; but, though he skirmished with Urry's horse\nand tried again and again to tempt on battle, they waited their own time.\nOnce they nearly had him. He had pushed on farther south through\nForfarshire, and then west into Perthshire, meaning to cross the Tay at\nDunkeld on his way to the Forth and the Lowlands. The desertion of Lord\nLewis Gordon at this point with most of the Gordon horse obliged him to\ndesist from this southward march; but, having been informed that Baillie\nand Urry had crossed the Tay in advance of him to guard the Forth\ncountry, he conceived that he would have time for the capture of Dundee,\nand that the sack of so Covenanting a town would be a consolation to him\nfor his forced return northwards. Starting from Dunkeld at midnight,\nApril 3, he was at Dundee next morning, took the town by storm, and set\nfire to it in several places. But lo! while his Highlanders and Irish\nwere ranging through the town, still burning and plundering, and most of\nthem madly drunk with the liquors they had found, Baillie and Urry, who\nhad not crossed the Tay after all, were not a mile off. How Montrose got\nhis drunken Highlanders and Irish together out of the burning town is an\ninexplicable mystery; but he did accomplish it somehow, and whirled them,\nby one of his tremendous marches, of three days and two nights, himself\nin the rear and the enemy's horse close in pursuit all the while, past\nArbroath, and so, by dexterous choice of roads and passes, in among the\nprotecting Grampians. \"Truly,\" says his biographer Wishart, \"I have often\nheard those who were esteemed the most experienced officers, not in\nBritain only, but in France and Germany, prefer this march of Montrose to\nhis most celebrated victories.\" [Footnote: Wishart, 115-127; Rushworth,\nVI. 2.8; Napier, 490-497.]\n\nExcept Inverlochy, his most celebrated victories were yet to come. There\nwere to be three of them. The first was the Battle of Auldearn in\nNairnshire (May 9, 1645), in which Montrose's tactics and MacColl's mad\nbravery beat to pieces the regular soldier-craft of Urry, assisted by the\nEarls of Seaforth, Sutherland, and Findlater. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI.\n229; Wishart, 128-138; Napier, 500-506.] The second was the Battle of\nAlford in Aberdeenshire (July 2, 1645), where Montrose defeated Baillie\nhimself. MacColkittoch was not present in this battle, the commanders in\nwhich, under Montrose, were Lord Gordon, Nathaniel Gordon, Lord Aboyne,\nSir William Rollo, Glengarry, and Drummond of Balloch, while Baillie was\nassisted in chief by the Earl of Balcarres. Montrose's loss was trifling\nin comparison with Baillie's, but it included the death of Lord Gordon\n[Footnote: Wishart, 133-152; Napier, 526-536]. To the Covenanting\nGovernment the defeat of Alford was most serious. The Parliament, which\nhad adjourned at Edinburgh on the 8th of March, was convoked afresh for\ntwo short sessions, at Stirling (July 8-July 11), and at Perth (July 24-\nAug. 5); and the chief business of these sessions was the consideration\nof ways for retrieving Baillie's defeat and prosecuting the war\n[Footnote: Balfour's Annals, III. 292 307.]. Baillie, chagrined at the\nloss of his military reputation, wanted to resign, throwing the blame of\nhis disaster partly on Urry for his selfish carelessness, and partly on\nthe great Covenanting noblemen, who had disposed of troops hither and\nthither, exchanged prisoners, and granted passes, without regard to his\ninterests or orders. The Parliament, having exonerated and thanked him,\npersuaded him at first to retain his commission, appointing a new\nCommittee of Estates, with Argyle at their head, to accompany and advise\nhim (July 10). Not even so was Baillie comfortable; and on the 4th of\nAugust he definitively gave in his resignation. It was then accepted,\nwith new exoneration and thanks, but with a request that, to allow time\nfor the arrival of his intended successor (Major-general Monro) from\nIreland, he would continue in the command a little longer. Goodnaturedly\nhe did so, but unfortunately for himself. He was in the eleventh day of\nhis anomalous position of command and no-command, when he received from\nMontrose another thrashing, more fatal than the last, in the Battle of\nKilsyth in Stirlingshire (Aug. 15, 1645). On both sides there had been\ngreat exertion in recruiting, so that the numbers in this battle were,\naccording to the estimate of Montrose's biographers, 6,000 foot and 1,000\nhorse under Baillie against 4,400 foot and 500 horse under Montrose.\nBaillie would not have allowed this estimate, for he complains that the\nrecruiting for him had been bad. Anyhow, his defeat was crushing. In\nvarious posts of command under Montrose were the aged Earl of Airlie,\nViscount Aboyne, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Maclean of Duart, the chief of\nClanranald, and MacColkittoch with his Irish. Acting under Baillie, or,\nas he would have us infer, above him and in spite of him, were Argyle,\nthe Earls of Crawfurd and Tullibardine, Lords Elcho, Burleigh, and\nBalcarres, Major-general Holborn, and others. Before the battle,\nMontrose, in freak or for some deeper reason, made all his army, both\nfoot and horse, strip themselves, above the waist, to their shirts\n(which, with the majority, may have implied something ghastlier); and in\nthis style they fought. The battle was not long, the Macleans and\nClanranald Highlanders being conspicuous in beginning it, and the old\nEarl of Airlie and his Ogilvies in deciding it. But, after the battle,\nthere was a pursuit of the foe for fourteen miles, and the slaughter was\nsuch as to give rise to the tradition of thousands slain on Baillie's\nside against six men on Montrose's. Many prisoners were taken, but the\nchief nobles escaped by the swiftness of their horses. Argyle was one of\nthese. Carried by his horse to Queens-ferry, he got on board a ship in\nthe Firth of Forth (the third time, it was noted, of his saving himself\nin this fashion), sailed down the Firth into the open sea, and did not\ncome ashore till he was at Newcastle. [Footnote: Wishart, 162-171;\nNapier, 542-541. But see General Baillie's touching and instructive\nvindication of himself in three documents, printed in his cousin\nBaillie's Letters and Correspondence (II. 4l7-424). Baillie goes over the\nwhole of his unfortunate commandership against Montrose, from his meeting\nwith Argyle at Roseneath after Inverlochy (Jan. 1644-5) to the Battle of\nKilsyth (Aug. 15. 1645); and the pervading complaint is that he had never\nbeen allowed to be real commander-in-chief, but had been thwarted and\noverridden by Argyle, Committees of Estates, and conceited individual\nnobles.]\n\nThe Battle of Kilsyth placed all Scotland at Montrose's feet. He entered\nClydesdale, took the city of Glasgow under his protection, set up his\nhead-quarters at Bothwell, and thence issued his commands far and wide.\nEdinburgh sent in its submission on summons; other towns sent in their\nsubmissions; nobles and lairds that had hitherto stood aloof gathered\nobsequiously round the victor; and friends and supporters, who had been\narrested and imprisoned on charges of complicity with him during his\nenterprise, found themselves released. Dearest among these to Montrose\nwere his relatives of the Merchiston and Keir connexion--the veteran Lord\nNapier, Montrose's brother-in-law and his Mentor from his youth; Sir\nGeorge Stirling of Keir, and his wife, Lord Napier's daughter; and\nseveral other nieces of Montrose, young ladies of the Napier house. In\nfact, so many persons of note from all quarters gathered round Montrose\nat Bothwell that his Leaguer there became a kind of Court. The great day\nat this Court was the 3rd of September, eighteen days after the victory\nof Kilsyth. On that day there was a grand review of the victorious army;\na new commission from the King, brought from Hereford by Sir Robert\nSpotswood, was produced and read, appointing Montrose Lord Lieutenant and\nCaptain-general of Scotland with those Viceregal powers which had till\nthen been nominally reserved for Prince Maurice; and, after a glowing\nspeech, in which Montrose praised his whole army, but especially his\nMajor-general, Alaster Macdonald MacColkittoch, he made it his first act\nof Viceroyalty to confer on that warrior the honour of knighthood. On the\nfollowing day proclamations were issued for the meeting of a Parliament\nat Glasgow on the 20th of October. Montrose then broke up his Leaguer, to\nobey certain instructions which had come from the King. These were that\nhe should plant himself in the Border shires, co-operating there with the\nEarls of Traquair, Hume, and Roxburgh, and other Royalists of those\nparts, so as to be ready to receive his Majesty himself emerging from\nEngland, or at least such an auxiliary force of English as Lord Digby\nshould be able to despatch. For Montrose's triumph in Scotland had been\nreported all through England and had altered the state and prospects of\nthe war there. Kilsyth (Aug. 15) had come as a considerable compensation\neven for Naseby (June 14) and the subsequent successes of the New Model.\nThe King's thoughts had turned to the North, and it had become his idea,\nand Digby's, that, if the successes of the New Model still continued, it\nwould be best for his Majesty to transfer his own presence out of England\nfor the time, joining himself to Montrose in Scotland. [Footnote:\nBaillie, II. 313-314; Rushworth, VI. 231; Wishart, 190; Napier, 552-569.]\n\nIn obedience to his Majesty's instructions Montrose did advance to the\nBorder. For about a week he prowled about, on the outlook for the\nexpected aid from England, negotiating at the same time with some of the\nBorder lords, and in quest of others with whom to negotiate. On the 10th\nof September he was encamped at Kelso; thence he went to Jedburgh; and\nthence to Selkirk. [Footnote: Napier, 570-575.] While he is at this last\nplace, let us pause a little to ask an important question.\n\nWhat was Montrose's meaning? What real political intention lay under the\nmeteor-like track of his marches and battles? What did he want to make of\nScotland? This is not a needless question. For, as we know, Montrose was\nnot, after all, a mere military madman. He was an idealist in his way, a\npolitical theorist (Vol. II. 296-298). Fortunately, to assist our\nguesses, there is extant a manifesto drawn up under Montrose's dictation\nat that very moment of his triumph at which we have now arrived. The\ndocument is in the handwriting of Lord Napier, his brother-in-law and\nclosest adviser, and consists of some very small sheets of paper, in\nNapier's minutest autograph, as if it had been drawn up where writing\nmaterials were scarce. It was certainly written after Kilsyth, and in all\nprobability at one of Montrose's halts on the Border. In short, it was\nthat vindication of himself and declaration of his policy which Montrose\nmeant to publish in anticipation of the meeting of a Scottish Parliament\nat Glasgow which he had summoned for the 20th of October.\n\nThe document is vague, and much of it is evidently a special pleading\naddressed to those who remembered that Montrose had formerly been an\nenthusiastic Covenanter Still there are interesting points in it. His\ndefence is that it was not _he_ that had swerved from the original\nScottish Covenant of 1638. He had thoroughly approved of that Covenant,\nand had gone on with Argyle and the rest of the Covenanters, perhaps\n\"giving way to more than was warrantable,\" till their deviation from the\ntrue purposes of the Covenant had passed all legal hounds. He had seen\nthis to be the ease at the time of the Treaty of Ripon at the conclusion\nof the Second Bishops' War; and at that point he had left them, or rather\nthey had finally parted from him (Oct. 1640). He had since then gone on\nin perfect consistency with his former self; and they had gone on, in\ntheir pretended Parliaments and pretended General Assemblies, from bad to\nworse. The State was in the grasp of a few usurpers at the centre and\ntheir committees through the shires; finings and imprisonings of the\nloyal were universal; and all true liberty for the subject was gone. The\nChurch too had passed into confusion, \"the Brownistical faction\"\noverruling it, joined \"in league with the Brownists and Independents in\nEngland, to the prejudice of Religion.\" [Footnote: Several times in the\ncourse of the document this accusation of Brownism or Independency comes\nin--an absurdly selected accusation at the very time when the most patent\nfact about the Presbyterian Kirk of Scotland was its deadly antagonism to\nIndependency and all forms of Brownism. Montrose and Napier were probably\na little behind-hand in their knowledge of English Ecclesiastical\nHistory, and merely clutched  \"Brownism\" as a convenient phrase of\nreproach, much sanctioned by the King in his English proclamations\nagainst Parliament.] So much for a review of his past acts; but what were\nhis _present_ grounds? Here one listens with curiosity. One of his\n\"grounds\" he lays down definitely enough, and indeed with extraordinary\nand repeated emphasis. Let his countrymen be assured that he retained his\nhatred of Episcopacy and would never sanction its restoration in\nScotland! He would not, indeed, be for uprooting Episcopacy in England,\ninasmuch as the King and his loyal subjects of that country did not\ndesire it; nor was he pledged to that by any right construction of the\nScottish Covenant of 1638. That Covenant referred to Scotland only, and\nit was that Covenant, and not the later League and Covenant of 1643, that\nhe had signed. But he had not forgotten that the very cause of that\noriginal Scottish Covenant was the woe wrought by Prelacy in Scotland.\n\"It cannot be denied,\" says the document, \"neither ever shall be by us,\nthat this our nation was reduced to almost irreparable evil by the\nperverse practices of the sometime pretended Prelates; who, having abused\nlawful authority, did not only usurp to be lords over God's inheritance,\nbut also intruded themselves in the prime places of civil government,\nand, by their Court of High Commission, did so abandon themselves, to the\nprejudice of the Gospel, that the very quintessence of Popery was\npublicly preached by Arminians, and the life of the Gospel stolen away by\nenforcing on the Kirk a dead Service-book, the brood of the bowels of the\nWhore of Babel.\" For the defence, therefore, of genuine old Scottish\nPresbyterianism, he protests \"in God's sight\" he would be \"the first\nshould draw a sword.\" But a spurious Presbyterianism had been invented,\nand \"the outcasting of the locust\" had been the \"inbringing of the\ncaterpillar.\" As he abjured Episcopacy, so he thought the system that had\nbeen set up instead \"no less hurtful;\" wherefore, he concludes,\n\"resolving to eschew the extremities, and keep the middle way of our\nReformed Religion, we, by God's grace and assistance, shall endeavour to\nmaintain it with the hazard of our lives and fortunes, and it shall be no\nless dear to us than our own souls.\"--Allowing for the fact that\nMontrose, or Napier for him, must have considered it politic to\nconciliate the anti-Prelatic sentiment, we cannot but construe these\npassages into a positive statement that Montrose really was, and believed\nhimself to be, a moderate Presbyterian. His programme for Scotland, in\nfact, was Moderate Presbyterianism together with a restoration of the\nKing's prerogative. In this, of course, was implied the annihilation of\nevery relic of the Argyle-Hamilton machinery of government and the\nsubstitution of another machinery under the permanent Viceroyalty of the\nMarquis of Montrose. [Footnote: The document described and extracted from\nin the text is printed entire by Mr. Napier, who seems first to have\ndeciphered it (Appendix to Vol. I. of his Life of Montrose, pp. xliv.-\nliii.), and whose historical honesty in publishing it is the more to be\ncommended because it must have jarred on his own predilections about his\nhero. Many of Montrose's admirers still accept him in ignorance as a\nchampion and hero of high Episcopacy; and for these Mr. Napier's document\nmust be unwelcome news.]\n\nAh! how Fortune turns her wheel! This manifesto of Montrose was to remain\nin Lord Napier's pocket, not to be deciphered till our own time, and the\nParliament for which it was a preparation was never actually to meet.\n\nIn England there had been amazement and grief over the news of Montrose's\ntriumph. The Parliament had appointed Sept. 5 to be a day of public fast\nand prayer in all the churches on account of the calamity that had\nbefallen Scotland; and on that day the good Baillie, walking in London to\nand from church, was in the deepest despondency. Never, \"since William\nWallace's days,\" he wrote, had Scotland been in such a plight; and \"What\nmeans the Lord, so far against the expectation of the most clear-sighted,\nto humble us so low?\" But he adds a piece of news, \"On Tuesday was eight\ndays\" (_i.e._ Aug. 27), in consequence of letters from Scotland,\nDavid Leslie, the Major-general of Leven's Scottish army in England, had\ngone in haste from Nottingham towards Carlisle and Scotland, taking with\nhim 4,000 horse. This was the wisest thing that could have been done.\nDavid Leslie was the very best soldier the Scots had, better by far than\nLieutenant-general Baillie, whom Montrose had just extinguished, and\nbetter even than Monro, whom the Scottish Estates had resolved to bring\nfrom Ireland as Baillie's successor. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 313-315.]\n\nActually, on the 6th of September, Leslie passed the Tweed, with his\n4,000 Scottish horse from Leven's army, and some 600 foot he had added\nfrom the Scottish garrison of Newcastle. He and Montrose were, therefore,\nin the Border counties together, watching each other's movements, but\nLeslie watching Montrose's movements more keenly than Montrose watched\nLeslie's. Montrose does not seem to have known Leslie's full strength,\nand he was himself in the worst possible condition for an immediate\nencounter with it. It was the custom of the Highlanders in those days,\nwhen they had served for a certain time in war, to flock back to their\nhills for a fresh taste of home-life; and, unfortunately for Montrose,\nhis Highlanders had chosen to think the review at Bothwell a proper\nperiod at which to take leave. They had been encouraged in this, it is\nbelieved, by Colkittoch, who, having had the honorary captaincy-general\nof the clans bestowed upon him by Montrose in addition to knighthood, had\nprojected for himself, and for his old father and brothers, the private\nsatisfaction of a war all to themselves in the country of the Campbells.\nMontrose had submitted with what grace he could; and the Highlanders,\nwith some of the Irish among them, had marched off with promises of\nspeedy return. But, at the same critical moment, Viscount Aboyne,\nhitherto the most faithful of the Gordons, had \"taken a caprice,\" and\ngone off with his horse. He had been lured away, it was suspected, by his\nuncle Argyle, who had come back from his sea-voyage to Newcastle, and was\nbusy in Berwickshire. Then Montrose's negotiations with the Border lords\nhad come to nearly nothing, David Leslie's presence and Argyle's counter-\nnegotiations having had considerable influence. Finally, of the King\nhimself or the expected forces from England there was no appearance. It\nwas, therefore, but with a shabby little army of Irish and Lowland foot\nand a few horse that Montrose, with his group of most resolute friends--\nLord Napier, the Marquis of Douglas, the Earls of Airlie, Crawfurd, and\nHartfell, Lords Ogilvy, Erskine, and Fleming, Colonel Nathaniel Gordon,\nSir John Dalziel, Drummond of Balloch, Sir Robert Spotswood, Sir William\nRollo, Sir Philip Nisbet, the young master of Napier, and others--found\nhimself encamped, on the 12th of September, at Philiphaugh near Selkirk.\nHis intention was not to remain in the Border country any longer, but to\nreturn north and get back among his Grampian strongholds. But somehow his\nvigilance, when it was most needed, had deserted him. The morning of\nSaturday, Sept. 13, had risen dull, raw, and dark, with a thick grey fog\ncovering the ground; and Montrose, ill-served by his scouts, was at early\nbreakfast, when Leslie sprang upon him out of the fog, and in one brief\nhour finished his year of splendour. Montrose himself, the two Napiers,\nthe Marquis of Douglas, the Earls of Airlie and Crawfurd, with others,\ncut their way out and escaped; but many were made prisoners, and the\nplaces where the wretched Irish were shot down and buried in heaps, and\nthe tracks of the luckier fugitives for miles from Philiphaugh, are now\namong the doleful memories of the Braes of Yarrow. [Footnote: Rushworth,\nVI. 231-2; Wishart, 189-207; Napier, 557-580.  I have seen, in the\npossession of the Rev. Dr. David Aitken, Edinburgh, a square-shaped\nbottle of thick and pretty clear glass, which was one of several of the\nsame sort accidentally dug up some few years ago at Philiphaugh, in a\nplace where there were also many buried gunflints.  There were traces, I\nam told, from which it could be distinctly inferred that the bottles had\ncontained some kind of Hock or Rhenish wine; and the belief of the\nneighbourhood was that they had been part of Montrose's tent-stock, on\nthe morning when he was surprised by Leslie.]\n\nMontrose and his fellow-fugitives found their way back to their favourite\nAthole, and were not even yet absolutely in despair. The venerable\nNapier, indeed, had come to his journey's end. Worn out by fatigue, he\ndied in Athole, and was buried there. Montrose's wife died about the same\ntime in the eastern Lowlands, and Montrose, at some risk, was present at\nher funeral. To these bereavements there was added the indignant grief\ncaused by the vengeances taken by the restored Argyle Government upon\nthose of his chief adherents who had fallen into their hands. Sir William\nRollo (the same Major Rollo who had crossed the Border with Montrose in\nhis disguise), Sir Philip Nisbet, young Ogilvy of Innerquharity, and\nothers, were beheaded at Glasgow; and Colonel Nathaniel Gordon, Captain\nAndrew Guthrie, President Sir Robert Spotswood, and William Murray, the\nyoung brother of the Earl of Tullibardine, were afterwards executed at\nSt. Andrews--Lord Ogilvy, who had been condemned with these last, having\ncontrived to escape. The desire of retaliation for these deaths co-\noperating with his determination to make his Captaincy-general in\nScotland of some avail still for the King's cause, Montrose lurked on\nperseveringly in his Highland retirement, trying to organize another\nrising, and for this purpose appealing to MacColkittoch and every other\nlikely Highland chief, but above all to the Marquis of Huntley and his\nfickle Gordons. In vain! To all intents and purposes Montrose's\nCaptaincy-general in Scotland was over, and the Argyle supremacy was\nreestablished. All that could be said was that he was still at large in\nthe Highlands, and that, while he was thus at large, the Argyle\nGovernment could not reckon itself safe. And so for the present we leave\nhim, humming to himself, as one may fancy, a stanza of one of his own\nlyrics:--\n\n  \"The misty mounts, the smoking lake,\n    The rock's resounding echo,\n  The whistling winds, the woods that shake,\n    Shall all with me sing _Heigho_!\n  The tossing seas, the tumbling boats,\n    Tears dripping from each oar,\n  Shall tune with me their turtle notes:\n    'I'll never love thee more!'\"\n[Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 232; Wishart, 208-258; Napier, 581-630, with\nMontrose's Poems in Appendix to Vol. I.]\n\n\nFAG-END OF THE WAR IN ENGLAND: FLIGHT OF THE KING TO THE SCOTS.\n\nMontrose's defeat at Philiphaugh (Sept. 13, 1645) having relieved the\nEnglish Parliament from the awkwardness of the Royalist uprising in\nScotland while the New Model was crushing Royalism in England, and the\nstorming of Bristol by the New Model (Sept. 10) having just been added as\na most important incident in the process of the crushing, the war in\nEngland had reached its fag-end.\n\nThe West and the Southern Counties were still the immediate theatre of\naction for the New Model. Cromwell, fresh from his share with Fairfax in\nthe recent successes in Somersetshire, Gloucestershire, and Wilts, was\ndetached into Hants; and here, by his valour and skill, were accomplished\nthe surrender of Winchester (Oct. 8), and the storming of Basing House,\nthe magnificent mansion of the Marquis of Winchester, widower of that\nMarchioness on whom Milton had written his epitaph in 1631, but now again\nmarried (Oct. 14). Thus, by the middle of October, Royalism had been\ncompletely destroyed in Hants, as well as in Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset,\nand what relics of it remained in the south-west were cooped up in the\nextreme shires of Devon and Cornwall, whither the Prince of Wales had\nretired with Lord Hopton. Here they lingered through the winter.\n[Footnote: Chronological Table in Sprigge.]\n\nMeanwhile the King had been steadily losing ground in the Midlands and\nthroughout the rest of England. Not even after Philiphaugh had he given\nup all hopes of a junction with Montrose in Scotland; and a northward\nmovement, from Hereford through Wales, which he had begun before the news\nof that battle reached him, was still continued. He had got as far as\nWelbeck in Nottinghamshire (Oct. 13) when he was induced to turn back,\nonly sending 1,500 horse under Lord Digby and Sir Marmaduke Langdale to\nmake their way into Scotland if possible. Though defeated by the\nParliamentarians in Yorkshire, Digby and Langdale did get as far as the\nScottish border; but, finding farther progress hopeless, they left their\nmen to shift for themselves, and escaped to the Isle of Man, whence Digby\nwent to Dublin. The King himself had gone first to Newark, on the eastern\nborder of Nottinghamshire, which was one of the places yet garrisoned for\nhim; but, after a fortnight's stay there, he returned once more to his\nhead-quarters at Oxford (Nov. 5). Here he remained through the winter,\nholding his court as well as he could, issuing proclamations, and\nobserving the gradual closing in upon him of the Parliamentarian forces.\nThe position of the Scottish auxiliary army in particular had then become\nof considerable importance to him.--We have seen (_ant\u00e8_, p. 339)\nhow, in September, that army had raised the siege of Hereford, and had\nsulkily gone northward as far as Yorkshire, as if with the intention of\nleaving England altogether. There was some excuse for them in the state\nof Scotland at the time, where all the resources of the Argyle Government\nhad failed in the contest with Montrose; but not the less were the\nEnglish Parliamentarians out of humour with them. Angry messages had been\ninterchanged between the English Parliament and the Scottish military and\npolitical leaders; and a demand had been put forth by the Parliament that\nthe Scots should hand over into English keeping Carlisle and other\nnorthern towns where they had garrisons. At length, Montrose having been\nsuppressed by David Leslie's horse, and great exertions having been made\nby the Scottish Chancellor Loudoun to restore a good feeling between the\ntwo nations, Leven's army did come back out of Yorkshire, to undertake a\nduty which the English Parliament had been pressing upon it, as a\nsubstitute for its late employment at Hereford. This was the siege of\nNewark. About the 26th of November, 1645, or three weeks after the King\nhad left Newark to return to Oxford, the Scottish army sat down before\nNewark and began the siege. The direct distance between Oxford and Newark\nis about a hundred miles.--Through the winter, though the New Model had\nnot quite completed its work of victory in the South-west, the chief\nbusiness of the King at Oxford consisted in looking forward to the now\ninevitable issue, and thinking with which party of his enemies it would\nbe best to make his terms of final submission. Negotiations were actually\nopened between him and the Parliament, with offers on his part to come to\nLondon for a personal Treaty; and there was much discussion in Parliament\nover these offers. The King, however, being stubborn for his own terms,\nthe negotiations came to nothing; and by the end of January 1645-6 it was\nthe general rumour that he meant to baulk the Parliament, and take refuge\nwith the Scottish army at Newark. Till April 1646, nevertheless, he\nremained irresolute, hoping against hope for some good news from the\nSouth-west.\n\nNo good news came from that quarter. Operations having been resumed there\nby the New Model, there came, among other continued successes of the\nParliament, the raising of the siege of Plymouth (Jan. 16, 1645-6), the\nstorming of Dartmouth (Jan. 19), and the storming of Torrington (Feb.\n16). The action then came to be chiefly in Cornwall, where (March 14)\nLord Hopton surrendered to Fairfax, giving up the cause as hopeless, and\nfollowing the Prince of Wales, who had taken refuge meanwhile in the\nScilly Isles. On the 15th of April, 1646, the picturesque St. Michael's\nMount yielded, and the Duke of Hamilton, the King's prisoner there, found\nhimself again at liberty. The surrender of Exeter  (April 13) and of\nBarnstaple (April 20) having then cleared Devonshire, the war in the\nwhole South-west was over, save that the King's flag still waved over far\nPendennis Castle at Falmouth. [Footnote: Chronological Table in Sprigge]\n\nThe New Model having thus perfected its work in the South-west and being\nfree for action in the Midlands, and Cromwell being back in London, and a\nbody of Royalist troops under Lord Astley (the last body openly in the\nfield) having been defeated in an attempt to reach Oxford from the west,\nand Woodstock having just set even the Oxfordshire garrisons the example\nof surrendering, procrastination on the King's part was no longer\npossible. His last trust had been in certain desperate schemes for\nretrieving his cause by help to be brought from beyond England. He had\nbeen intriguing in Ireland with a view to a secret agreement with the\nIrish Rebels and the landing at Chester or in Wales of an army of 10,000\nIrish Roman Catholics to repeat in England the feat of MacColkittoch and\nhis Irish in Scotland; he had been trying to negotiate with France for\nthe landing of 6,000 foreign troops at Lynn; as late as March 12 he had\nfallen back on a former notion of his, and proposed to invoke the aid of\nthe Pope by promising a free toleration of the Roman Catholic Religion in\nEngland on condition that his Holiness and the English Roman Catholics\nwould \"visibly and heartily engage themselves for the re-establishment\"\nof his Crown and of the Church of England. All these schemes were now in\nthe dust. He was in a city in the heart of England, without chance of\nIrish or foreign aid, and hemmed round by his English subjects,\nvictorious at length over all his efforts, and coming closer and closer\nfor that final siege which should place himself in their grasp. What was\nhe to do? A refuge with the Scottish army at Newark had been for some\ntime the plan most in his thoughts, and actually since January there had\nbeen negotiations on his part, through the French Ambassador Montreuil,\nboth with the Scottish Commissioners in London and with the chiefs of the\nScottish army, with a view to this result. Latterly, however, Montreuil\nhad reported that the Scots refused to receive him except on conditions\nvery different from those he desired. The most obvious alternative,\nthough the boldest one, was that he should make his way to London\nsomehow, and throw himself upon the generosity of Parliament and on the\nchances of terms in his favour that might arise from the dissensions\nbetween the Presbyterians and the Independents. But, should he resolve on\nan escape out of England altogether, even that was not yet hopeless.\nRoads, indeed, were guarded; but by precautions and careful travelling\nsome seaport might be reached, whence there might be a passage to\nScotland, to Ireland, to France, or to Denmark. [Footnote: Twenty-two\nLetters from Charles at Oxford to Queen Henrietta Maria in France, the\nfirst dated Jan. 4, 1645-6 and the last April 22, 1646, forming pp. 1-37\nof a series of the King's Letters edited by the late Mr. John Bruce for\nthe Camden Society (1856) under the title of \"_Charles I. in_ 1646.\"\nSee also Mr. Bruce's \"Introduction\" to the Letters. They contain curious\nfacts and indications of Charles's character.]\n\nIt was apparently with all these plans competing in Charles's mind, that,\non Monday the 27th of April, his Majesty, with his faithful groom of the\nbedchamber Mr. John Ashburnham and a clergyman named Dr. Hudson for his\nsole companions, slipped out of Oxford, disguised as a servant and\ncarrying a cloak-bag on his horse. He rode to Henley; then to Brentford;\nand then as near to London as Harrow-on-the-Hill. He was half-inclined to\nride on the few more miles that would have brought him to the doors of\nthe Parliament in Westminster. At Harrow, however, as if his mind had\nchanged, he turned away from London, and rode northwards to St. Alban's;\nthence again by crossroads into Leicestershire; and so eastwards to\nDownham in Norfolk. Here he remained from April 30 to May 4; and it is on\nrecord that he had his hair trimmed for him here by a country barber, who\nfound much fault with its unevenness, and told him that the man who had\nlast cut it had done it very badly. It was now known in London that his\nMajesty was at large; it was thought he might even be in hiding in the\ncity; and a Parliamentary proclamation was issued forbidding the\nharbouring of him under pain of death. On the 5th of May, however, he\nended all uncertainty by presenting himself at the Scottish Leaguer at\nNewark. He had made up his mind at last that he would remain in England\nand that he would be safer with the Scots there than with the English\nParliament.--It was a most perilous honour for the Scots. The English\nParliament were sure to demand possession of the King. Indeed the Commons\ndid vote for demanding him and confining him to Warwick Castle; and,\nthough the vote was thrown out in the Lords, eight Peers protested\nagainst its rejection (May 8). In these circumstances the resolution of\nthe Scots was to keep his Majesty until the course of events should be\nclearer. Newark, however, being too accessible, in case the Parliament\nshould try to seize him, Leven persuaded the King to give orders to the\nRoyalist governor of that town to surrender it to the Parliament; and,\nthe siege being thus over, the Scottish army, with its precious charge,\nwithdrew northward to the safer position of Newcastle (May 13).\n[Footnote: Iter _Carolinum_ in Gulch's, Collectanea Curiosa(178l),\nVol. II. pp. 445-448; Rushworth, VI. 267-2/1; Clar 601-2; Baillie, II.\n374-5.]\n\nOn the 10th of June the King issued orders from Newcastle to all the\ncommanders yet holding cities, towns, or fortresses, in his name,\nanywhere in England, to surrender their trusts. Accordingly, on the 24th\nof June, the city of Oxford, which the King had left two months before,\nwas surrendered to Fairfax, with all pomp and ceremony, by Sir Thomas\nGlenham. The surrender of Worcester followed, July 22; that of\nWallingford Castle in Berks, July 27; that of Pendennis Castle in\nCornwall, Aug. 17; and that of Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire, Aug. 19.\nThus the face of England was cleared of the last vestiges of the war. The\ndefender of Raglan Castle, and almost the last man in England to sustain\nthe King's flag, was the aged Marquis of Worcester. [Footnote: Rushworth,\nVI. 276-297; and Sprigge's Table of Battle, and Sieges.]\n\n\nFALLEN AND RISEN STARS.\n\nIn August 1646, therefore, the long Civil War was at an end. The King\nbeing then at Newcastle with the Scots, where were the other chief\nRoyalists? I. _The Royal Family._ The Queen had been abroad again\nfor more than two years. In July 1644, having just then given birth at\nExeter to her youngest child, the Princess Henrietta Maria, she had\nescaped from that city as Essex was approaching it with his army, and had\ntaken ship for France, leaving the child at Exeter. Richelieu, who had\nkept her out of France in her former exile, being now dead, and Cardinal\nMazarin and the Queen Regent holding power in the minority of Louis XIV.,\nshe had been well received at the French Court, and had been residing for\nthe two past years in or near Paris, busily active in foreign intrigue on\nher husband's behalf, and sending over imperious letters of advice to\nhim. It was she that was to be his agent with the Pope, and it was she\nthat had procured the sending over of the French ambassador Montreuil to\narrange between the Scots and Charles. The destination of the Prince of\nWales had for some time been uncertain. From Scilly he had gone to\nJersey, accompanied or followed thither by Lords Hopton, Capel, Digby,\nand Colepepper, Sir Edward Hyde, and others (April 1646). Digby had a\nproject of removing him thence into Ireland, and Denmark was also talked\nof for a refuge; but the Queen being especially anxious to have him with\nher in Paris, her remonstrances prevailed. The King gave orders from\nNewcastle that her wishes should be obeyed, and to Paris the Prince went\n(July). The young Duke of York, being in Oxford at the time of the\nsurrender, came into the hands of the Parliament; who committed the\ncharge of him, and of his infant brother the Duke of Gloucester, with the\nPrincesses Mary and Elizabeth, to the Earl of Northumberland in London.\nThe baby Princess Henrietta, left at Exeter, had also come into the hands\nof the Parliament on the surrender of that city (April 1646), but had\nbeen cleverly conveyed into France by the Countess of Morton. The King's\nfighting nephews, Rupert and Maurice, who had been in Oxford when it\nsurrendered, were allowed to embark at Dover for France, after an\ninterview with their elder brother, the Prince Elector Palatine, who had\nbeen for some time in England as an honoured guest of the Parliament; and\nan occasional visitor in the Westminster Assembly. II. _Chief Royalist\nPeers and Counsellors._ Some of these, including the Duke of Richmond,\nthe Marquis of Hertford, the Marquis of Worcester, and the Earl of\nSouthampton, remained in England, submitting moodily to the new order of\nthings, and studying opportunities of still being useful to their\nsovereign. Others, and perhaps the majority, either disgusted with\nEngland, or being under the ban of Parliament for delinquency of too deep\na dye, dispersed themselves abroad, to live in that condition of\ncontinental exile which had already for some time been the lot of the\nMarquis of Newcastle and other fugitives of the earlier stage of the war.\nSome, such as Digby and Colepepper, accompanied the Prince of Wales to\nParis; others, among whom was Hyde, remained some time in Jersey. The\nQueen's conduct and temper, indeed, so much repelled the best of the\nRoyalist refugees that, when they did go to France (as most of them were\nobliged to do at last), they avoided her, or circled round her at a\nrespectful distance.\n\nWhile these were the descending or vanishing stars of the English\nfirmament, who were the stars that had risen in their places? As the\nquestion interests us now, so it interested people then; and, to assist\nthe public judgment, printers and booksellers put forth lists of those\nwho, either from the decisiveness and consistency of their\nParliamentarianism from the first, or from its sufficiency on a total\nreview, were entitled, at the end of the war, to be denominated _The\nGreat Champions of England._ [Footnote: One such fly sheet, published\nJuly 30, 1646 by \"Francis Leach at the Falcon in Shoe Lane,\" has been\nalready referred to (see Vol. II, p. 480, _Note,_ and p. 433, _Note_).\nThe lists there given, though very useful to us now, contain a great many\nerrors--misspellings of names, entries of persons as still alive who were\ndead some time, &c. In those days of scanty means of publicity, it was\nfar more difficult to compile an accurate conspectus of contemporaries\nfor any purpose than it would be now.]\n\nThere were two classes of these Champions, though not a few individuals\nbelonged to both classes:--I. _The Political Champions, or Champion\nPeers and Commoners._ The Champion Peers were reckoned as exactly\ntwenty-nine; and, if the reader desires to know who these twenty-nine\nwere, let him repeat here the list already given of those who were\nParliamentarian Peers at the outset (Vol. II. pp. 430-1), only deleting\nfrom that list the heroic Lord Brooke and the Earls of Bolingbroke and\nMiddlesex as dead, and the Earls of Bedford, Clare, and Holland, as\nhaving proved themselves fickle and untrustworthy, and adding a new Earl\nof Middlesex (son and successor of the former), an Earl of Kent, an Earl\nof Nottingham, and a Lord Montague of Boughton (successors of the\ndeceased Royalists or Non-effectives who had borne these titles), and\nLord Herbert of Cherbury, once a Royalist, but now passing as a\nParliamentarian. The Champion Commoners were, of course, a much larger\nmultitude. At the beginning of the war, as we saw (Vol. II. pp. 431-4).\nabout three-fifths of the Commons House as then constituted, or 300 of\nthe members in all, might be regarded as declared or possible\nParliamentarians. Of these, however, death or desertion to the other side\nin the course of four years had carried off a good few, so that, with\nevery exertion to swell the list of the original Commoners who at the end\nof the war might be reckoned among the faithful, not more than about 250\ncould be enumerated in this category. On the other hand, it has to be\nremembered that, since August 1645, when the New Model was in its full\ncareer of victory, the House of Commons had been increased in numerical\nstrength by the process called Recruiting, _i.e._ by the issue of\nwrits for the election of new members in the places of those who had\ndied, and of the much larger host who had been disabled as Royalists. Of\nthis process of Recruiting, and its effects on the national policy, we\nshall have to take farther account; meanwhile it is enough to say that,\nbetween Aug. 1645, when the first new writs were issued, and Aug. 1646,\nwhen the war ended, as many as 179 Recruiters had been elected, and were\nintermingled in the roll of the House with the surviving original\nmembers. [Footnote: This is my calculation from the Index of new Writs in\nthe Commons Journals between August 21, 1645, and August 1, 1646. See\nalso Godwin's _Commonwealth_, II. 84-39.] Now, most of these Recruiters,\nfrom the very conditions of their election, were Parliamentarians, and\nsome had even attained eminence in that character since their election.\nAbout 140 of them, I find, were reckoned among the \"Champions;\" and, if\nthese are added to the 250 original members also reckoned as such, the\ntotal number of the Champion Commoners will be about 390. [Footnote: In\nLeach's fly-sheet the exact number of Champion Commoners given is 397.\nAmong these he distinguishes the Recruiters from the original members by\nprinting the names of the Recruiters in italics. In at least _eleven_\ncases, however, I find he has put a Recruiter among the original members.\nAlso I am sure, from a minute examination of his list throughout, that he\nadmitted into it, from policy or hurry, a considerable number whose\nclaims were dubious.] It must not be supposed that they had all earned\nthis distinction by their habitual presence in the House. Only on one\nextraordinary occasion since the beginning of the war had as many as 280\nbeen in the House together; very seldom had the attendance exceeded 200;\nand, practically, the steady attendance throughout the war had been about\n100. Employment in the Parliamentary service, in various capacities and\nvarious parts of the country, may account for the absence of many; but,\non the whole, I fancy that, if England allowed as many as 390 original\nmembers and Recruiters together to pass as Champion Commoners at the end\nof the war, it was by winking hard at the defects of some scores of them.\n\nII. _Military Champions_. Here, from the nature of the case, there\nwas less doubt. In the first place, although the Army had been remodelled\nin Feb. 1644-5, and the Self-Denying Ordinance had excluded not a few of\nthe officers of the First Parliamentary Army from commands in the New\nModel, yet the services of these officers, with Essex, Manchester, and\nSir William Waller, at their head, were gratefully remembered.\nUndoubtedly, however, the favourite military heroes of the hour were the\nchief officers of the victorious New Model, at the head of whom were\nFairfax, Cromwell, Skippon, Thomas Hammond, and Ireton. For the names of\nthe Colonels and Majors under these, the reader is referred to our view\nof the New Model at the time of its formation (_ant\u00e8_ pp. 326-7).\nYoung Colonel Pickering, there mentioned, had died in Dec. 1645, much\nlamented; Young Major Bethell, there mentioned, had been killed at the\nstorming of Bristol, Sept. 1645, also much lamented; but, with allowance\nfor the shiftings and promotions caused by these deaths, and by the\nretirement of several other field-officers, or their transference to\ngarrison-commands, the New Model, after its sixteen months of hard\nservice, remained officered much as at first. While, with this allowance,\nour former list of the Colonels and Majors of the New Model proper yet\nstands good, there have to be added, however, the names of a few of the\nmost distinguished military co\u00f6perants with the New Model: _i.e._ of\nthose surviving officers of the old Army, or persons of later appearance,\nwho, though not on our roll of the New Model proper, had yet assisted its\noperations as outstanding generals of districts or commanders of\ngarrisons. Such were Sir William Brereton, M.P. for Cheshire, and Sir\nThomas Middleton, M.P. for Denbighshire, in favour of whom, as well as of\nCromwell, the Self-Denying Ordinance had been relaxed, so as to allow\ntheir continued generalship in Cheshire and Wales respectively (_ant\u00e8_,\np. 334, Note); such was General Poyntz, who had been appointed to succeed\nLord Ferdinando Fairfax in the chief command of Yorkshire and the North;\nsuch were Major-general Massey, who had held independent command in the\nWest (_ant\u00e8_, p. 337), and Major-general Browne, who had held similar\ncommand in the Midlands; and such also were Colonel Michael Jones\n(Cheshire), Colonel Mitton (Wales), Colonel John Hutchinson (Governor of\nNottingham), Colonel Edmund Ludlow (Governor of Wardour Castle, Wilts),\nand Colonel Robert Blake (the future Admiral Blake, already famous for\nhis Parliamentarian activity in his native Somersetshire, his active\ngovernorship of Taunton, and his two desperate defences of that town\nagainst sieges by Lord Goring). Several of these distinguished co\u00f6perants\nwith the New Model, as well as several of the chief officers of the New\nModel itself, had already been honoured by being elected as Recruiters\nfor the House of Commons. [Footnote: My authorities for this list of the\nmilitary stars in August 1646, besides those already cited for the New\nModel at its formation (_ant\u00e8_, p. 327, _Note_) and an imperfect list in\nLeach's fly-sheet (_ant\u00e8_, p. 376, _Note_) are stray passages in the\nLords Journals, in Whitelocke, and in more recent Histories. I think I\nhave picked out the chief co\u00f6perants with the New Model, but cannot vouch\nthat I have done so. When one has done one's best, one still stumbles on\na Colonel _this_ or a Lieut-colonel _that_, evidently of some note,\nperplexing one's lists and allocations.]\n\nIf one were to write out duly the names of all the Englishmen that have\nbeen described or pointed to in the last paragraph as the risen stars of\nthe new Parliamentary world of 1646, whether for political reasons or for\nmilitary reasons, there would be nearly five hundred of them. Now, as\nHistory refuses to recollect so many names in one chapter, as the eye\nalmost refuses to see so many stars at once in one sky, it becomes\ninteresting to know which were the super-eminent few, the stars of the\nhighest magnitude. Fortunately, to save the trouble of such an inquiry\nfor ourselves, we have a contemporary specification by no less an\nauthority than the Parliament itself. In December 1645, when Parliament\nwas looking forward, with assured certainty, to the extinction of the few\nlast remains of Royalism, and was preparing Propositions to be submitted\nto the beaten King, it was anxiously considered, among other things, who\nwere the persons whose deserts had been so paramount that supreme rewards\nshould be conferred upon them, and the King should be asked to do his\npart by admitting some of them, and promoting others, among the English\naristocracy. This was the result:--\n\nTHE EARL OF ESSEX:--King to be asked to make him a Duke. The Commons had\nalready voted him a pension of \u00a310,000 a year.\n\nTHE EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND:--To be made a Duke, and provision for him to\nbe considered.\n\nTHE EARL OF WARWICK (Parliamentary Lord High Admiral):--To be made a\nDuke, with provision; but the dukedom to descend to his grandchild,\npassing over his eldest son, Lord Rich, who had taken the wrong side.\n\nTHE EARL OF PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY:--To be made a Duke, and all his\ndebts to the public to be cancelled.\n\nTHE EARL OF MANCHESTER:--To be made a Marquis, and provision to be\nconsidered for him.\n\nTHE EARL OF SALISBURY:--To be made a Marquis.\n\nVISCOUNT SAYE AND SELE:--To be made an Earl,\n\nLORD ROBERTS:--To be made an Earl.\n\nLORD WHARTON:--To be made an Earl.\n\nLORD WILLOUGHBY OF PARHAM:--To be made an Earl.\n\nDENZIL HOLLES:--To be made a Viscount.\n\nGENERAL SIR THOMAS FAIRFAX:--To be made an English Baron and an Estate of\n\u00a35,000 a year in lands to be settled on him and his heirs for ever: his\nfather LORD FERDINANDO FAIRFAX at the same time to be made an English\nBaron.\n\nLIEUTENANT-GENERAL CROMWELL:--To be made an English Baron, and an Estate\nof \u00a32,500 a year to be settled on him and his heirs for ever.\n\nSIR WILLIAM WALTER:--To be made an English Baron, with a like Estate of\n\u00a32,500 a year.\n\nSIR HENRY VANE, SEN.:--To be made an English Baron. As the peerage would\ndescend to his son, SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER, the honour included\n_him_.\n\nSIR ARTHUR HASELRIG:--\u00a32,000 a year to him and his heirs for ever.\n\nSIR PHILIP STAPLETON:--\u00a32,000 a year to him and his heirs for ever.\n\nSIR WILLIAM BRERETON:--\u00a31,500 a year to him and his heirs for ever.\n\nMAJOR-GENERAL PHILIP SKIPPON:--\u00a3l,000 a year to him and his heirs for\never. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Dec 1, 1645.]\n\nHad Pym and Hampden been alive, what would have been the honours voted\nfor them? They had been dead for two years, and the sole honour for Pym\nhad been a vote of \u00a310,000 to pay his debts, It mattered the less because\nthese Dukedoms, Earldoms, Viscountcies, and Baronages were all to remain\n_in nubibus_. They were contemplated on the supposition of a direct\nPeace with the King; and such a peace had not been brought to pass, and\nhad been removed farther off in prospect by the King's escape at the last\nmoment to the Scottish Army. It remained to be seen whether Parliament\ncould arrange any treaty whatever with him in his new circumstances, and,\nif so, whether it would be worth while to make the proposed new creations\nof peers and promotions in the peerage a feature of the treaty, or\nwhether it would not be enough for the Commons to make good the honours\nthat were in their own power--viz. the voted estates and pensions. For\nEssex, who was at the head of the list, the suspense (if he cared about\nthe matter at all) was to be very brief. He died at his house in the\nStrand, September 14, 1646, without his dukedom, and having received\nlittle of his pension. Parliament decreed him a splendid funeral.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nWORK IN PARLIAMENT AND THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY DURING THE SIXTEEN MONTHS\nOF THE NEW MODEL--THE TWO CONTINUED CHURCH CONTROVERSIES--INDEPENDENCY\nAND SECTARIANISM IN THE NEW MODEL: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY CONTINUED:\nCROMWELL'S PART IN IT: LILBURNE AND OTHER PAMPHLETEERS: SION COLLEGE AND\nTHE CORPORATION OF LONDON: SUCCESS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS IN PARLIAMENT--\nPRESBYTERIAN FRAME OF CHURCH-GOVERNMENT COMPLETED: DETAILS OF THE\nARRANGEMENT--THE RECRUITING OF THE COMMONS: EMINENT RECRUITERS--EFFECTS\nOF THE RECRUITING: ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENCY AND ERASTIANISM: CHECK GIVEN\nTO THE PRESBYTERIANS: WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY REBUKED AND CURBED--\nNEGOTIATIONS ROUND THE KING AT NEWCASTLE--THREATENED RUPTURE BETWEEN THE\nSCOTS AND THE ENGLISH: ARGYLE'S VISIT TO LONDON: THE NINETEEN\nPROPOSITIONS--PARLIAMENT AND THE ASSEMBLY RECONCILED: PRESBYTERIANIZING\nOF LONDON AND LANCASHIRE: DEATH OF ALEXANDER HENDERSON.\n\n\nDuring the sixteen months of those New Model operations in the field\nwhich had brought the war so decisively to an end (April 1645--August\n1646), there had been a considerable progress in Parliament, in the\nWestminster Assembly, and in the public mind of England, on the seemingly\ninterminable Church-business and its collaterals.\n\n\nTHE TWO CONTINUED CHURCH CONTROVERSIES.\n\nThat the Church of England should be Presbyterian had been formally\ndecided in January 1644-5 (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 172--175). Not even then,\nhowever, could the Presbyterians consider their work over. There were two\nreasons why they could not. (1) Although the essentials of Presbytery had\nbeen adopted, the details remained to be settled. What were to be the\npowers of the parochial consistories and the other church courts\nrespectively? What discretion, for example, was to be left to each\nminister and his congregational board of elders in the matter of\nspiritual censure, and especially in the exclusion of offenders from the\ncommunion? Was there to be any discretion; or was the State to regulate\nwhat offences should be punished by excommunication? Again, were the\nvarious Church-courts, once established, to act independently of the\nCivil courts and the State; or was there to be an appeal of\necclesiastical questions at any point from Presbytery, or Synod, or the\nentire National Assembly, to the Civil courts and Parliament? (2) Another\ngreat question which remained undetermined was that of Toleration. Should\nthe new Presbyterian State Church of England be established with or\nwithout a liberty of dissent from it? A vast mass of the English people,\nrepresented by the Army-Independents and some leading Sectaries, demanded\nan absolute, or at least a very large, freedom of religious belief and\npractice; the Independent Divines of the Assembly claimed a certain\namount of such freedom; nay, Parliament itself, by its Accommodation\nOrder of September 1644, had recognised the necessity of some toleration,\nand appointed an inquiry on the subject. In the universal belief of the\nPresbyterians, on the other hand, Toleration was a monster to be attacked\nand slain. Toleration was a demon, a chimera, the Great Diana of the\nIndependents, the Daughter of the Devil, the Mother and Protectress of\nblasphemies and heresies, the hideous Procuress of souls for Hell!\n\nSuch were the questions for continued controversy between the\nPresbyterians and their opponents in England in the beginning of 1645,\nwhen the New Model took the field. What progress had been made in these\nquestions, and what changes had occurred in the attitudes of the two\nparties mainly concerned, during the victorious sixteen months of the New\nModel?\n\n\nINDEPENDENCY AND SECTARIANISM IN THE NEW MODEL: TOLERATION CONTROVERSY\nCONTINUED: CROMWELL'S PART IN IT: LILBURNE AND OTHER PAMPHLETEERS: SION\nCOLLEGE AND THE CORPORATION OF LONDON: SUCCESS OF THE PRESBYTERIANS IN\nPARLIAMENT.\n\nThe New Model itself, as we know, had been a great chagrin to the\nPresbyterians. Fairfax, indeed, was understood to be Presbyterian enough\npersonally; but the Army was full of Independents and Sectaries, it was\nlargely officered by Independents, and its very soul was the Arch-\nIndependent Cromwell. For a while, accordingly, it was the secret hope of\nthe Presbyterians that this Army might fail. But, when evidently it was\nnot to fail, when NASEBY was won (June 14, 1645), and when all the while\nthe Scottish Presbyterian army in England was doing so ill in comparison,\na sense of departing superiority sank on the spirits of the\nPresbyterians. \"Honest men served you faithfully in this action,\" were\nCromwell's words to Speaker Lenthall in his letter from Naseby field:\n\"Sir, they are trusty; I beseech you, in the name of God, not to\ndiscourage them. I wish this action may beget thankfulness and humility\nin all that are concerned in it. He that ventures his life for the\nliberty of his country, I wish he may trust God for the liberty of his\nconscience, and you for the liberty he fights for.\" [Footnote: Carlyle's\nCromwell, I. 176.] This immediate use by Cromwell of the victory of\nNaseby as an argument for Toleration did not escape the notice of the\nPresbyterians. \"My Lord Fairfax,\" writes Baillie, June 17, \"sent up, the\nlast week, an horrible Anti-Triastrian [Anti-Trinitarian]: the whole\nAssembly went in a body to the Houses to complain of his blasphemies. It\nwas the will of Cromwell, in his letter of his victory, to desire the\nHouse not to discourage those who had ventured their life for them, and\nto come out expressly with their much-desired Liberty of Conscience. You\nwill see the letter in print, by order, as I think, of the Houses.\"\n[Footnote: Baillie, II. 280] The horrible Anti-Trinitarian here mentioned\nwas Paul Best (see _ant\u00e8_, p. 157). He was accused of \"divers\nprodigious blasphemies against the deity of our Saviour and the Holy\nGhost.\" Parliament, informed thereof by the Assembly, had been appalled,\nand had committed the culprit to close confinement in the Gatehouse to\nawait his trial (June 10). The next day (June 11) the impression had been\ndeepened by a complaint in the Commons against another culprit on similar\ngrounds, and the House had instructed Mr. Millington, member for\nNottingham, to prepare an ordinance on the subject of blasphemy\ngenerally. [Footnote: Commons Journals of dates given. Paul Best's case\nlasted two years.] All this only a day or two before Naseby; and now from\nthe field of Naseby, in Cromwell's hand, a pleading of that victory on\nbehalf of Toleration! Would Cromwell tolerate a Paul Best?\n\nWhat Cromwell and the Army-Independents would have said about Paul Best\nmust be left to conjecture. What they were saying about the state of\nthings in general we learn from the Presbyterian Richard Baxter. Being at\nCoventry at the time of the battle of Naseby, Baxter, then a pious\npreacher of twenty-nine years of age, with a lean cadaverous body, and\nthe gauntest hook-nosed face ever seen in a portrait, paid a visit of\ncuriosity to the field immediately after the battle, and went thence to\nthe quarters of the victorious army at Leicester, to seek out some of his\nacquaintances. \"When I came to the army, among Cromwell's soldiers,\" he\nsays, \"I found a new face of things which I never dreamt of: I heard the\nplotting heads very hot upon that which intimated their intention to\nsubvert both Church and State. Independency and Anabaptistry were most\nprevalent; Antinomianism and Arminianism were equally distributed; and\nThomas Moor's followers (a weaver of Wisbeach and Lynn, of excellent\nparts) had made some shifts to join these two extremes together.\nAbundance of the common troopers, and many of the officers, I found to be\nhonest, sober, orthodox men, and others tractable, ready to hear the\nTruth, and of upright intentions; but a few proud, self-conceited, hot-\nheaded sectaries had got into the highest places, and were Cromwell's\nchief favourites, and by their heat and activity bore down the rest, or\ncarried them along with them, and were the soul of the Army. ... They\nsaid, What were the Lords of England but William the Conqueror's\ncolonels, or the Barons but his majors, or the Knights but his captains?\nThey plainly showed me that they thought God's providence would cast the\ntrust of Religion and the Kingdom upon them as conquerors.\" They were\nfull of railings and jests, Baxter adds, against the Scots or _Sots_, the\nPresbyterians or _Priest-biters_, and the Assembly of Divines or _Dry-\nvines_; and all their praises were of the Separatists, Anabaptists, and\nAntinomians.--Grieved at what he found, and thinking he might be of some\nuse by way of antidote, Baxter at once gave up his charge at Coventry, to\nbecome chaplain to Col. Whalley's regiment. He had the more hope of being\nuseful because he had some previous acquaintance with Cromwell. But his\nreception was far from satisfactory. \"As soon as I came to the army,\" he\nsays, \"Oliver Cromwell coldly bid me welcome, and never spoke one word to\nme more while I was there, nor once all that time vouchsafed me an\nopportunity to come to the headquarters, where the councils and meetings\nof the officers were.\" Baxter never forgave that coolness of Cromwell to\nhim. Hugh Peters, who was constantly with Cromwell as his chaplain, and\nwould make camp-jokes at Baxter's expense, was never forgiven either.\n[Footnote: Baxter's Autobiography (_Reliqui\u00e6 Baxterian\u00e6), 1696, pp. 50,\n51.]\n\nNot only in the New Model Army was there this ferment of Anti-\nPresbyterianism, Anti-Scotticism, Independency, and Tolerationism,\npassing on into a drift of universally democratic opinion. Through\nEnglish society, and especially in London, there was much of the same.\n\nSince the publication of Edwards's _Antapologia_ in July 1644 the\nwar of pamphlets on the questions of Independency and Toleration had been\nincreasingly virulent. The pamphleteers were numberless; but the chief of\nthem, on the side of Presbyterianism and Anti-Toleration, were perhaps\nPrynne, Bastwick, and John Vicars, and, on the side of Independency and\nToleration, Henry Burton, John Goodwin, and Hanserd Knollys, If\nBibliography were to apply itself to the investigation of the popular\nEnglish Literature of the latter half of the year 1644 and the first half\nof the year 1645, it would come upon these, and other controversialists\nwhose names have been long forgotten, writhing together like a twisted\nknot of serpents, not to be uncoiled except by a distinct enumeration of\nseveral scores or hundreds of the most quaintly-entitled pamphlets, in\nthe exact order of their publication, and with an account of the nature\nof each. London contained so many of these pamphleteers that the most\ndeadly antagonists in print could not avoid each other in the streets,\nand Burton, for example, meeting Dr. Bastwick, would ask him with\nirritating politeness when his new book was coming out. Many of the\npamphlets, however, and these the most daring and intemperate in\nexpression, were anonymous. Such was _The Arraignment of\nPersecution_, purporting to be \"printed by Martin Claw-Clergy for\nBartholomew Bang-Priest,\" and to be on sale at \"his shop in Toleration\nStreet, right opposite to Persecution Court.\" In this and other popular\nsquibs, to which neither authors nor printers dared to put their names,\nthe toleration which Goodwin and Burton argued for gravely and logically\nwas demanded with passionate vehemence, and with the most unsparing abuse\nof the Presbyterians, the Scots, and the Westminster Assembly. [Footnote:\nWood's Ash. III. 860 (Prynne) and 308-9 (Vicars); Jackson's Life of John\nGoodwin, 61--79; Hanbury's Memorials, II. 385 et seq. (Prynne and\nBurton), and III. 68, 69 (Bastwick, Burton, and others). Notes of my own\nfrom the Stationers' Registers.]--One Tolerationist, here deserving a\nnotice by himself, was John Lilburne. An avowed Independent even before\nthe meeting of the Long Parliament, and forward as a Parliamentary\ncaptain from the very beginning of the war (Vol. II. 175, 458, and 588-\n9), Lilburne had been one of those who regarded the Solemn League and\nCovenant of 1643 as incompatible with Liberty of Conscience, and whom no\npersuasions could induce to sign that document. He had risen,\nnevertheless, by Cromwell's arrangement, to be Lieutenant-colonel in\nManchester's own dragoon regiment, and he had served bravely at Marston\nMoor. Between him and Cromwell there was the most friendly understanding.\nLilburne looked upon Cromwell as \"the most absolute single-hearted great\nman in England;\" and Cromwell owned a kindly feeling for Lilburne. But\nthere was a pig-headedness in Lilburne's honesty which even Cromwell\ncould not control. \"If only John Lilburne were left in the world, then\nJohn would quarrel with Lilburne and Lilburne with John\" was Henry\nMarten's witty, and yet perfectly true, description of him. Having been a\nwitness for Cromwell in Cromwell's impeachment of Manchester, he thought\nCromwell culpably weak in allowing the impeachment to drop and not\nbringing Manchester to the scaffold; and he had himself brought a charge\nagainst a superior officer, named King. Then he had become utterly\ndisgusted with the general conduct of affairs and the subservience of\nParliament to the Presbyterians. He would leave the army; he would \"dig\nfor turnips and carrots before he would fight to set up a power to make\nhimself a slave.\" His two brothers, Robert and Henry, continued to hold\ncommands in the New Model; but not all Cromwell's arguments could induce\nLilburne himself to come into it. On the 30th of April, 1645, he had\nresigned his commission, presenting at the same time a petition to the\nCommons for his arrears of pay, amounting to \u00a3880 2_s_. He had resolved\nto be thenceforward a political agitator, a link between the Independency\nof the Army and what Independency there was already in London itself.\nAccordingly, from the beginning of 1645, Lilburne, still not more than\ntwenty-seven years of age, is to be reckoned as one of the most prominent\nAnti-Presbyterians in London, an especial favourite of all the sectaries,\nand even of the populace generally, on account of his boundlessly\nlibertarian sentiments and his absolute fearlessness of consequences.\nThere was talk of trying to get him into Parliament on a convenient\nopportunity. Meanwhile he took to pamphleteering, selecting as his first\nobject of attack his old master, Prynne. In the first half of 1645\nLilburne and Prynne were seen wrestling with each other, Lilburne for\ntoleration and Independency, and Prynne for coercion and Presbyterianism,\nwith a ferocity hardly paralleled in any contemporary duel, and made more\npiquant to the public by the recollection of the former intimacy of the\nduellists. [Footnote: Godwin's Hist. of the Commonwealth, II. 1-24, and\n418-19; Wood's Ath. III. 353-4, and 860; Edwards's _Gangr\u00e6na,_ Part I.\n46, 47, Part II. 38, and Part III. 153 _et seq._; Commons Journals, Jan.\n17, 1644-5; Prynne's _Fresh Discovery._]\n\nThe denunciation of Paul Best (June 10, 1645) was a Presbyterian\nmasterstroke. Even moderate people stood aghast at the idea of tolerating\nopinions like his; and that the wretched owner of them could plead his\nliberty of conscience (which Best did in prison) was more likely than\nanything else to put people out of patience with Conscience and its\nLiberty. But, about the same time that Paul Best was put in prison to be\ntried for his life for Blasphemy, there were persecutions and punishments\nof others, whose offence was far less theological heterodoxy than mere\nIndependency or Anti-Presbyterianism. \"Blessed be God,\" writes Baillie,\nJuly 8, 1645, \"all the London ministers are with us: Burton and Goodwin,\nthe only two that were Independent, are by the Parliament removed from\ntheir places.\" In other words, John Goodwin had just been ejected from\nhis vicarage of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, and Henry Burton for the\nsecond time from his living in Friday Street, nominally for irregular\npractices in their ministry, but really because they were in the way of\nPrynne and the Presbyterians. Mr. Goodwin, who had a large following in\nthe City, had little difficulty in setting up an Independent meeting-\nhouse of his own in Coleman Street; but poor old Mr. Burton seems to have\nbeen in sad straits for some time. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 299; Jackson's\nLife of Goodwin, 79 _et seq._; Hanbury's Memorials, III. 78, note.--\nBurton, I believe, migrated to Stepney.]----Burton and Goodwin having\nbeen called to account, the next blow was at John Lilburne. With\ncharacteristic bluntness Lilburne had been for some months pressing the\nbusiness of his own petition for arrears of pay upon the House of\nCommons, going to the House personally, waiting on the Speaker,\ncirculating printed copies of his petition among the members, and always\nwith outspoken comments on affairs, and attacks on this person and on\nthat. On one occasion he and Prynne had met by chance, and there had been\na violent altercation between them. Twice, in consequence, Lilburne had\nbeen in custody for examination as to his concern in certain Anti-\nPresbyterian pamphlets, but on each occasion he had been discharged. He\nhad then gone down to the Army, and procured a letter from Cromwell,\nrecommending his case to the House. \"He hath done both you and the\nkingdom good service,\" wrote Cromwell, \"and you will not find him\nunthankful.\" Returning to London, Lilburne had caused this letter to be\nprinted and had circulated copies of it. No effect followed, and Lilburne\nstill haunted Westminster Hall, waylaying members as they went into the\nHouse, till they abhorred the sight of him. On the 19th of July he was in\nthe Hall, and was overheard by his enemies Colonel King and Dr. Bastwick\ntaking part in a conversation in which dreadful things were said of the\nSpeaker, his brother, and other public men. The information was\nimmediately reduced to writing by King and Bastwick, and sent in to the\nSpeaker, with this result: \"_Resolved_, That Lieutenant-colonel\nLilburne be taken into custody, and so kept till the House take further\norder.\" Questioned in custody by a committee of the House, Lilburne\nrefused to answer, stood on his rights as a freeborn citizen, &c. He also\ncaused to be printed _A Letter to a Friend_, stating his case in his\nown way; this Letter, as increasing his offence, was reported to the\nHouse, Aug. 9; and, on the 11th of August, having been again contumacious\nin private examination and committed to Newgate, he was ordered to remain\nthere for trial at Quarter Sessions. He remained in Newgate till Oct. 14,\nwhen he was discharged, by order of the House, without trial. [Footnote:\nGodwin's Hist. of the Commonwealth, II. l5-21; Commons Journals of dates\ngiven; Wood's Ath. III. 860.]\n\nSuch prosecutions of individuals formed an avowed part of the method of\nthe Presbyterians for suppressing the Toleration heresy. Cromwell, away\nwith the Army, could only continue to hint his remonstrances to\nParliament in letters; but this he did. The greatest success of the New\nModel after Naseby was the storming of Bristol, Sept. 10, 1645; and in\nthe long letter which Cromwell wrote to the Speaker, giving an account of\nthis success (Sept. 14), he recurred to his Toleration argument.\n\"Presbyterians, Independents, all,\" he wrote, \"have here the same spirit\nof faith and prayer, the same presence and answer; they agree here, have\nno names of difference: pity it is it should be otherwise anywhere! All\nthat believe have the real unity, which is most glorious, because\n_in_ the Body and _to_ the Head. For being united in forms, commonly\ncalled Uniformity, every Christian will, for peace sake, study and do as\nfar as conscience will permit. And for brethren, in things of the mind,\nwe look for no compulsion but that of light and reason.\" By order of\nParliament this Letter was read in all the churches of London on Sunday,\nSept. 21, and also circulated in print. It does not seem, however, to\nhave sunk very deep. [Footnote: Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 188.--As late as\n1648 I find this passage of Cromwell's letter quoted and largely\ncommented on by the Scottish Presbyterian Rutherford (_A Survey of the\nSpiritual Antichrist._ 1648, p. 250 _et seq._) in proof of Cromwell's\ndangerousness, and his sympathy with Familism, Antinomianism, and other\nerrors.]\n\nCromwell's hints from the field in favour of Liberty of Conscience may be\nregarded as little \"Accommodation Orders\" in his own name, reminding\nParliament and the Westminster Assembly of that formal \"Accommodation\nOrder\" which he had moved in the House a year before, and which had then\nbeen passed (_ant\u00e8,_ pp. 168-9). What had become of this Accommodation\nOrder? The story may be given in brief:--The Grand Accommodation\nCommittee had immediately appointed a small Sub-Committee, consisting of\nDr. Temple and Messrs. Marshall, Herle, and Vines, for the Presbyterians,\nand Messrs. Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye for the Independents. The\nbusiness of this Sub-Committee, called \"The Sub-Committee of Agreements,\"\nwas to reduce into the narrowest compass the differences between the\nIndependents and the rest of the Assembly. The Sub-Committee did their\nbest, and reported to the Grand Committee; but for various reasons the\nGrand Committee postponed the subject. Meanwhile these proceedings had\nobtained for the Independents a re-hearing in the Assembly itself. The\nfive original Independents in the Assembly, Messrs. Goodwin, Nye, Bridge,\nBurroughs, and Simpson, with Mr. William Carter and Mr, William Greenhill\nnow added to their number, presented in writing (Nov. 14, 1644) their\nReasons of Dissent from the propositions of Presbytery most disagreeable\nto them; [Footnote: The increase of the number of avowed Independents in\nthe Assembly at this point from Five to Seven is worth noting. From the\nvery first, however, there must have been a few in sympathy to some\nvariable extent with the leading Five. Thus Baillie, as early as Dec. 7,\n1643 (Letters, II. 110), speaks of \"the Independent men, whereof there\nare some _ten_ or _eleven_ in the Synod, many of them very able men,\" and\nmentions Carter, Caryl, Phillips, and Sterry, as of the number. (See our\nList of the Assembly, Vol. II. 516-524,) There had been efforts on the\npart of the Independents in Parliament to bring more representatives of\nIndependency into the Assembly. Actually, on the 2nd of Nov. 1643, the\nvery day on which the Lords agreed with the Commons in the nomination of\nJohn Durie to succeed the deceased Calibute Downing, the Lords on their\nown account nominated John Goodwin of Coleman Street to ho of the\nAssembly, and with him \"Dr. Homes of Wood Street, and Mr. Horton,\nDivinity Lecturer at Gresham College\" (Lords Journals of date). The\nCommons, whose concurrence was necessary, seem quietly to have withheld\nit, and thus the Assembly missed having John Goodwin in it as well as\nThomas. \"Homes\" (Nathaniel Holmes: Wood's Ath. III. 1, 168) was also an\nIndependent, and probably \"Horton\" leant that way (Thomas Horton: Wood's\nFasti, II. 172).] and the Assembly produced (Dec. 17) an elaborate\nAnswer. Copies of both documents were furnished to Parliament; but,\nwithout reference to the objections of the Independents, the essential\nparts of the Frame of Presbyterial Government had been ratified by\nParliament in January 1644-5. [Footnote: The Reasons of Dissent by the\nSeven Independents and the Assembly's Answer were not published till\n1648. They then appeared by order of Parliament; and they were\nrepublished in 1652 under the title of _The Grand Debate concerning\nPresbytery and Independency_.] Affairs then took a new turn in the\nAssembly. The Independents having often been taunted with being merely\ncritical and never bringing fully to light their own views, one of them\nwas led in a moment of heat to declare that they were quite willing to\nprepare their own complete Model of Congregationalism, to be contrasted\nwith that of Presbytery. The Assembly eagerly caught at the imprudent\noffer, and the Seven Independents were appointed to be a committee for\nbringing in a Frame of Congregational Church Government, with reasons for\nthe same. This was in March 1645; and from that time the Seven, supposed\nto be busy in Committee upon the work assigned them, had a dispensation\nfrom attendance at the general meetings. Spring passed, summer passed,\nSeptember arrived; and still the Independents had not brought in their\nModel. The Assembly became impatient, and insisted on expedition. At\nlength, on the 13th of October, the Seven presented to the Assembly--\nwhat? Not the Model on which they were supposed to have been engaged for\nseven months, but a brief Paper of Reasons for not bringing in a Model at\nall! \"Upon these considerations,\" they said in concluding the Paper, \"we\nthink that this Assembly hath no cause to require a Report from us; nor\nwill that Report be of any use: seeing that Reports are for debates, and\ndebates are for results to be sent up to the Honourable Houses; who have\nalready voted another Form of Government than that which we shall\npresent.\"--It was the astutest policy that the Independents could\npossibly have adopted; and the Presbyterians, feeling themselves\noutwitted, were furious. The machinery of the Accommodation Order had\nagain to be put in motion by Parliament (Nov. 14). There were conferences\nof the Divines with members of the two Houses. What was the upshot? \"The\nIndependents in their last meeting of our Grand Committee of\nAccommodation,\" writes Baillie, Nov. 25, \"have expressed their desires\nfor toleration, not only to themselves, but to other sects.\" That was the\nupshot! Army Independency and Assembly Independency had coalesced, and\ntheir one flag now was Indefinite Toleration. [Footnote: Hetherington's\nHist. of the Westminster Assembly (1843), pp. 220-236; Hanbury's\nMemorials, II. 548-559, and III. 1-32; Baillie, II. 270-326; Commons\nJournals, Nov. 14, 1645.]\n\nThe Presbyterians behaved accordingly. There was an end to their\nendeavours to reason over the few Independents in the Assembly, or\narrange a secret compromise with them; and there was a renewed onset on\nthe Toleration principle by the whole Presbyterian force. As if on a\nsignal given, there was a fresh burst of Anti-Toleration pamphlets from\nthe press. Prynne published one; Baillie sent forth his _Dissuasive_\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 142); and Edwards was printing his immortal _Gangr\u00e6na_\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 141). But appeals to the public mind through the press were\nnot enough. The real anxiety was about the action of Parliament. The\nexpectation of the Presbyterians, grounded on recent experience, as that\nParliament, even if left to itself, would see its duty clearly, and\nrepudiate Toleration once and for ever. Still it would only be prudent to\nbring to bear on Parliament all available external pressure. Through\nDecember 1645 and January 1645-6, accordingly, the Presbyterians were\nceaseless in contriving and promoting demonstrations in their favour. And\nwith signal success:--Only a certain selected number of the parish-clergy\nof London and the suburbs, it is to be remembered, were members of the\nAssembly: the mass of them remained outside that body. But this mass,\nbeing Presbyterian almost to a man, had organized itself in such a way as\nboth to act upon the Assembly and to obey it. Since 1623 there had been\nin the city, in the street called London Wall, a building called SION\nCOLLEGE, with a library and other conveniences, expressly for the use of\nthe London clergy, and answering for them most of the purposes of a\nmodern clubhouse. Here, as was natural, the London clergy had of late\nbeen in the habit of meeting to talk over the Church-question, so that\nat length a weekly conclave had been arranged, and Sion College had\nbecome a kind of discussion forum, apart from the Assembly, and yet in\nconnexion with it. At Sion College the London Presbyterians could concoct\nwhat was to be brought forward in the Assembly, and a hint from the\nAssembly to Sion College in any moment of Presbyterian difficulty could\nsummon all the London clergy to the rescue. At the moment at which we\nhave arrived such a hint was given; and on the 18th of December, 1645,\nthere was drawn up at Sion College a Letter to the Assembly by all the\nministers of the City of London expressly against Toleration. \"These are\nsome of the many considerations,\" they say in the close of the Letter,\n\"which make a deep impression upon our spirits against that Great Diana\nof Independents and all the Sectaries, so much cried up by them in these\ndistracted times, namely, A Toleration--A Toleration. And, however none\nshould have been more rejoiced than ourselves in the establishment of a\nbrotherly, peaceable, and Christian _accommodation_, yet, this being\nutterly rejected by them, we cannot dissemble how, upon the fore-\nmentioned grounds, we detest and abhor the much-endeavoured _Toleration_.\nOur bowels, our bowels, are stirred within us, &c.\" The Letter was\npresented to the Assembly Jan. 1, 1645-6, and the Assembly took care that\nit should be published that same day.[Footnote: Cunningham's London, Art.\n_Sion College_; Hanbury's Memorials, III. 97-99; Stationers' Registers,\nJan. 1, 1645-6.]--The Corporation of London was as staunchly Presbyterian\nas the clergy, and they too were stirred up. \"We have gotten it, thanks\nto God, to this point,\" writes Baillie, Jan. 15, \"that the Mayor,\nAldermen, Common Council, and most of the considerable men, are grieved\nfor the increase of sects and heresies and want of government. They have\nyesterday had a public Fast for it, and solemnly renewed their Covenant\nby oath and subscription, and this day have given in a strong Petition\nfor settling Church-government, and suppressing all sects, without any\ntoleration.\" The Petition was to the Commons; and it was particularly\nrepresented to that House, by Alderman Gibbs, as the spokesman for the\nPetitioners, that \"new and strange doctrines and blasphemies\" were being\nvented in the City by women-preachers. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 337;\nHanbury, III. 99, 100; Commons Journals, January 15, 1645-6.]\n\nEnvironed by such a sea of Presbyterian excitement, what could the\nParliament do? They did what was expected. They shook off Toleration as\nif it had been a snake. Not only did they assure the Aldermen and Common\nCouncil that there would be due vigilance against the sects and heretics;\nbut on the 29th of January, or within a fortnight after they had received\nthe City Petition, they took occasion to prove that their assurance was\nsincere. The two Baptist preachers Cox and Richardson, it seems, had been\nstanding at the door of the House of Commons, distributing to members\nprinted copies of the Confession of Faith of the Seven Baptist\nCongregations in London (see _ant\u00e8_, p. 148). It was as if they had\nsaid, \"Be pleased to look for yourselves, gentlemen, at the real tenets\nof those poor Anabaptists who are described as such monsters.\" But the\nCommons were in a Presbyterian panic; Cox and Richardson were taken into\ncustody; and orders were issued for seizing and suppressing all copies of\nthe Baptist Confession that could be found. This alone would prove that\nas late as the end of January, 1645-6, the Presbyterians, in their\ncharacter of Anti-Tolerationists, were still masters of the field.\n[Footnote: Commons Journals, Jan. 29, 1645-6.]\n\n\nPRESBYTERIAN FRAME OF CHURCH-GOVERNMENT COMPLETED: DETAILS OF THE\nARRANGEMENT.\n\nHardly less successful had the Presbyterians been in their more proper\ntask of perfecting their Frame of Church-government. Here, indeed, they\nhad encountered little or no opposition from the Independents. The\nessentials of the Presbyterian scheme having been voted by Parliament,\nthe Independents had quietly accepted that fact; and, though they tended,\nas was natural, more and more to doubts whether there ought to be any\nNational Church at all, they had left Parliament and the Presbyterians of\nthe Assembly to construct the detailed machine of the future English\nPresbytery very much as they pleased. [Footnote: Absolute Voluntaryism,\nas we know, was already represented in Roger Williams. The _Seekers_, his\nfollowers, were bound to the same conclusion; and accordingly, I find a\nlittle tract of six pages, in 1645, by John Saltmarsh, the Seeker and\nAntinomian (_ant\u00e8_, p. 151-3), entitled \"A New Quere, at this time\nseasonably to be considered, &c.. viz. Whether it be fit, according to\nthe principles of true Religion and State to settle any Church-government\nover the Kingdom hastily or not.\" Burton was already in the same mood of\nhypothetical Voluntaryism (_ant\u00e8_, p. 109), and I think it was spreading\nnow among the Independents. Certainly, however, the perception of the\nnecessary identity of the principle of Independency with absolute\nVoluntaryism, or the doctrine of No State Church, was not universal among\nthem.] It was the Erastians rather than the Independents that were here\nthe clogs upon the thorough-going Presbyterians. Selden especially was\ntheir torment. He was quite willing, O yes! that the Church of England\nshould be thenceforward Presbyterian; but then what about the rights of\nthe individual subject and the relations of the Church to the State? The\nState or central Power in every community must be, in the last resort,\nthe guardian of all the rights and liberties of the individual subjects;\nthere had been but one Sanhedrim in the Jewish Commonwealth, supreme in\ncauses ecclesiastical as well as in causes civil; but the Presbyterian\nDivines of the Assembly, with the Scots for their advisers, wanted the\nChurch in England to be a separate Sanhedrim, supreme in ecclesiastical\ncauses, and irresponsible to the State! Plying his learning in this\nfashion, and assisted by Whitlocke, St. John, and the other lawyers in\nthe Assembly and in Parliament, Selden had, throughout 1645, kept up an\nErastian obstruction to the Presbyterians. Now, as Prynne out of doors,\nwith all his Presbyterianism, was also lawyer-like, and therefore\nstaunchly Erastian, and as the Independents in Parliament made common\ncause with the Erastians wherever they could, the obstruction had been\nvery formidable. \"The Erastian party in the Parliament is stronger than\nthe Independent, and is like to work us much woe,\" wrote Baillie in May\n1645; \"Mr. Prynne and the Erastian lawyers are now our _remora_\" he wrote\nin September; and he kept repeating the complaint throughout the year.\n[Footnote: Baillie, II. 277, 315, and also in intermediate and following\npages.]\n\nNevertheless great progress had been made in devising and settling the\ndetails of the Presbyterian system. What it was will be best exhibited in\na dated series of paragraphs, digesting the proceedings of the Assembly\nand the Parliament:--\n\n_May 1645: Presbyterian Arrangements for all England prospectively, and\nfor London to begin with_:--That every English Congregation or Parish\nhave its lay-elders along with its minister, just after the Scottish\nfashion; That the meetings of the Presbyterians be once a month; That the\necclesiastical provinces of England be about sixty in number (about co-\nnumerous with the shires, and, in most cases, identical with them), and\nthat the Synods of these provinces be held twice a-year, and consist of\ndelegates from the Presbyteries; That the National Assembly be held once\na year, and consist of delegates from the sixty Synods, at the rate of\nthree ministers and two ruling elders from each, so as to form a House of\nabout 300 members.--That London, reckoned by a radius of ten miles from\nits centre, be one of the Synodical Provinces, and that the number of\nClasses or Presbyteries in the Synod of London be fourteen.--\n_Baillie_, II. 271, 272.\n\n_Aug._ 23: Ordinance of Parliament, calling in all copies of the old\nLiturgy, enforcing the use of the new Westminster Directory of Worship,\nand forbidding any use of the Liturgy, even in private houses, under\npenalties.--_Commons Journals._\n\n_July-Sept. 1645; Directions for the Election of Ruling Elders in\nCongregations, and for the Division of the English Counties into\nPresbyteries._ July 23, the Commons resolved that Ruling Elders in\ncongregations should be chosen by the ministers and all members duly\nqualified by having taken the Covenant and being of full age, save that\nservants without families were not to have votes: no man to be a ruling\nelder in more than one congregation, and that in the place of his usual\nresidence. July 25, they appointed a committee of forty-seven of their\nown body to find out the fittest persons to be a committee for\nsuperintending the elections of Elders for the Congregations and\nPresbyteries of London, and at the same time to prepare a letter to be\nsent down into the counties by the Speaker, giving instructions for the\nformation of County-Committees to consider the best division of the\ncounties respectively into Presbyteries. The letter was ready Sept. 17,\nwhen it was ordered to be sent down into the counties, with a copy of the\nVotes and Ordinances on the subject of the election of Elders that had\nthen passed and been concurred in by the Lords.--_Commons Journals._\n\n_Sept.-Dec. 1645: Special Presbyterian Arrangements for London._ It\nhaving been resolved by the Commons (Sept. 23) that there should be a\nchoice of Elders forthwith in London, the aforesaid Committee of forty-\nseven reported to the House (Sept. 26) the names of the persons judged\nmost suitable to be TRIERS of the ability and integrity of the Elders\nthat should be elected, and of the validity of their election according\nto the Parliamentary regulations. In each of the twelve London Classes or\nPresbyteries (there were only _twelve_ as yet) there were to be nine\nof these Triers--three ministers and six lay citizens; and they were to\ndecide all questions by a majority of votes. Thus there were to be 108\nTriers in all in London. Their names are all registered. The machinery\nbeing thus ready, the Lord Mayor was requested, Oct. 8, to intimate to\nall the London ministers the desire of Parliament that Congregations\nshould at once proceed to the election of their Elders.--Dec. 5, it was\nordered that the whole world of the lawyers--_i.e._ the Chapel of\nthe Rolls, the two Serjeants' Inns, and the four Inns of Court--should be\nconstituted into a Presbytery by itself, but divided into two Classes.\nTriers were also appointed for the Elders in this peculiar Presbytery,\none of them being William Prynne.--_Commons Journals of dates\ncited._\n\n_Nov._ 8, 1645: _New Ordinance for the Ordination of Ministers._ In this\nlong Ordinance the original identity of Bishop and Presbyter is asserted,\nand consequently the right of Presbyters, without any so-called Bishop\namong them, to ordain; nevertheless the ordinations by the late Bishops\nare recognised as valid. Directions are then given to Presbyters for the\nexamination of candidates for the ministry in future, and for the\nformalities to be observed in their ordination. Every candidate must be\ntwenty-four years of age at least, and must be tried not only in respect\nof piety, character, preaching ability, and knowledge of divinity, but\nalso in respect of skill in the tongues and in Logic and Philosophy; and\ncongregations were to have full opportunity of stating exceptions against\nministers offered them. From a clause in the Ordinance it appears that\ncertified ordination in Scotland was to be accepted in England.--_Lords\nJournals._\n\n_Powers of the Congregational Elderships in suspending from Church-\nmembership, and excluding from the Communion._ This was perhaps the most\nimportant subject of all, for it involved the mode of the action of the\nnew Presbyterian system at the heart of social life and its interferences\nwith the liberties of the individual. Parliament was naturally slow and\njealous on this subject, so that the discussion of it, part by part,\nextended over the whole year 1645. The briefest sketch of results must\nsuffice here:--The Assembly having sent in to Parliament a Paper\nconcerning the exclusion of ignorant and scandalous persons from the\nSacrament of the Lord's Supper, the Parliament had desired a more\nparticular definition by the Assembly of what they included in the terms\n_ignorant_ and _scandalous_. The Assembly having then sent in an\nexplanation, in which, under the head of the _ignorance_ that should\nexclude from the Lord's Table, they mentioned \"the not having a competent\nunderstanding concerning the Trinity,\" the Commons (March 27, 1645) had\ndesired to know what the Assembly considered to be a competent\nunderstanding concerning the Trinity, The Assembly having farther\ndeclared, under the same head of _ignorance_, that no persons ought to be\nadmitted to the Lord's Table who had not a \"competent understanding\" of\nthe Deity, of the state of Man by Creation and by his Fall, of Redemption\nby Jesus Christ and the means to apply Christ and his benefits, of the\nnecessity of Faith, Repentance and a Godly life, of the Nature and Use of\nSacraments, and of the Condition of Man after this Life, the Commons had\nstill demurred about the \"competent understanding,\" and had begged the\nAssembly to be more precise and business-like (April 1). At length, some\nresolutions having been come to about the \"competent understanding,\" and\nthere being less difficulty in deciding who should come under the\ncategory of the _scandalous_, the Commons had before them a pretty\nextensive index of the kinds of persons, whether _ignorant_ or\n_scandalous_, whom the Congregational Elderships were to be empowered to\nsuspend or debar from the Communion. The index was not complete, I think,\ntill January 1645-6; by which time, after numerous discussions, it\nincluded, in addition to the grossly ignorant in the elementary articles\nof Christianity, and to murderers, notorious drunkards, swearers, _et hoc\ngenus omne_, a considerable list of such varieties of offenders as these--\nmakers of images of the Trinity, worshippers of saints, persons sending\nor accepting challenges, persons playing at games selling wares or\nunnecessarily travelling on Sunday, persons consulting witches, persons\nassaulting magistrates or their own parents, persons legally convicted of\nperjury or bribery, persons consenting to the marriage of their children\nwith Papists, and, finally, the maintainers of errors that subvert the\nprime Articles of Religion. To provide, moreover, for cases not\npositively enumerated, there were to be commissioners in every\necclesiastical province authorized to decide on such cases, when\nrepresented to them by ministers and the elderships. All this, with much\nmore of the same kind, was partly agreed upon, partly still under\nParliamentary consideration, in the beginning of 1646.--_Commons\nJournals, with references there to the Lords Journals_.\n\n\nTHE RECRUITING OF THE COMMONS; EMINENT RECRUITERS.\n\nJanuary 1645-6, I think, was the month in which Presbyterianism was in\nfullest tide. After that month, and through the spring and early summer\nof 1646, there was a visible ebb. The cause may have been partly that\ncontinued triumph everywhere of the New Model Army which had brought the\nWar obviously to its fag-end, and now, perhaps, suggested to Parliament\nand the Londoners the uncomfortable idea that the marching mass of\nIndependency, relieved from its military labours, would soon be re-\napproaching the capital, and at leisure to review the proceedings of its\nmasters. There was, however, a more obvious cause. This was the increase\nof the Independent Vote in the House of Commons by the gradual coming in\nof the RECRUITERS.\n\nBy the outbreak of the Civil War in August 1642, and the consequent\ndesertion of the House of Commons by two-thirds of its members, most of\nwhom were then or afterwards formally disabled, the House, as we know,\nhad been reduced to a mere stump of what it ought to have been\nconstitutionally. There had been complaints about this outside, and\nregrets within the House itself; but it was felt that a time of Civil War\ncould not be a time for Parliamentary elections. How could there be such\nelections while the King's forces were in possession of large regions of\nEngland, and these the very regions where most seats were vacant? For\nthree years, therefore, the House had allowed the vacant seats in it to\nremain vacant, and had persisted in the public business in the state to\nwhich it had been reduced, _i.e._, with a nominal strength at the\nutmost of about 280, and a constant working attendance of only 100 or\nthereabouts. Not till after Naseby, and the recovery of more and more of\nEnglish ground for Parliament by the successes of the New Model, was it\ndeemed prudent to begin the issue of new writs; and even then the process\nwas careful and gradual.\n\nThe first new writs issued were in Aug. 1645, and were for Southwark, St.\nEdmundsbury, and Hythe; in September there followed 95 additional new\nwrits for boroughs or counties; in October there were 27 more; and so on\nby smaller batches in succeeding months, until, by the end of the year,\n146 new members in all had been elected. This did not complete the\nprocess; for 89 new members more remained to be elected in the course of\n1646, bringing the total number of the Recruiters up to about 235. Now,\namong these Recruiters, all of them Parliamentarians in the main sense,\nthere were both Presbyterians and Independents. As Presbyterians, more or\nless, may be reckoned, among those elected before January 1645-6, Major-\ngeneral RICHARD BROWNE (Wycombe), Major-general EDWARD MASSEY (Wootton\nBassett), WALTER LONG, Esq. (Ludgershall, Wilts), and CLEMENT WALKER,\nEsq. (Wells): this last a very peculiar-tempered person from\nSomersetshire, a friend of Prynne's, and described by himself as an\n\"elderly gentleman, of low stature, in a grey suit, with a little stick\nin his hand.\" Decidedly more numerous among the Recruiters, however, were\nmen who might be called Independents, or were at least Tolerationists.\nAmong such, all elected before January 1645-6, or not later than that\nmonth, may be named Colonel ROBERT BLAKE (Taunton), Sir JOHN DANVERS,\nbrother of the late Earl of Danby (Malmesbury), the Hon. JOHN FIENNES,\nthird son of Viscount Saye and Sele (Morpeth), GEORGE FLEETWOOD, Esq.\n(Bucks), Colonel CHARLES FLEETWOOD (Marlborough), Sir JAMES HARRINGTON\n(Rutland), the Hon. JAMES HERBERT, second son of the Earl of Pembroke\n(Wilts), Colonel JOHN HUTCHINSON (Notts), Commissary-general HENRY IRETON\n(Appleby), HENRY LAWRENCE, Esq., a gentleman of property and some taste\nfor learning and speculation (Westmoreland), Sir MICHAEL LIVESEY\n(Queenborough), Colonel EDMUND LUDLOW (Wilts), SIMON MAYNE, Esq.\n(Aylesbury), young Colonel EDWARD MONTAGUE (Hants), Colonel RICHARD\nNORTON (Hants), Colonel CHARLES RICH (Sandwich), Colonel EDWARD ROSSITER\n(Great Grimsby), THOMAS SCOTT (Aylesbury), young Colonel ALGERNON SIDNEY\n(Cardiff), Colonel WILLIAM SYDENHAM (Melcombe Regis), and PETER TEMPLE,\nEsq. (Leicester). Of this list, nearly half, it may be noted, were or had\nbeen officers in the New Model. The fact was very significant. It was\nstill more significant that among these New Model officers elected among\nthe first Recruiters there was a knot of men who were already recognised\nas in a special sense Cromwellians. Almost all the New Model officers\nwere devoted to Cromwell; but Ireton was his _alter ego_, and young\nFleetwood, young Montague, young Sidney, and young Sydenham, belonged to\na group known in the Army as Cromwell's passionate admirers and\ndisciples. [Footnote: The statistics of the Recruiting in this paragraph\nare from my own counting of the New Writs from Aug. 1645 onwards in the\nCommons Journals, checked by Godwin's previous counting or calculation\n(Hist. of Commonwealth, II. 38, 39), and by the noting of new writs in\nthe list of members of the Long Parliament given in the Parl. Hist. (II.\n599-629). Among the individual Recruiters named I have tried not to\ninclude any whose election was _later_ than Jan. 1645-6, and have\ntrusted, in that particular, to the notices of new writs in the Commons\nJournals and the Parl. Hist.; but one cannot be perfectly sure that in\neach case an election immediately followed the new writ. My often-cited\nfly-sheet authority, Leach's _Great Champions of England_, has been\nof use. It distinguishes 131 Recruiters as of Parliamentary note before\nthe end of July, 1646; but its list of Recruiters up to that date is\nneither complete nor accurate.--The description of Clement Walker is from\nhis own _Hist. of Independency_ (edit. 1660), Part I. p. 53.--The\ncounty in which there had to be most Recruiting, _i.e._in which\nthere were most vacant seats, was Somersetshire. Nearly all the seats\nwere vacant there. A large proportion of the seats was vacant in Notts,\nYorkshire, Sussex, Westmoreland, and Wales.--The Recruiting went on not\nonly through 1646, but also in stray cases through subsequent years; and\nFAIRFAX, SKIPPON, HARRISON, INGOLDSBY, among military men, and PRYNNE\nhimself among civilians, came at length into the House.]\n\nNot _called_ Recruiters, but practically such for the Independents,\nwere two original members who, after having been out of the House for a\nlong while, were now restored to their places. These were Nathaniel\nFiennes, _alias_ \"Young Subtlety,\" and the witty and freethinking\nHenry Marten. Fiennes, having been tried by court-martial and sentenced\nto death in December 1643, for his surrender of Bristol (_ant\u00e8_, p.\n6), had been forgiven and allowed to go abroad; but opinion of his\nconduct in that affair had meanwhile become more favourable, and before\nthe end of 1645 he returned and resumed his seat. Marten (Vol. II. p.\n166) had been expelled from the House by vote, Aug. 16, 1643, for words\ntoo daringly disrespectful of Royalty--in fact, for premature\nRepublicanism; but, the House having become less fastidious in that\nmatter, and his presence being greatly missed, the vote was rescinded\nJanuary 6, 1645-6, and the record of it expunged from the Journals.\n[Footnote: Godwin's Commonwealth, II. 77, 78; Wood's Ath. III. 878 and\n1238; and Commons Journals of dates given.]\n\nAlthough as many as 146 Recruiters had been elected before the end of the\nyear, they appear to have taken their places but slowly. Not till January\n26, 1645-6, does one perceive any considerable effect on the numbers of\nthe House. On that day there was a House of at least 183, the largest\nthere had been for many a day--larger by 13 than the House that had made\nFairfax commander-in-chief twelve months before. And thenceforward the\nnumbers keep well up. On two occasions early in February there were\nHouses of 203 and 202 respectively; and before the summer of 1646 there\nwere members enough at hand to form on great field-days Houses of from\n250 to 270. By that time some of the military men among the Recruiters\nwere able to be present. [Footnote: My notes of Divisions, from the\nCommons Journals.]\n\n\nEFFECTS OF THE RECRUITING: ALLIANCE OF INDEPENDENCY AND ERASTIANISM:\nCHECK GIVEN TO THE PRESBYTERIANS: WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY REBUKED.\n\nAs soon as the Recruiting had begun to tell upon the _numbers_ of the\nHouse, an effect on the _policy_ of the House is also perceptible. Thus\non Feb. 3, the very day when the Commons mustered a House of 203, a\ndivision took place involving Toleration in a subtle form. The question\nwas whether in a Declaration setting forth the true intentions of the\nHouse in Church-matters this clause should be inserted: \"A fitting care\nshall be taken of tender consciences, so far as may stand with the Word\nof God and the Peace of the Kingdom.\" This, though mild enough,\ndispleased the Presbyterians, and was proposed from their side that the\nwords \"Church and\" should be inserted before the word \"Kingdom.\" On a\ndivision the _Yeas_ (for adding the words and so making the pledge of a\ntoleration weaker) were 105, and had for their tellers the Presbyterian\nparty-chiefs, Denzil Holles and Sir Philip Stapleton; but 98 _Noes_\nrallied round Sir Arthur Haselrig and Sir Henry Mildmay, the tellers for\nthe Opposition. [Footnote: Commons Journals of date.]  A wavering of the\nbalance towards Independency and Toleration was indicated by this vote;\nbut it was not till the following month that the balance was decisively\nturned, and then not directly on the Toleration question, but on that\ngreat related question of the \"Power of the Keys\" which the Presbyterians\nof the Assembly wanted to see settled in their favour before they could\nconsider the Presbyterian establishment perfect. If the phrase \"Power of\nthe Keys\" should seem a mystic one to English readers now, it will\nperhaps be cleared up by the following story of what happened in March\n1645-6.\n\nOn the 5th of that month the Commons passed and sent up to the Lords one\nall-comprehensive Ordinance, recapitulating in twenty-three Propositions\nthe substance of their various Presbyterian enactments up to that date.\n[Footnote: See the Ordinance in the Commons Journals of the date. It is a\nclear and excellent summary of what had been done and what was intended\nin the matter of Presbyterian Establishment.] What these were we have\njust seen (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 397-400). They amounted, as one might now\nthink, to a sufficiently strict Presbyterianizing of all England, with\nLondon first by way of example. The Presbyterian Divines were not ill\nsatisfied on the whole; but they had not succeeded to the full extent of\ntheir wishes, and there were various matters in the Recapitulating\nOrdinance that they hoped yet to see amended. In particular,\nnotwithstanding all their efforts for months past to indoctrinate the\nParliament with the right Presbyterian theory of the independent\nspiritual jurisdiction of the Church, the natural Erastianism of the lay\nmind had been so strong in the Commons that the 14th Proposition of the\nRecapitulating Ordinance stood as follows:--\n\n\"XIV. That, in every Province, persons shall be chosen by the Houses of\nParliament that shall be Commissioners to judge of scandalous offences\n(not enumerated in any Ordinance of Parliament) to them presented: And\nthat the Eldership of that Congregation where the said offence was\ncommitted shall, upon examination and proof of such scandalous offence\n(in like manner as is to be done in the offences enumerated), certify the\nsame to the Commissioners, together with the proof taken before them: And\nbefore the said certificate the party accused shall have liberty to make\nsuch defence as he shall think fit before the said Eldership, and also\nbefore the Commissioners before any certificate shall be made to the\nParliament: And, if the said Commissioners, after examination of all\nparties, shall determine the offence, so presented and proved, to be\nscandalous, and the same shall certify to the Congregation, the Eldership\nthereof may suspend such person from the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper,\nin like manner as in cases enumerated in any Ordinance of Parliament.\"\n\nHere was wormwood for the Presbyterians; and over this 14th Article, and\none or two subsequent articles, settling farther details of the\nsuperiority of the proposed Parliamentary Commissioners over the Church\nCourts, and also reserving the appeal of ecclesiastical questions to\nParliament, they prepared to fight a most strenuous battle. The Assembly,\nthe City Corporation, the City ministers in their Sion College conclave,\nand the Scottish Commissioners, all flew to arms. Their first hope was\nwith the Lords; and _them_ they nearly conquered. On the 13th of\nMarch there was a long debate in that House on the whole Ordinance, and\nespecially its 14th Article; and, out of twenty-one Peers present,\n_nine_ were so opposed to that Article that, before the vote was\ntaken, they begged leave to be allowed to register their protest if the\nvote went against them. These Peers were the Earls of Essex, Manchester,\nWarwick, Bolingbroke, and Suffolk, and Lords Willoughby, Roberts, Dacres,\nand Bruce. There were, however, _twelve_ Peers in favour of the\nErastian Article: viz. the Earls of Northumberland, Kent, Pembroke,\nSalisbury, Denbigh, Nottingham, Stamford, and Middlesex, and Lords North,\nHoward of Escrick, Wharton, and Grey of Wark. Pour of the minority, viz.\nEssex, Manchester, Bolingbroke, and Bruce, did then protest, on the\nground that they considered the institution of Parliamentary\nCommissioners apart from the Church Courts inconsistent with the Solemn\nLeague and Covenant. The entire Ordinance, with insignificant amendments,\nthus passed the Lords; and, the Commons having accepted the amendments,\nit became law on the 14th of March. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Feb. 27,\nand March 3, 5, and 14, 1645-6; and Lords Journals, March 13 and 14.]\n\nWas it, then, such a mongrel Presbytery as this, an Erastian Presbytery,\na Presbytery controlled and policed by Parliamentary Commissioners, that\nwas to be set up in England? Not if the Presbyterian clergy of England,\nwith all Scotland to aid them, could prevent it! \"We, for our part [the\nScottish Commissioners],\" writes Baillie, March 17, \"mind to give in a\nremonstrance against it; the Assembly will do the like; the City\nministers will give the third; but that which, by God's help, may prove\nmost effectual is the zeal of the City itself. Before the Ordinance came\nout, they petitioned against some materials of it. This both the Houses\nvoted to be a breach of their privilege, to offer a petition against\nanything that is in debate before them, till once it be concluded and\ncome abroad. This vote the City takes very evil: it's likely to go high\nbetwixt them. Our prayers and endeavours are for wisdom and courage to\nthe City.\" [Footnote: Baillie, II. 361.] Within a fortnight, however\n(March 31), Baillie writes, in a postscript to the same letter, in a much\nmore downcast mood. \"The leaders of the people,\" he says, \"seem to be\ninclined to have no shadow of a King, to have liberty for all Religions,\nto have but a lame Erastian Presbytery, to be so injurious to us [the\nScots] as to chase us home with the sword. ... Our great hope on earth,\nthe City of London, has played _nipshot_ [_i.e._ miss-fire or burnt\npriming]: they are speaking of dissolving the Assembly.\" [Footnote:\nIbid. II. 362.]--To understand this wail of Baillie's we have again to\nturn to the Journals of the Commons.\n\nHaving passed the all-conclusive Ordinance for Presbytery, the two Houses\nhad resolved to stand on their dignity, and resent the attempted\ndictation of the City, the Sion College conclave, the Assembly, and the\nScottish Commissioners. They had already, as Baillie informs us, made a\nbeginning, while the Ordinance was yet in progress, by voting a petition\nof the City against some parts of it to be a breach of privilege. At\nthis, as late as March 17, the City was in proper dudgeon, and vowed that\nParliament should hear from it again on the subject. Before a fortnight\nhad elapsed, however, there was a wonderful change. News had come to\nLondon of Hopton's final surrender to the New Model in Cornwall, of the\ndefeat of Astley in Gloucestershire with the last shred of the King's\nfield-force, and in fact of the absolute ending of the war, except for\nthe few Royalist towns and garrisons that had yet to make terms. In the\nmidst of the universal joy, why dwell on a difference between the City\nand Parliament as to the details of the Presbyterian mechanism?\nAccordingly, on Friday, March 27, divers Aldermen and others were at the\ndoor of the House of Commons, not to remonstrate farther this little\ndifference, but to beg that the House would \"so far honour\" the City as\nto dine with the Corporation at Grocers' Hall on the following Thursday,\nbeing Thanksgiving Day, after the two usual sermons! The House was most\ngracious, and accepted the invitation; and this restoration of good\nfeeling between Parliament and the City was probably the \"nipshot\" or\nmiss-fire which Baillie lamented on the 3lst.--The City being out of the\nbusiness for the time, it was easier for the Parliament to deal with the\nother parties. To the Scottish Commissioners hints were conveyed, as\npolitely as possible, that Parliament would prefer having less of their\nvaluable assistance in the governing of England. With the Westminster\nAssembly and the London Divines there was less ceremony. The Assembly\n_had_ drawn up a Petition or Remonstrance against the Articles of\nthe conclusive Ordinance of March 14, providing for an agency of\nParliamentary Commissioners to aid and supervise the Church judicatories.\n\"The provision of Commissioners,\" they said, \"to judge of scandals not\nenumerated appears to our consciences to be contrary to that way of\ngovernment which Christ hath appointed in his Church, in that it giveth a\npower to judge of the fitness of persons to come to the Sacrament unto\nsuch as our Lord Jesus Christ hath not given that power unto;\" and they\nadded that the provision was contrary to the Solemn League and Covenant,\nand besought Parliament to cancel it and put due power into the hands of\nthe Elderships. This Petition, signed by the Prolocutor, one of the\nAssessors, and the to Scribes of the Assembly, was presented to the two\nHouses, most imposingly, March 23, When Baillie wrote his lamentation he\ndid not know the precise result, but he guessed what it was to be.\n\nIt was worse than Baillie could have guessed. After much inquiry and\nconsultation about the Assembly's Petition, the Commons, on the 11th of\nApril 1646, came to two sharp votes. The first was on the question\n\"Whether the House shall first debate the point concerning the Breach of\nPrivilege in this Petition;\" and it was carried in the affirmative by 106\n_Yeas_, told by Evelyn of Wilts and Haselrig, against 85 _Noes_, told by\nHolles and Stapleton. The question was then put \"Whether this Petition,\nthus presented by the Assembly of the Divines, is a Breach of Privilege\nof Parliament;\" and on this question, the tellers on both sides being the\nsame, 88 voted _Yea_ and 76 _No_: _i.e._ it was carried by a majority of\n12 that the Assembly, in their Petition, had been guilty of a grave\npolitical offence, for which they might be punished individually, by fine\nor imprisonment or both. No such punishment, of course, was intended. It\nwas enough to shake the rod over the Assembly. A Committee, including\nHaselrig, Henry Marten, the younger Vane, and Selden, was appointed to\nprepare a Narrative on the whole subject, with a statement of the\nparticulars; and this Narrative, ready April 21, was discussed clause by\nclause, and adopted. It is a striking document, quiet and tight in style,\nbut most pungent in matter. It begins with an assertion of the supremacy\nof Parliament in all matters whatsoever; it recites the specific purposes\nfor which the Assembly had been called by Parliament, and the limitations\nimposed upon it by the Ordinance to which it owed its being; and it\nproceeds to this rebuke: \"The Assembly are not authorized, as an\nAssembly, by any Ordinance or Order of Parliament, to interpret the\nCovenant, especially in relation to any law made or to be made; nor,\nsince the Law passed both Houses concerning the Commissioners, have [the\nAssembly] been required by both or either of the Houses of Parliament, or\nhad any authority before from Parliament, to deliver their opinions to\nthe Houses on matters already judged and determined by them. Neither have\nthey the power to debate or vote whether what is passed as a Law by both\nHouses be agreeing or disagreeing to the Word of God, unless they be\nthereunto required.\" On the day on which the Narrative containing this\npassage of rebuke was adopted (April 21) a Committee was appointed to\ncommunicate it, with the appertaining Vote of the Commons, \"in a fair\nmanner,\" to the Assembly. Actually, on the 27th of April the\ncommunication was made most ceremoniously, and from that day the Assembly\nknew itself to be under curb. [Footnote: For the facts of this and the\npreceding paragraph the authorities are Commons and Lords Journals, March\n23, 1645-6, and Commons Journals of April 1, 3, 8, 11, 16, 18, 21, and\n24, 1646. The Lords Journals give the Assembly's Petition; the Narrative\nof the Commons is in their Journals for April 21.--It is strange, in\nmodern times, to note the frequency with which the Parliament, and even\nthe popular party in it, resorted to the fiction of Breach of Privilege\nin order to quash opposition to their proceedings. Sometimes, as in the\nVote about the City Petition recently mentioned, it was the Breach of\nPrivilege to assume to know what was going on in Parliament or petition\nagainst any measure while it was pending; at other times, as now, it was\na Breach of Privilege to question by petition a measure already\ndetermined. In the present case, however, the Commons seem to have\nfounded on the fact that the Assembly, \"as an Assembly,\" had transgressed\nits powers. Individually, they seem to say, the Divines might have\npetitioned, but not as an Assembly, the creature of the Parliament whose\nacts they censured.]\n\nNot only under curb, but thrown to the ground, and baited with sarcasms\nand interrogatories! Thus, on the 17th of April, six days after the Vote\nof Breach of Privilege, but four days before the Vote and the\naccompanying Narrative had been communicated officially to the Assembly,\nthere was finally agreed upon by the Commons that Declaration as to their\ntrue intentions on the Church question which had been in preparation\nsince February 3, and in this Declaration there was a double-knotted lash\nat the prostrate Assembly. Parliament, it was explained, had adopted most\nof the Assembly's recommendations as to the Frame of Church-government to\nbe set up, with no exception of moment but that of the Commissioners; in\nwhich exception Parliament had only performed its bounden duty, seeing it\ncould not \"consent to the granting of an arbitrary and unlimited power\nand jurisdiction to near 10,000 judicatories to be erected in this\nkingdom.\" Farther it was announced that Parliament reserved the question\nof the amount of toleration to be granted under the new Presbyterial rule\nto \"tender consciences that differ not in fundamentals of Religion.\" But\nthere was more to come. Selden and the Erastians, and Haselrig, Vane,\nMarten, with the Independents and Free Opinionists, had been nettled by\nthose parts of the Assembly's Petition which assumed that the whole frame\nof the Presbyterian Government scheme by the Assembly was _jure\ndivino_. They resolved to put the Assembly through an examination about\nthis _jus divinum_. On the 22nd of April, therefore, there was presented\nto the House, by the same Committee that had prepared the Narrative of\nthe Breach of Privilege, a series of nine questions which it would be\nwell to send to the Assembly. \"Whether the Parochial and Congregational\nElderships appointed by Ordinance of Parliament, or any other\nCongregational or Presbyterial Elderships, are _jure divino_, and by the\nwill and appointment of Jesus Christ; and whether any particular Church-\ngovernment be _jure divino_, and what that government is?\"--such is the\nfirst of the nine queries; and the other eight are no less incisive. They\nwere duly communicated to the Assembly; it was requested that the Answers\nshould be precise, with the Scripture proofs for each, in the express\nwords of the texts; every Divine present at a debate on any of the\nQueries was to subscribe his name to the particular resolution he might\nvote for; and the dissentients from any vote were to send to Parliament\ntheir own positive opinions on the point of that vote, with the Scripture\nproofs. Selden's hand is distinctly visible in this ingenious insult to\nthe Assembly. [Footnote: Commons Journals, April 17 and April 22, 1646;\nBaillie, II. 344.] It was a more stinging punishment than adjournment or\ndissolution would have been, though that also had been thought of, and\nViscount Saye and Sele had recommended it in the Lords.\n\nIn the midst of these firm dealings of the Parliament with the Assembly,\nCromwell was back in London. He was in the House on the 23rd of April\n1646, and received its thanks, through the Speaker, for his great\nservices. He probably brought a train of his young Cromwellians with him\n(Ireton, Fleetwood, Montague, &c.) to swell the number of Recruiters that\nhad already taken their seats. In the course of May, at all events, there\nwere Houses of 269, 241, 261, 259, and 248, and the Recruiters had so\nincreased the strength of the Independents and Erastians that a relapse\ninto the policy of ultra-Presbyterianism and No Toleration appeared\nimpossible. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 369, and Commons Journals for several\ndays in May 1646.]\n\n\nNEGOTIATIONS ROUND THE KING--AT NEWCASTLE: THREATENED RUPTURE BETWEEN THE\nSCOTS AND THE ENGLISH: ARGYLE'S VISIT TO LONDON.\n\nSuddenly, by the King's flight to the Scottish Army at Newark (May 5),\nand by the retreat of that army, with the King in their possession, to\nthe safer position of Newcastle (May 13), the whole condition of things\nwas changed. The question between Independency and Presbyterianism, and\nthe included question of Toleration or No Toleration, were thrown, with\nall other questions, into the crucible of the negotiations, between the\nEnglish and the Scots, round the King at Newcastle.\n\nIt was known that the strife between the Independents and the\nPresbyterians had long been a solace to Charles, and a fact of great\nimportance in his calculations. Should he fail to rout both parties and\nreimpose both Kingship and Episcopacy on England by force of arms, did\nthere not remain for him, at the very worst, the option of allying\nhimself with that one of the parties with which he could make the best\nbargain? Now that he had been driven to the detested alternative, he had,\nit appeared, though not without hesitation, and indeed partly by\naccident, given the Presbyterians the first chance. He had done so, it\nwas true, in a circuitous way, but perhaps in the only way open to him.\nTo have surrendered himself to the English Presbyterians was hardly\npossible; for, had he gone to London with that view, how could the\nPresbyterians of the Parliament and the City have protected him, or kept\nhim to themselves, when the English Army that would then instantly have\nclosed round London was an Army of Independents? By placing himself in\nthe hands of the Scottish Army, had he not cleverly avoided this\ndifficulty, receiving temporary protection, and yet intimating that it\nwas with the Presbyterians that he preferred to treat? So, in fact, the\nKing's flight to the Scots was construed by the English Presbyterians.\nThey were even glad that it had fallen to the Scots to represent for the\nmoment English Presbyterianism as well as Scottish, advising Charles in\nhis new circumstances, and ascertaining his intentions. And the Scots, on\ntheir part, it appeared, had accepted the duty.\n\nHardly was the King at Newcastle when there were round him not only\nGeneral Leven, Major-general Leslie, and the Earls of Lothian, Balcarres,\nand Dunfermline, all of whom had chanced to be at Newark on his reception\nthere, but also other Scots of mark, expressly sent from Edinburgh and\nfrom London. The Earl of Lanark was among the first of these. Argyle\nhimself, who had been excessively busy in Scotland and in Ireland since\nthe defeat of Montrose, thought his presence now essential in England,\nand hastened to be with his Majesty. The Chancellor Loudoun made no\ndelay, but was off from London to Newcastle on the 16th of May. Above\nall, however, it was thought desirable that Alexander Henderson should be\nnear his Majesty at such a crisis. Accordingly, some days before\nLoudoun's departure, Henderson had taken leave of his brother-divines,\nBaillie, Rutherford, and Gillespie, with Lauderdale and Johnstone of\nWarriston, in their London quarters at Worcester House, and, though in\nsuch a state of ill-health as to be hardly fit to travel, had gone\nbravely and modestly northwards to the scene of duty. How much was\nexpected of him may be inferred from a jotting in one of Baillie's\nletters just after he had gone. \"Our great perplexity is for the King's\ndisposition,\" wrote Baillie on the 15th of May: \"how far he will be\npersuaded to yield we do not know: I hope Mr. Henderson is with him this\nnight at Newcastle.\" [Footnote: Baillie, II. 370 _et seq._]\n\nThe immediate object of the Scots round Charles was to induce him to take\nthe Covenant. That done, they had little doubt that they would be able to\nbring him and the English Parliament amicably together.--Charles,\nhowever, at once showed by his conduct that the current interpretation of\nthe meaning of his flight to the Scots had been too hasty. It was not\nbecause he wanted to bargain with the Presbyterians as against the\nIndependents that he had come to the Scots; it was because he had the\nmore subtle idea that he might be able to bargain with the Scots as such\nagainst the English as such. He hoped to wrap himself up in the\nnationality of the Scots; he hoped to appeal to them as peculiarly their\nsovereign, born forty-six years before in their own Dunfermline, once or\ntwice their visitor since, always remembering them with affection, and\nnow back among them in his distress. [Footnote: On the verge of a wooded\ndell or glen close to the burgh of Dunfermline, in Fife, there still\nstands one fine length of ruined and ivy-clad wall, the remains of the\npalace in which, on the 19th of November 1600, Charles I. was born.  The\ndell, with the adjacent Abbey, is sacred with legends and stony memorials\nof the Scottish royal race, from the days of Malcom Canmore and his Queen\nMargaret.] Of course, in such a character, concessions to _their_\nPresbyterianism would have to be made; but these concessions had all, in\nfact, been made already, and involved no new humiliation. It was about\nEpiscopacy in England, his English coronation oath, his English\nsovereignty, that he was mainly anxious; and what if, from his refuge\namong the Scots, and even with the Scots as his instruments, he could\nrecommence, in some way or other, his struggle with the English? Charles\ndid labour under this delusion. When he had come among the Scots it was\nactually with some absurd notion that Montrose, who still lurked in the\nHighlands, might be forgiven all the past and brought back, as one of his\nMajesty's most honoured servants, though recently erratic, into the\nsociety of Argyle, Loudoun, Lanark, and the rest of the faithful.\n[Footnote: See in Rushworth (VI. 266-7) a Letter of the King's to the\nMarquis of Ormond in Ireland, dated from Oxford, April 13, 1646, and\nexplaining his reasons for his then meditated flight to the Scots.  \"We\nare resolved to use our best endeavours, with their assistance,\" says\nCharles, speaking of the Scottish Army, \"and with the conjunction of the\nforces under the Marquis of Montrose and such of our well-affected\nsubjects as shall rise for us, to procure, if it may be, an honourable\nand speedy peace.\"  At the same time (April 18) Charles had written to\nMontrose himself to the same effect.  The infatuation that could believe\nin the possibility of such a combination was monstrous.]--A day or two\namong the Scots had undeceived him. They repudiated at once any supposed\narrangement with him arising out of the negotiations of Montreuil; they\nrepudiated expressly the notion that they could by possibility have been\nso false to the English Parliament as to have pledged themselves to a\nseparate treaty. Charles, they maintained, had come among them\nvoluntarily and without any prior compact. Most willingly, however, would\nthey do their best for him in the circumstances. If he would declare his\nrenunciation of Episcopacy and acceptance of Presbyterianism for England,\nand especially if he would do this in the best mode of all, by personally\ntaking the Covenant, then they did not doubt but a way would be opened\nfor a final treaty with England in which they could assist.\n\nPerforce Charles had now to disguise the real motive of his coming among\nthe Scots, and let the interpretation at first put upon it continue\ncurrent. Not, of course, that he would take the Covenant, or in any way\ncommit himself even now to Presbytery. But, while he stood firm against\nthe proposal that he should himself take the Covenant (which would have\nbeen to abjure Episcopacy personally), and while he refrained from\ncommitting himself to an acceptance of Presbytery for his English realm,\nhe does not appear to have objected to the impression that on this second\nmatter he might yield to time and reason. And so, while writing in cipher\nto Queen Henrietta Maria, complaining of the \"juggling\" of the Scots,\nbecause they would not break with the English Parliament in his behalf,\nand while urging the Queen in the same letters to press upon Cardinal\nMazarin, and through him on the Pope, the scheme of a restitution of\nEpiscopacy in England by Roman Catholic force, on condition of \"free\nliberty of conscience\" for the Catholics in England and \"convenient\nplaces for their devotions,\" he was patiently polite to the Presbyterians\naround him, and employed part of his leisure in penning, from the midst\nof them, letters of a temporizing kind to the two Houses of Parliament,\nand the Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of London. The letter to the\nCity (May 19) was short and general, but cordial. That to the Parliament\n(May 18) was a proposal of terms. A speedy settlement of the Religious\nQuestion by the wisdom of Parliament with the advice of the Assembly (no\nword of Episcopacy or Presbytery, but some compromise with Presbytery\nimplied); the Militia to be as proposed in the Treaty of Uxbridge--\n_i.e._ to be for seven years in the hands of Parliament, and after\nthat a fresh agreement to be made; Ireland to be managed as far as\npossible as Parliament might wish: such were his Majesty's present\npropositions. [Footnote: Letters of Charles numbered XXV. XXVI. and\nXXVII. (pp. 39-43) in Mr. Bruce's _Charles I. in_ 1646; Parl. Hist.\nIII. 471 _et seq._] He would be glad, however, to receive those of\nParliament.\n\nThere was a Presbyterian ecstasy in London on the receipt of these\nletters. The Corporation, which had, to Baillie's grief, so inopportunely\nplayed \"nipshot\" in the end of March, and left the Assembly and Sion\nCollege to bear the brunt, now hastened to make amends. Headed by\nAlderman Foot, a famous City orator, they presented, May 26, a\nRemonstrance to both Houses of Parliament, couched in terms of the most\nunflinching Presbyterianism, Anti-Toleration, and confidence in the\nScots. \"When we remember,\" they said, \"that it hath been long since\ndeclared to be far from any purpose or desire to let loose the golden\nreins of discipline and government in the Church, or to leave private\npersons or particular congregations to take up what form of divine\nservice they please; when we look upon what both Houses have resolved\nagainst Brownism and Anabaptism, properly so called; when we meditate\nupon our Protestation and Covenant; and, lastly, when we peruse the\nDirectory and other Ordinances for Presbyterial government; and yet find\nprivate and separate congregations daily erected in divers parts of the\ncity and elsewhere, and commonly frequented, and Anabaptism, Brownism,\nand almost all manner of schisms, heresies, and blasphemies, boldly\nvented and maintained by such as, to the point of Church-government,\nprofess themselves to be Independents: we cannot but be astonished.\"\nAfter more complaints, they end with petitions for Presbyterian\nUniformity, the suppression of Independent congregations, the punishment\nof Anabaptists and other sectaries, strict union with the Scots, &c., all\nto be combined with immediate \"Propositions to his Majesty for settling a\nsafe and well-grounded Peace.\" There was but one meaning in this. The\nCity was the mouthpiece; but in reality it was the united ultra-\nPresbyterianism of the City, the Assembly, Sion College, and some of the\nPresbyterian leaders in Parliament, trying to turn the King's presence\nwith the Scots into an occasion for any practicable kind of peace\nwhatsoever that would involve the overthrow of Independency, the Sects,\nand Toleration. The House of Lords bowed before the blast, and returned a\ngracious answer. The Commons, after two divisions, of 148 to 113, and 151\nto 108, in favour of returning some kind of answer, returned one which\nwas curt and general. The divisions indicate the gravity of the crisis.\nThe Independents, thinned perhaps in numbers by the action of the\nNewcastle peace-chances upon weaker spirits, but with Cromwell, Haselrig,\nand Vane as their leaders, formed now what was avowedly the Anti-Scottish\nparty, profoundly suspicious of the doings at Newcastle, and taking\nprecautions against a treaty that should be merely Presbyterian. The\nPresbyterians, on the other hand, with Holles, Stapleton, and Clotworthy\nas their chiefs, were as avowedly the Pro-Scottish party, anxious for a\npeace on such terms as the King might be brought to by the help of the\nScots. [Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 474-480; Lords Journals,  May 26,\n1646; Commons Journals of same date; Whitlocke's Memorials (ed. 1853),\nII. 27.]\n\nThrough June the struggle of the parties was continued in this new form.\nAt Newcastle the Scottish Commissioners, with Henderson among them, were\nstill plying the King with their arguments for his acceptance of the\nCovenant and Presbytery. To these, in their presence, he opposed only the\nmost stately politeness and desire for delay; but in his letters to the\nQueen he characterized them as \"rude pressures on his conscience.\" The\nphrase is perfectly just in so far as there was pressure upon him to\naccept Presbytery and the Assembly's Directory of Worship for himself and\nhis family, and it might win our modern sympathies even beyond that range\nbut for the evidences of incurable Stuartism which accompanied it. He\namuses the Queen in the same letters with an analysis he had made of the\nScots from his Newcastle experience of their various humours. He had\nanalysed them into the four factions of the \"Montroses\" or thorough\nRoyalists, the \"Neutrals,\" the \"Hamiltons,\" and the \"Campbells\" or\nthorough Presbyterians of the Argyle following. He estimates the relative\nstrengths of the factions, and has no doubt that the real management of\nScotland lies between the Hamiltons, leading most of the nobility, and\nthe Campbells, commanding the votes of the gentry, the ministers, and the\nburghs; he refers individual Scots about him to the classes to which he\nthinks, from their private talk, they belong respectively; he tells how\nthey are all \"courting\" him, and how he is behaving himself \"as evenly to\nall as he can;\" and his \"opinion upon this whole business\" is that they\nwill all have to join him in the end, or, which would be quite as\nsatisfactory to himself and the Queen, go to perdition together. What\ncould be done with such a man? Quite unaware of what he was writing about\nthem, the Scots were toiling their best in his service. There were\nletters from Edinburgh (where the General Assembly of the Kirk had met\nJun. 3) to Newcastle and London; there were letters from Newcastle to\nEdinburgh and London; there were letters from London back to Newcastle\nand Edinburgh. And still, in the English Parliament, the Pro-Scottish\nparty laboured for the result they desired, and the Anti-Scottish or\nIndependent party maintained their jealous watch. Pamphlets and papers\ncame forth, violently abusive of the Scottish nation; and more than once\nthere were discussions in the Commons in which Haselrig and the more\nreckless Independents pushed for conclusions that would have been\noffensive to the Scots to the point of open quarrel. It did not seem\nimpossible that there might be a new and most horrible form of the Civil\nWar, in which the English Army and the Independents should be fighting\nthe Scottish Army and the Presbyterians. [Footnote: King's Letters,\nxxix.-xxxiv. in Bruce's _Charles I. in_ 1646; Baillie, II. 374-5;\nActs of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland for 1646. Parl.\nHist. III. 482-488; and Commons Journals of various days in May and June,\nwhen there were divisions.]\n\nWhat mainly averted such a calamity was the prudent behaviour of the\nmuch-abused Scots. Anxious as they naturally were to save their Scottish\nCharles from too severe a reckoning from his English subjects, and very\ndesirous, as was also natural, that the issue of the present dealings\nwith him should be one favourable to Presbytery and Religious Conformity,\nthey do not seem to have permitted these feelings to disturb their sense\nof obligation to the English Parliament, and of a general British\nresponsibility. That this was the case arose, I believe, from the fact\nthat Argyle had come to England to take the direction, and that he\nimparted a deep touch or two of his own to their purely Presbyterian\npolicy. It is interesting, at all events, to have a glimpse of the great\nMarquis at this point, not as a fugitive from Montrose, not in the\nmilitary character which suited him so ill, but in his more proper\ncharacter as a British politician. He had been at Newcastle for some\ntime, \"very civil and cunning,\" as the King wrote to the Queen; but on\nthe 15th of June he went to London. He was received there with the\ngreatest respect by the English Parliament. A Committee of 20 of the\nLords and 40 of the Commons, composed indifferently of Presbyterians and\nIndependents, was appointed to meet him in the Painted Chamber to hear\nthe communication which, it was understood, he desired to make.\nAccordingly, to this Committee, on the 25th of June, the Marquis\naddressed a speech, which was immediately printed for general perusal.\nHere are portions of the first half of it, with one or two passages\nItalicised which seem peculiarly pregnant, or peculiarly characteristic\nof Argyle himself:--\n\n\"MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,--Though I have had the honour to be named by the\nKingdom of Scotland in all the Commissions which had relation to this\nKingdom since the beginning of the war, yet I had never the happiness to\nbe with your lordships till now; wherein I reverence God's providence,\nthat He hath brought me hither at such an opportunity, when I may boldly\nsay it is in the power of the two Kingdoms, yea I may say in your\nlordships' power, to make us both happy, if you make good use of this\noccasion, by settling of Religion and the Peace and Union of these\nKingdoms. .. .As the dangers [in the way of the first enterprise,\n'Reformation' or the 'settling of Religion'] are great, we must look the\nbetter to our duties; and the best way to perform these is to keep us by\nthe Rules which are to be found in our National Covenant,--principally\nthe Word of God, and, in its own place, the Example of the best Reformed\nChurches; and in our way we must beware of some rocks, which are\ntemptations both upon the right and left hand, so that we must hold the\nmiddle path. Upon the one part we should take heed not to settle lawless\nliberty in Religion, whereby, instead of uniformity, we should set up a\nthousand heresies and schisms; which is directly contrary and destructive\nto our Covenant. _Upon the other part, we are to look that we persecute\nnot piety and peaceable men who cannot, through scruple of conscience,\ncome up in all things to the common Rule; but that they may have such a\nforbearance as may be according to the Word of God, may consist with the\nCovenant, and not be destructive to the Rule itself, nor to the peace of\nthe Church and Kingdom._--As to the other point, the Peace and Union of\nthese Kingdoms [here the mutual good services of the two Kingdoms since\n1640 are recited]: let us hold fast that union which is so happily\nestablished betwixt us; and let nothing make us again two who are so many\nways one; all of one language, in one island, all under one King, one in\nReligion, yea one in Covenant; so that, in effect, we differ in nothing\nbut in name (as brethren do): _which I wish were also removed, that we\nmight be altogether one, if the two Kingdoms think fit_.... I will\nforbear at this time to speak of the many jealousies I hear are\nsuggested; for, as I do not love them, so I delight not to mention them:\nonly one I cannot forbear to speak of,--as if the Kingdom of Scotland\nwere too much affected with the King's interest. I will not deny but the\nKingdom of Scotland, by reason of the reigns of many kings, his\nprogenitors, over them, hath a natural affection to his Majesty, whereby\nthey wish he may be rather reformed than ruined: _yet experience may\ntell that their personal regard to him hath never made them forget that\ncommon rule, 'The Safety of the People is the Supreme Law._'\"\n\nAltogether Argyle's speech in the Painted Chamber, June 25, 1646,\nproduced a great impression in London; and, as he remained in town till\nthe 15th of July, he was able to deepen it, see all sorts of people, and\nmake observations. He may not have met Cromwell at this time, who was\naway all June looking after the siege and surrender of Oxford, and the\nmarriage, in that neighbourhood, of his eldest daughter Bridget to\nGeneral Ireton; but be must have renewed acquaintance with Vane. He\nrenewed acquaintance, at all events, with an older friend--no other than\nthe Duke of Hamilton, recently released from his captivity in Cornwall,\nand now again busy with affairs. He also took his place in the\nWestminster Assembly for a few days by leave of the parliament.\n[Footnote: King's Letter xxii. in Bruce's _Charles I, in_ 1646;\nBaillie, II. 374-378; Lords Journals, June 23 and July 7, and Commons\nJournals, June 25; and Parl. Hist. III. 488-491, where Argyle's Speech is\nreprinted from the original edition, published by authority, at London,\nby Laurence Chapman, June 27, 1646.]\n\nPart of Argyle's purpose in coming to London had been to co-operate with\nthe resident Scottish Commissioners there in moderating as much as\npossible, or at least delaying, the _ultimatum_ which the English\nParliament were preparing to send to the King. For, though the Parliament\nhad taken small notice hitherto of the King's letters from Newcastle,\nthey had been anxiously constructing such an _ultimatum_. in the\nform of a series of Propositions exhibiting in one viev, all the terms\nwhich they required Charles to accept at once and completely if he would\nretain the sovereignty of England. Without being much influenced,\napparently, by the appeals of Scottish Commissioners for moderation and\nclemency to the King in the purely English portions of this document, and\nhaving the perfect concurrence of these Commissioners in the other\nportions, Parliament did at length complete it, and, on the 14th of July,\nsend it to Charles. The document is remembered by the famous name of \"The\nNineteen Propositions,\" and was altogether most comprehensive and\nstringent. All the late Royal Acts and Ordinances were to be annulled;\nthe King was to take the Covenant and consent to an Act enjoining it\nafresh on all the subjects of the three kingdoms; he was to consent to\nthe abolition of Episcopacy, root and branch, in England, Wales, and\nIreland; he was to approve of the proceedings of the Westminster\nAssembly, and of the establishment of Presbytery as Parliament had\nordained or might yet ordain; he was to surrender to Parliament the\nentire control of the Militia for 20 years, sea-forces as well as land-\nforces; he was to let Parliament have its own way in Ireland; and he was\nto submit to various other requirements, including the outlawing and\ndisqualification of about 120 persons of both nations named as\nDelinquents--the Marquis of Newcastle, the Earls of Derby and Bristol,\nLords Cottington, Digby, Hopton, Colepepper and Jermyn, with Hyde,\nSecretary Nicholas, and Bishops Wren and Bramhall, in the English list,\nand the Marquises of Huntly and Montrose, the Earls of Traquair,\nNithsdale, Crawford, Carnwath, Forth, and Airlie, Bishop Maxwell, and\nMacDonald MacColkittoch, in the Scottish list. As bearers of these fell\nPropositions to the King the Lords appointed the Earls of Pembroke and\nSuffolk, and the Commons appointed four of their number. These six\npersons were at Newcastle on Thursday the 23rd of July; and the next day\nthey had their first interview with the King, Argyle and Loudoun being\nalso present. The rough Pembroke took the lead and produced the\nPropositions. Before letting them be read, Charles, who had had a copy in\nhis possession privately for some time, asked Pembroke and the rest\nwhether they had powers to treat with him on the Propositions or in any\nway discuss them. On their answering that they had no such powers, and\nhad only to request his Majesty's _Ay_ or _No_ to the Propositions as\nthey stood, \"Then, but for the honour of the business,\" said the King\ntestily, \"an honest trumpeter might have done as much.\" Recovering\nhimself, he listened to the Propositions duly read out, and then said he\nwas sure they could not expect an immediate answer in so large a\nbusiness. They told him that their instructions were not to remain in\nNewcastle more than ten days, and so the interview ended. Charles, in\nfact, in anticipation of their coming, had been planning how to act. \"All\nmy endeavours,\" he had written to the Queen, \"must be the delaying of my\nanswer till there be considerable parties visibly formed; to which end I\nthink my proposing to go to London, if I may be there with safety, will\nbe the best put-off, if (which I believe to be better) I cannot find a\nway to come to thee.\" And so, day after day, though it was the effort of\nall who had access to him, and especially of Argyle and Loudoun, to\npersuade him to accept the inevitable, he remained stubborn. When the\nCommissioners at length told him they must return to London, all the\nanswer they could obtain from him was a letter, dated Aug. 1, and\naddressed to the Speaker of the House of Peers _pro tempore_, in which he\nsaid a positive and immediate answer was impossible, but offered to come\nto London or its neighbourhood to treat personally, if his freedom and\nsafety were guaranteed, and also to send for the Prince of Wales from\nFrance. With this answer the Commoners left Newcastle on Sunday, Aug. 2,\nand they reported their success to the two Houses on Wednesday, Aug. 12.\nAnd here, so far as the King is concerned, we shall for the present stop.\n[Footnote: King's Letters, xxxiv.-xl. (June 24--July 3) in Bruce's\n_Charles I. in_ 1646; Baillie, II. 379; Lords Journals, July 11, and\nCommons Journals, July 6; Rushworth, VI. 309-321; and Parl. Hist. III.\n499-516. Both Rushworth and the Parl Hist. give the text of the nineteen\nPropositions.]\n\n\nPARLIAMENT AND THE WESTMINSTER ASSEMBLY RECONCILED: PRESBYTERIANIZING OF\nLONDON AND LANCASHIRE.\n\nNot the less, while the two Houses had thus been watching the King at\nNewcastle and corresponding with him, had they been acting as the real\nGovernment of England without him.\n\nThe King's flight to the Scots having, as we have seen, turned the\nbalance once more in favour of Presbyterianism, the combined Erastians\nand Independents had not been able to keep Parliament steady to that mood\nof sharp mastership over the Assembly and the London Divines in which we\nleft it in the months of March and April (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 407-411). It\nhad been necessary to make a compromise in that question of \"The Power of\nthe Keys\" on which the Parliament and the Assembly had been so angrily at\nvariance. The compromise was complete in June. On the 3rd of that month\nthe two Houses agreed on an Ordinance modifying, in a somewhat\ncomplicated fashion, their previous device of Parliamentary Commissioners\nto assist and control the Congregational Elderships. Instead of the\ncontemplated sets of Commissioners in each ecclesiastical Province, there\nwas now to be one vast general Commission for all England, consisting of\nabout 180 Lords and Commoners named (Cromwell, Vane, and everybody else\nof any note among them); which Commissioners, or any nine of them, should\nbe a Court for judging of non-specified offences, after and in\nconjunction with the Congregational Elderships, with right of reference\nin certain cases to Justices of the Peace, and with the reserve of a\nfinal appeal from excommunicated persons to Parliament itself. It does\nnot very well appear why this arrangement, as Erastian in principle as\nthat which it superseded, should have pleased the London Presbyterians\nbetter. Perhaps it was made palatable by an accompanying increase of the\nlist of scandalous offences for which the Elderships were to be entitled\nto suspend or excommunicate without interference by the Commissioners. At\nall events, when Parliament again required the London ministers and\ncongregations by a new Ordinance (June 9) to proceed in the work which\nhad been interrupted, and elect Elders in all the parishes of the\nprovince of London, there was no reluctance. At a meeting at Sion\nCollege, June 19, the London ministers, the Assembly Presbyterians in\ntheir counsels, agreed to proceed. They contented themselves with a paper\nof _Considerations and Cautions_, explaining that the Parliamentary\nRule for Presbyterianism was not yet in all points satisfactory to their\nconsciences. [Footnote: Commons Journals, June 3 and 9, 1646; Baillie,\nII. 377; Neal's _Puritans_ (ed. 1795) III. 106.]\n\nNothing now hindered the establishment of Presbytery in London; and,\nactually, through the months of July and August 1646, while the King was\nmaking his solitary personal stand for Episcopacy at Newcastle, the\nPresbyterian machinery was coming into operation in the capital. \"Matters\nhere,\" writes Baillie, July 14, \"look better upon it, blessed be God,\nthan sometimes they have. On Sunday, in all congregations of the city,\nthe Elders are to be chosen. So the next week church-sessions in every\nparoch; and twelve Presbyteries within the City, and a Provincial Synod,\nare to be set up, and quickly, without any impediment that we apprehend.\nThe like is to be done over all the land.\" On the 13th of August Baillie\nwas able to report that the Elders had been elected in almost all the\nparishes, and approved by the Triers; and he adds, \"We expect classical\nmeetings speedily.\" These \"classical meetings,\" or meetings of the twelve\nLondon Presbyteries and the two Presbyteries of the Inns of Court, were\nsomewhat later affairs, and the crowning exultation of the first meeting\nof the Provincial Synod of London did not come for some months; but from\nAugust 1646 the city of London was ecclesiastically a Scotland\ncondensed.--Though there was, and continued to be, a general Presbyterian\nstir throughout England, only in Lancashire was the example of London\nfollowed in effective practice. The division of that shire into classes\nor Presbyteries was already under consideration, with the names of the\npersons fit to be lay-elders in each Presbytery. There were to be nine\nPresbyteries. Manchester parish, Oldham parish, and four other parishes,\nwere to form the first; Rochdale parish came into the second; Preston\nparish into the seventh; Liverpool did not figure by name as a distinct\nLancashire parish at all, but it had one minister, Mr. John Fogg, and he\nwas put into the fifth Presbytery. The names of all the Lancashire\nministers thus classified, and of the Lancashire gentlemen, yeomen, and\ntradesmen, to the number of some hundreds, thought fit to be lay-elders\nin the different Presbyterial districts, may be read yet in the Commons\nJournals. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 378 and 388; Neal, III. 307-310 (List\nof classes or Presbyteries of London). The division of Lancashire into\nPresbyteries is given in the Commons Journals, Sept. 15,1646. See also\nHalley's \"Lancashire: its Puritanism and Nonconformity\" (1869), Vol. I.\npp. 432 et seq., where there are many details concerning the first\nintroduction of the Presbyterial system into Lancashire. According to Dr.\nHalley, the system was set up more rigidly in Lancashire than in London\nitself, chiefly in consequence of the activity and energy of Richard\nHeyricke, or Herrick, M.A., warden of the Collegiate Church, Manchester.\nHe was one of the Divines of the Westminster Assembly (see Vol. II. p.\n510); but he had returned to Lancashire, prefering Presbyterian\nleadership in that county to second rank in London.]\n\nThe compromise in the matter of \"The Power of the Keys\" having been\naccepted, with such practical consequences, the Assembly might consider\nthe long and laborious business of _The Frame of Church Government_\nout of its hands, and laid on the shelf of finished work beside the\n_New Directory of Worship_ concluded and passed eighteen months\nbefore. It was free, therefore, to turn to the other great pieces of\nbusiness for which it had been originally called: viz. _The Confession\nof Faith_ and _The Catechisms_. Notwithstanding interruptions,\ngood progress had already been made in both. Incidentally, too, the\nAssembly had concluded a work which might be regarded as an appendage to\ntheir Directory. They had discussed, revised, and finally approved Mr.\nRous's Metrical Version of the Psalms, referred to them by Parliament for\ncriticism as long ago as Nov. 1643. Their revised copy of the Version for\nthe purposes of public worship had been in the hands of the Commons since\nNov. 1645; the Commons had ratified the same, with a few amendments,\nApril 15, 1646; and it only wanted the concurrence of the Lords to add\nthis \"Revised Rous's Psalter\" (which Rous meanwhile had printed) to the\ncredit of the Assembly, as a third piece of their finished work. The\nLords were too busy, or had hesitations in favour of a rival Version by a\nMr. William Barton, so that their concurrence was withheld; but that was\nnot the fault of the Assembly. Rous's Psalter, therefore, as well as the\nDirectory and the Frame of Government being done with, what was to hinder\nthem longer from the Confession and Catechisms? Only one impediment--\nthose dreadful _jus divinum_ interrogatories which the Parliament,\nby Selden's mischief, had hung round their necks! Here also a little\nmanagement sufficed. \"I have put some of my good friends, leading men in\nthe House of Commons,\" says Baillie, July 14, \"to move the Assembly to\nlay aside our Questions for a time, and labour that which is most\nnecessar and all are crying for, the perfecting of the Confession of\nFaith and Catechise.\" The order thus meritoriously procured by Baillie\npassed the Commons July 22. The Assembly, in terms of this order, were to\nlay aside other business, and apply themselves to the _Confession of\nFaith_ and _Catechisms_. And so at this point the Assembly had\ncome to an end of one period of its history and entered on a second. As\nif to mark this epoch in its duration, the Prolocutor, Dr. Twisse, had\njust died. He died July 19, 1646, and there is a record of the fact in\nthe Commons Journals for that same July 22 on which the Assembly was\nordered to change the nature of its labours. Mr. Herle was appointed his\nsuccessor. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 378-9; Commons Journals, July 22,\n1646; and Mr. David Laing's Notices of Metrical Versions of the Psalms in\nAppendix to Baillie, Vol. III. pp. 537-540.]\n\n\nDEATH OF ALEXANDER HENDERSON.\n\nThere was a death about this time more important than that of Dr.\nTwisse:--The health of Henderson had for some time been causing anxiety\nto his friends in London; and, when he left them, early in May, on his\ndifficult mission to Newcastle, they had followed him in their thoughts\nwith some foreboding. Actually, from the middle of May to the end of\nJuly, these two strangely-contrasted persons--the wise, modest, and\nmassive Henderson, the chief of the Scottish Presbyterian clergy, and the\nsombre, narrow, and punctilious Charles I., the beaten sovereign of three\nKingdoms--were much together at Newcastle, engaged in an encounter of\nwits and courtesies. Charles had seen a good deal of Henderson before (at\nBerwick in 1639, in Edinburgh during the royal visit to Scotland in 1641,\nand more recently during the Uxbridge Treaty of Feb. 1644-5), and had\nalways singled him out as not only the most able, but also the most\nlikeable, man of his perverse tribe. He had therefore received him\ngraciously on his coming to Newcastle; and, though there arrived\nsubsequently from Scotland three other Presbyterian ministers, Mr. Robert\nBlair, Mr. Robert Douglas, and Mr. Andrew Cant, all commissioned by the\nGeneral Assembly to work upon his Majesty's conscience, it was still with\nHenderson that he preferred to converse. The main subject of their\nconversations was, of course, the question between Presbytery and\nEpiscopacy. Could the King lawfully do what was required of him? Could he\nlawfully now, on any mere plea of State-necessity, give up that Church of\nEngland in the principles of which he had been educated, which he had\nsworn at his coronation to maintain, and which he still believed in his\nconscience to be the true and divinely-appointed form of a Church? If Mr.\nHenderson could prove to his Majesty even now that Episcopacy was not of\ndivine appointment, then the plea of State-necessity might avail, and his\nMajesty might see his way more clearly! It was on this point that the\nrepeated conversations of the King and Henderson at Newcastle did\nundoubtedly turn. Nay, there was more than mere conversation: there was\nan elaborate discussion in writing. The King, it is said, would fain have\nhad a little council of Anglican Divines called to assist him; but, as\nthat could not be, he was willing to adopt Henderson's suggestion of a\npaper debate between themselves. Accordingly, there is yet extant, in the\n_Reliqui\u00e6 Sacr\u00e6 Carolin\u00e6_ or Printed Works of Charles I., what\npurports to be the actual series of Letters exchanged between the King\nand Henderson. The King opens the correspondence on the 29th of May;\nHenderson answers June 3; the King's second letter is dated June 6;\nHenderson's reply does not come till June 17; the King's third letter is\ndated June 22; Henderson replies July 2; and two short letters of the\nKing, being the fourth and fifth on his side, are both dated July 16.\nThere the correspondence ends, Henderson having, it is believed, thought\nit fit that his Majesty should have the last word. In the King's letters,\nas they are printed, one observes a stately politeness to Henderson\nthroughout, with very considerable reasoning power, and sometimes a\nreally smart phrase; in Henderson's what strikes one is the studied\nrespectfulness and delicacy of the manner, combined with grave decision\nin the matter.--The controversy, whether in speech or in writing, was\nunreal on the King's part, and for the purpose of procrastination only;\nand Henderson, while painfully engaging in it, had known this but too\nwell. His heart was already heavy with approaching death. He had been ill\nwhen he came to Newcastle; and in July, when he is said to have let the\nKing have the last word in the written correspondence, he was hardly able\nto go about. His friends in London, hearing this, were greatly concerned.\n\"It is part of my prayer to God.\" Baillie writes to him affectionately on\nthe 4th of August, \"to restore you to health, and continue your service a\ntime: we never had so much need of you as now.\" In the same letter,\nreferring to the King's obstinacy, and to the grief on that account which\nhe believes to be preying on Henderson, he implores him to take courage,\nshake off \"melancholious thoughts,\" and \"digest what cannot be gotten\namended.\" But Baillie knew what was coming. \"Mr. Henderson is dying, most\nof heartbreak, at Newcastle,\" he wrote, three days later, to Spang in\nHolland. No! it was not to be at Newcastle. \"Give me back one hour of\nScotland: let me see it ere I die.\" Some such wish was in Henderson's\nmind, and they managed to convey him by sea to Edinburgh. He arrived\nthere on the 1lth of August, and was taken either to his own house, in\nwhich he had not been for three years, or to some other that was more\nconvenient. He rallied a little, so as to be able to dine with one friend\nand talk cheerfully, but never again left his room. There his brother-\nministers of the city, and such others as were privileged, gathered round\nhim, and took his hands; and the rest of the city lay around, making\ninquiries; and prayers went up for him in all the churches. On the 19th\nof August, eight days after his return, he died, aged sixty-three years,\nand there began a mourning in the Scottish Israel over the loss of their\ngreatest man. They buried him in the old churchyard of Greyfriars, where\nhis grave and tombstone are yet to be seen. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 381-\n387; Burnet's Memoirs of the Hamiltons (ed. 1852), 356-7; Wodrow's\nCorrespondence (Wodrow Society), III. 33, 34; Life of Mr. Robert Blair,\nby Row (Wodrow Society), 185-188; and \"_Reliqui\u00e6 Sacr\u00e6 Carolin\u00e6_:\nor, The works of that great Monarch and glorious Martyr King Charles the\nI.\" (Hague edition of 1651), where the Letters are given in full. There\nis a fair abstract of them in Neal's _Puritans_ (ed. 1795), III.\n311-324. The death of Henderson at so critical a moment, and so closely\nafter his conferences with the King at Newcastle, made a deep impression\nat the time, and became an incident of even mythical value to the\nRoyalists. Hardly was the breath out of his body when there began to run\nabout a lying rumour to the effect that he had died of remorse,\nacknowledging that the King had convinced him, and confessing his\nrepentance of all he had said or done against that wisest and best of\nmonarchs. Baillie, in London, was indignant. \"The false reports which\nwent here of Mr. Henderson,\" he wrote to Spang in Holland, Oct. 2, 1646,\nor less than six weeks after Henderson's death, \"are, I see, come also to\nyour hand. Believe me (for I have it under his own hand a little before\nhis death) that he was utterly displeased with the King's ways, and over\nthe longer the more; and whoever say otherwise, I know they speak false.\nThat man died as he lived, in great modesty, piety, and faith.\"  But the\nlie could not be extinguished; it circulated among the Royalists; and\nwithin two years it was turned into cash or credit by some scoundrel Scot\nin England, who forged and published a document entitled _The\nDeclaration of Mr. Alexander Henderson, principall Minister of the Word\nof God at Edinburgh, and chief Commissioner from the Kirk of Scotland to\nthe Parliament and Synod of England, made upon his death-bed._ This\nforgery was immediately denounced by the General Assembly of the Scottish\nChurch in a solemn Declaration set forth by them Aug. 7, 1648, stating\nparticulars of Henderson's last days, and vindicating his memory.\nNevertheless the fiction was too convenient to be given up: it lasted;\nwas embalmed by Clarendon in his History (605); and still leaves its\nodour in wretched compilations.--The genuineness of the series of Letters\non Episcopacy between the King and Henderson, first printed in 1649,\nimmediately after Charles's death, and included since then in all\neditions of Charles's works, does not seem to have been questioned by\ncontemporaries on either side, or by subsequent Presbyterian critics. In\nthe year 1826, however, the eminent and acute Godwin, in an elaborate\nnote in his _History of the Commonwealth_ (II. 179-185), did\nchallenge the genuineness of the correspondence. He was inclined to the\nopinion that there had been no interchange of written Papers between the\nKing and Henderson at all, but only \"discourses and conferences,\" and\nthat the whole thing was a Royalist forgery of 1649, contemporary with\nthe _Eikon Basilike_, and for the same purpose. In venturing on so\nbold an opinion, Godwin, besides undervaluing other evidence to the\ncontrary, seems to have dismissed too easily Burnet's information, in his\n_Lives of the Hamiltons_ in 1673, as to the manner in which the\nLetters were written and kept. No less eminent a man than Sir Robert\nMoray, one of the founders of the Royal Society, and its first President,\nand of whom Burnet elsewhere says, \"He was the wisest and worthiest man\nof his age, and was as another father to me,\" had told Burnet, \"a few\ndays before his much-lamented death\" (June 1673), that he had been the\namanuensis employed in the correspondence. Being with the King at\nNewcastle in 1646, then only as Mr. Robert Moray, it had fallen to him,\nas a person much in his Majesty's confidence, to receive each letter of\nthe King's as it was written in his own royal hand, and make the copy of\nit which was to be given to Henderson, and also, Henderson's hand being\nnone of the most legible, to transcribe Henderson's replies for the\nKing's easier perusal; and with his Majesty's permission he had \"kept Mr.\nHenderson's papers and the copies of the King's.\" After all, however,\nGodwin's sceptical inquiry leaves a shrewd somewhat behind it. For,\ngranted that a written correspondence did take place, \"the question\nremains,\" as Godwin asserts, \"whether the papers now to be found in King\nCharles's works are the very papers that were so exchanged at Newcastle.\nThe suspicion here suggested tells, in my mind, more against the King's\nletters as we now have them than against Henderson's. The King's letters,\nwe may be sure, would be pretty carefully _edited_ in 1649; and what\nmay have been the amount and kind of _editing_ thought allowable?\"]\n\nThe last of Baillie's letters to Henderson, dated Aug. 13, 1646, contains\na curious passage, \"Ormond's Pacification with the Irish,\" writes\nBaillie, \"is very unseasonable; the placing of Hopes (a professed\nAtheist, as they speak) about the Prince as his teacher is ill taken.\"\nThe _Hopes_ here mentioned is no other than THOMAS HOBBES, then just\nappointed tutor to the Prince of Wales in Paris. As the letter must have\nreached Edinburgh after Henderson was dead, he was not troubled with this\nadditional piece of bad news before he left the world. Doubtless,\nhowever, he had heard of Hobbes, and formed some imagination of that\ndreadful person and his opinions. Hobbes indeed was now in his fifty-\neighth year, or not much younger than the dying Henderson himself. But he\nwas of slower constitution, and had begun his real work late in life, as\nif with a presentiment that he had plenty of time before him, and did not\nneed to be in a hurry. He was to outlive Henderson thirty-three years.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nEFFECTS OF MILTON'S _AREOPAGITICA_--HIS INTENTION OF ANOTHER\nMARRIAGE: HIS WIFE'S RETURN AND RECONCILIATION WITH HIM--REMOVAL FROM\nALDERSGATE STREET TO BARBICAN--FIRST EDITION OF MILTON'S COLLECTED POEMS:\nHUMPHREY MOSELEY THE BOOKSELLER--TWO DIVORCE SONNETS AND SONNET TO HENRY\nLAWES--CONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS ANTI-PRESBYTERIAN\nSONNET OF REPLY--SURRENDER OF OXFORD: CONDITION OF THE POWELL FAMILY--THE\nPOWELLS IN LONDON: MORE FAMILY PERPLEXITIES: BIRTH OF MILTON'S FIRST\nCHILD.\n\n\nThe effect of Milton's _Areopagitica_, immediately after its\npublication in November 1644, and throughout the year 1645, seems to have\nbeen very considerable. Parliament, indeed, took no formal notice of the\neloquent pleading for a repeal of their Licensing Ordinance of June 1643.\nAs a body, they were not ripe for the discussion of the question of a\nFree Press, and the Ordinance remained in force, at least as an\ninstrument which might be applied in cases of flagrant transgression. But\npublic opinion was affected, and the general agitation for Toleration\ntook more and more the precise and practical form into which Milton's\ntreatise had directed it: viz. an impatience of the censorship, and a\ndemand for the liberty of free philosophising and free printing. \"Such\nwas the effect of our author's _Areopagitica_,\" says Toland, in his\nsketch of Milton's life, \"that the following year Mabol, a licenser,\noffered reasons against licensing, and, at his own request, was\ndischarged that office.\" [Footnote: Toland's Memoir of Milton prefixed to\nthe Amsterdam (1698) edition of Milton's Prose Works, p. 23.]  Toland is\nin a slight mistake here, at least in his dating. The person whom he\nmeans--Gilbert Mabbott, _not_ 'Mabol'--was Rushworth's deputy in the\noffice of Clerk to the House of Commons, doing duty for him while he was\naway with the New Model as Secretary to Fairfax: and not only did this\nMabbott occasionally license pamphlets and newspapers, as it would have\nbeen Rushworth's part to do, through the year 1645, but he was expressly\nrecommended to be licenser of \"weekly pamphlets\" or newspapers, Sept. 30,\n1647, and he continued to act in this capacity till May 22, 1649, at\nwhich time it was, and not in 1645, that he was released from the\nbusiness at his own request.[Footnote: My notes from the Stationers'\nRegisters of 1645 and subsequent years; Lords Journals, Sept. 30, 1647;\nand Commons Journals, May 22, 1649. There is some evidence, however,\nthat, before this last date, Mabbott had found the duty irksome (see\nCommons Journals, Aug. 31, 1648).] The effect of Milton's argument on\nMabbott in particular, therefore, was not so immediate as Toland\nrepresents. There can be no doubt, however, that as Milton, in his\n_Areopagitica_, had tried to make the official licensers of books,\nand especially those of them who were ministers, ashamed of their office,\nso his reasons and sarcasms, conjoined with the irksomeness of the office\nitself, did produce an immediate effect among those gentlemen, and modify\ntheir official conduct. Several of them, among whom appears to have been\nMr. John Downham, who had licensed Milton's own Bucer Tract (_ant\u00e8_,\np. 255, note), became more lax in their censorship than the Presbyterians\nthought right; and there was at least one of them, Mr. John Bachiler, who\nbecame so very lax, from personal proclivity to Independency, that he was\ndenounced by the Presbyterians as \"the licenser-general not only of Books\nof Independent Doctrine, but of Books for a general Toleration of all\nSects, and against P\u00e6do-Baptism.\" [Footnote: _Gangr\u00e6na_: Part I.\n(ed. 1646), pp. 38, 39. In Part III. Edwards devotes three pages (102--\n105) to a castigation of Mr. Bachiler for his offences as a licenser.\nBachiler, he says, \"hath been a man-midwife to bring forth more monsters\nbegotten by the Devil and born of the Sectaries within the last three\nyears than ever were brought into the light in England by all the former\nlicensers, the Bishops and their Chaplains, for fourscore years.\" He was\nin the habit, Edwards adds, of not only licensing sectarian books, but\nalso recommending them; and among the Toleration pamphlets he had\nlicensed was the reprint of Leonard Busher's tract of 1614 called\n_Religious Peace_ (see _ant\u00e8_, p. 102). \"I am afraid,\" says Edwards,\n\"that, if the Devil himself should make a book and give it the title _A\nPlea for Liberty of Conscience, with certain Reasons against Persecution\nfor Religion_, and bring it to Mr. Bachiler, he would license it, and not\nonly with a bare _imprimatur_, but set before it the commendations of 'a\nuseful treatise' or 'a sweet and excellent book.'\"] The _Areopagitica_,\nin fact, found out, even among the official licensers of books, men who\nsympathised with its views; and it established prominently, as one of the\npractical questions between the Independents and the Presbyterians, the\nquestion of the liberty of Unlicensed Printing. It was Milton that had\ntaught the Independents, and the Anti-Presbyterians generally, to bring\nto the front, for present purposes, this form of the Toleration tenet.\nFor example, one finds that John Lilburne had been a reader of the\n_Areopagitica_, and had imbibed its lesson, and even its phraseology. \"If\nyou had not been men that had been afraid of your cause,\" is one of\nLilburne's addresses to the Presbyterians and the Westminster Assembly\nDivines, \"you would have been willing to have fought with us upon even\nground and equal terms--namely, that the Press might be as open for us\nas for you, and as it was at the beginning of this Parliament; which I\nconceive the Parliament did of purpose, that so the free-born English\nsubjects might enjoy their Liberty and Privilege, which the Bishops had\nlearnt of the Spanish Inquisition to rob them of, by locking it up under\nthe key of an _Imprimatur_.\" [Footnote: Lilburne, as quoted by Prynne in\nhis _Fresh Discovery of Blazing Stars_, p. 8.] There is proof, in the\nwritings of other Independents and Sectaries, that Milton's jocular\nspecimens of the _imprimaturs_ in old books had taken hold of the popular\nfancy. It became a common form of jest, indeed, in putting forth an\nunlicensed pamphlet, to prefix to it a mock licence. Thus, at the\nbeginning of the anonymous _Arraignment of Persecution_, the author of\nwhich was a Henry Robinson (_ant\u00e8_, p. 387), there is a mock order by the\nWestminster Assembly, with the names of the two Scribes appended, to the\neffect that the author, \"Young Martin Mar-Priest,\" be thanked for his\nexcellent treatise, and authorized to publish it, and that no one except\n\"Martin Claw-Clergy,\" appointed by the author to print the same, presume\nto do so. [Footnote: Quoted by Prynne in his _Fresh Discovery_, p. 8.]\nPrynne quotes this as an example of the contempt into which the Ordinance\nfor Licensing had fallen with the Sectaries, and of their supreme\neffrontery, Robinson, he says, was one of the chief publishers of\nscandalous libels, having brought printers from Amsterdam, and set up a\nprivate printing press for the purpose. [Footnote: I may take this\nopportunity of announcing a rather curious fact, of which I have ample\nand incontestable proof, thought the proper place for stating it in\ndetail is yet to come. It is that Milton, the denouncer of the Licensing\nSystem, and the satirist of the official licensers of 1644, was himself\nafterwards an official censor of the Press. He was one of the licensers\nof newspapers through 1651 and a portion of 1652, doing the very work\nfrom which Mabbott had begged to be excused. The fact, however, is\nsusceptible of an easy explanation, which will save Milton's\nconsistency.]\n\nOn the whole, then, Milton's position among his countrymen from the\nbeginning of 1645 onwards may be defined most accurately by conceiving\nhim to have been, in the special field of letters, or pamphleteering,\nvery much what Cromwell was in the broader and harder field of Army\naction, and what the younger Vane was, in Cromwell's absence, in the\nHouse of Commons. While Cromwell was away in the Army, or occasionally\nwhen he appeared in the House and his presence was felt there in some new\nIndependent motion, or some arrest of a Presbyterian motion, there was no\nman, outside of Parliament, who observed him more sympathetically than\nMilton, or would have been more ready to second him with tongue or with\npen. Both were ranked among the Independents, as Vane also was; but this\nwas less because they were partisans of any particular form of Church-\ngovernment, than because they were agreed that, whatever form of Church-\ngovernment should be established, there must be the largest possible\nliberty under it for nonconforming consciences. If this was Independency,\nit was a kind of large lay Independency; and of Independency in this\nsense Milton was, undoubtedly, the literary chief. Only, when he was\nthought of by the Independents as one of their champions, it was always\nwith a recollection that his championship of the common cause was\nqualified by a peculiar private crotchet. He figured in the list of the\nchiefs of Independency, if I may so express it, with an asterisk prefixed\nto his name. That asterisk was his Divorce Doctrine. He was an\nIndependent with the added peculiarity of being the head of the Sect of\nMiltonists or Divorcers.\n\n\nINTENTION OF ANOTHER MARRIAGE: HIS WIFE'S RETURN AND RECONCILIATION WITH\nHIM.\n\nIn 1645 Milton still gloried in the asterisk. All the copies of the\nsecond and augmented edition of _The Doctrine and Discipline of\nDivorce_ having been sold, there was a reprint of it in this year,\nforming substantially the third edition of the original treatise. None of\nhis writings hitherto had been in such popular demand; and as, besides\nthe three editions of the original Divorce treatise, there were also in\ncirculation his _Bucer Tract_, his _Tetrachordon_, and his\n_Colasterion_, he had identified himself with the Divorce subject by\na total mass of writing larger than he had yet devoted to any other.\nWhile his five Anti-Episcopal pamphlets, of 1641-42, make together 326\npages of his prose works in Pickering's edition, the four Divorce\ntreatises, of 1643-45, make 378 pages of the same; so that, in mere\nquantity, Milton was 52 pages more a Divorcer than an Anti-Prelatist. He\nhad now, however, as he had announced in his dedication of the\n_Tetrachordon_ to Parliament, done all that he meant to do on the\nsubject through the medium of mere pamphleteering. But he had hinted to\nParliament, while making that announcement, that a man with his opinions\nmight do more than write pamphlets in their behalf. \"If the Law make not\na timely provision,\" he had said, \"let the Law, as reason is, bear the\ncensure of the consequences.\" There was a covert threat here that Milton,\nif the Law would not allow him to marry again, might marry again in\ndefiance of the Law.\n\nEarly in 1645, at all events, Milton did think of marrying again. His\nwife had been away from him for the better part of two years; and she was\nnow nothing more in his memory than a girl who had been in his house in\nAldersgate Street as his bride for a few weeks, whom he had found out in\nthat short experience to be stupid and uncompanionable, who had then left\nhim on some pretence, and gone back to her father's house, and whose only\ncommunications with him since had been a message or two of contempt and\ninsult. Law or no law, it was all over between him and that girl! All the\ncircumstances where known: his unfortunate position was the talk of\nneighbours; often, as we have imagined, kindly souls of women, young and\nolder, must have had their colloquies and whispers about his pitiable\nbachelorhood caused by the shameful desertion of his wife. Kindly talk\nwas all very well: but was there any unmarried lady willing to take the\nplace of the deserter, if asked to do so? This was really the question in\nAldergate Street, and in all the round of Milton's acquaintances.\nCandidates were not likely to be numerous, even among those freer\nChristian opinionists among whom Milton principally moved; and there was,\nmoreover, a complication in the general difficulty. Milton, having\nblundered in his choice once, and having principled himself now with very\nhigh notions of feminine fitness, was very likely to be careful in a\nsecond choice. Was there accessible any lady in whom the two\nindispensable conditions of fitness and willingness could be found\nunited? This was the problem for Milton, and it is on record that he\ntried to solve it. One remembers his sonnet \"_To a Virtuous Young\nLady_,\" written about the same time as that to the Lady Margaret Ley,\nand wonders whether the \"virgin wise and pure\" there commemorated for her\nexcellencies of mind and character was thought of by him as the possible\nsuccessor of Mary Powell. Can her name have been Miss Davis? That, at all\nevents, was the name of the lady who _was_ thought of as Mary Powell's\nprobable successor. It is from Phillips that we have the particulars of\nthe story:--\n\n\"Not very long after the setting forth of these treatises,\" says\nPhillips, referring to the Divorce Treatises, \"having application made to\nhim by several gentlemen of his acquaintance for the education of their\nsons, as understanding haply the progress he had infixed by his first\nundertakings of that nature, he laid out for a larger house, and soon\nfound it out. But, in the interim, before he removed, there fell out a\npassage which, though it altered not the whole course he was going to\nsteer, yet it put a stop, or rather an end, to a grand affair, which was\nmore than probably thought to be then in agitation: it was indeed a\ndesign of marrying one of Dr. Davis's daughters, a very handsome and\nwitty gentlewoman, but averse, as it is said, to this motion. However,\nthe intelligence hereof, and the then declining state of the King's\ncause, and consequently of the circumstances of Justice Powell's family,\ncaused them to set all engines on work to restore the late married woman\nto the station wherein they a little before had planted her. At last this\ndevice was pitched upon:--There dwelt in the Lane of St. Martin's-le-\nGrand, which was hard by, a relation of our author's, one Blackborough,\nwhom it was known he often visited; and upon this occasion the visits\nwere the more narrowly observed, and possibly there might be a\ncombination between both parties, the friends on both sides concentring\nin the same action, though on different behalfs. One time above the rest,\nhe making his usual visit, the wife was ready in another room, and on a\nsudden he was surprised to see one whom he thought to have never seen\nmore, making submission and begging pardon on her knees before him. He\nmight probably at first make some show of aversion and rejection; but\npartly his own generous nature, more inclinable to reconciliation than to\nperseverance in anger and revenge, and partly the strong intercession of\nfriends on both sides, soon brought him to an act of oblivion, and a firm\nleague of peace for the future; and it was at length concluded that she\nshould remain at a friend's house, till such time as he was settled in\nhis new house at Barbican, and all things for her reception in order. The\nplace agreed on for her present abode was the Widow Webber's house in St.\nClement's Churchyard, whose second daughter had been married to the other\nbrother [Christopher Milton] many years before.\"\n\nPhillips tells the story very clearly, and a little annotation is all\nthat is wanted:--The lady whom Milton thought of, and had perhaps been\nthinking of for some time, as a possible substitute for Mary Powell, was\n\"one of Dr. Davis's daughters.\" Who this Dr. Davis was, Phillips, writing\nat a time when the mere name was probably enough for Londoners, does not\ninform us; nor have I been able, with any certainty, to identify him.\n[Footnote: There had been a Thomas Davies, M.D., born about 1564, and\neducated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he had graduated in\nmedicine in 1591, and who was afterwards a medical practitioner in\nLondon, and Licentiate and Censor of the Royal College of Physicians\nthere. As he had died in 1615, the youngest of any surviving daughters of\nhis in 1645 must have been past her thirtieth year. But, on the whole,\nPhillips's words suggest that the Dr. Davis he means was alive in 1645 or\nhad recently been alive; so that this is not likely to have been the one.\nThere was a Nicholas Davis, or Davys, M.D., who had taken that degree at\nLeyden in 1638, had been incorporated in the same degree at Oxford in\n1642, and may have been afterwards in practice in London (Munk's Roll of\nthe Royal College of Physicians of London, and Wood's Fasti, II. 9). The\ndate of his graduation at Leyden, however, seems rather late for the\nhypothesis that he was Phillips's Dr. Davis. After all, there may have\nbeen some other conspicuous Dr. Davis among Milton's acquaintances, and\nhe need not have been a medical doctor.] Dr. Davis, at all events, dead\nor living, had daughters, one of them \"a very handsome and witty\ngentlewoman,\" between whom and Milton there was some attempt to arrange a\nmarriage. She herself, however, was naturally \"averse to this motion;\"\nand, indeed, one can hardly understand what kind of proposition could\nhave been made to her or her friends. That something was in agitation,\nnevertheless, and that it was talked of more particularly in the spring\nand early summer of 1645, Phillips had a positive recollection, more by\ntoken because at that very time, he also remembered, his uncle had offers\nof more pupils than he could accommodate in the house in Aldersgate\nStreet. He had consequently been looking about for a larger house, and\nhad found one suitable close at hand, in the street called Barbican.\n\nWas Miss Davis to be persuaded to be mistress of this new house? Would\nthe \"several gentlemen\" of Milton's acquaintance who meant to board or\nhalf-board their sons with him, or would the spouses of those gentlemen,\nhave been satisfied with that arrangement? The experiment was not to be\ntried. The house in Barbican had been taken, but Milton had not yet\nremoved into it, when, to Miss Davis's relief, another arrangement was\nbrought about.\n\nRumours of what was going on, and of the new house in Barbican, had been\nborne to Oxford, and the Foresthill mansion of the Powells. In any case\nthe news of the Miss Davis project, the \"grand affair,\" as Phillips calls\nit, could not but have caused some excitement there. But the news came at\na time when the family-fortunes were no longer what they had been when\nMary Powell had left her Parliamentarian husband and taken refuge again\nunder the maternal wing, amid her Royalist relatives and acquaintances,\nclose to the King's head-quarters. Crippled already, like other Royalist\nfamilies, by necessary contributions to the King's cause, the Powells had\nbegun to be aware, and more poignantly than others because of their more\nstraitened means, that their sacrifices were likely to be all in vain--\nthat Parliament was to be master, and to have the power of pains and\npenalties over those whom it called Delinquents. Especially after the\nshattering blow to the King at Naseby (June 14, 1645), doubt on the\nsubject was nearly at an end. What was then more natural than that\ndistressed Royalist families should be looking forward anxiously to the\namount of new distress which the final triumph of Parliament would\ninflict upon them? And so in the Foresthill mansion there had been grave\nconsultations between Mr. and Mrs. Powell and between Mrs. Powell and her\ndaughter, ending in a resolution, in which Mrs. Powell was perhaps the\nlast to acquiesce--for the daughter afterwards pleaded that her mother\nall along had been \"the chief promoter of her frowardness\" [Footnote:\nWood, Fasti, I. 482.]--that it would be best for the daughter to return\nto London and try to make it up with Mr. Milton. At least one member of\nthe family would thus have a roof over her head in the hard time coming;\nand might not Milton, with his Parliamentarian connexions, be able to\nbefriend the family generally when the time did come? Soon after Naseby,\naccordingly, we are to imagine the poor young wife taking the journey to\nLondon, accompanied by her mother or some other relative, on her\nhumiliating and dubious errand.\n\nHow were they to manage when they were in London? It was not a simple\nmatter of going straight to the house in Aldersgate Street and obtaining\nadmission. Ingenuity was necessary, and preparation of a mode for\napproaching Milton. But that, too, had been thought of. Communications\nwere opened or had already been opened, with those of Milton's friends\nwho, it was supposed, would be willing to co-operate in the intended\nreconciliation, if not in the wife's interest, at least in his. And which\nof all Milton's friends was _not_ willing? In such cases, it is in\nthe man himself that the storm rages; he alone passionately feels: the\nfriends that stand by, even most sympathisingly, are cool and collected,\nregarding the principal only as a difficult patient, who must be soothed\nand humoured till he can be brought to reason. To Milton's friends his\nDivorce notion may have seemed a just enough speculation, or one at least\nabout which _they_ would not quarrel with him; the real question\nwith them was as to the continued practical implication of his own life\nand prospects with such a speculation, infamous as it seemed to\nrespectable society and to the leaders of religious opinion. Let him hold\nit, if he would, and even write for it still; but was he, at the age of\nthirty-seven, to wrap up his whole future life in it, and proceed as if\nhe and it must be dashed to pieces together? Was not this reconciliation\nbetween him and his wife, of which there seemed now to be a chance, the\nbest thing that could happen for him as well as for her? If once it were\nbrought about, would not things adjust themselves so that the public\nwould hear no more of the perilous stuff of the Divorce Doctrine, or hear\nof it only in dying echoes? So reasoned Milton's friends then, just as\npeople would reason now in a similar case; and the friendly plot was\narranged. Milton, it appears, was in the habit of dropping in, almost\ndaily, in his walk City-wards from Aldersgate Street, on a kinsman of\nhis, named Blackborough, whose house was in St. Martin's-le-Grand Lane--\n_i.e._ in that bend of Aldersgate Street which was _within_ the\nGate, and where now the General Post-Office of London stands. Here, some\nday in July or August 1645, he was surprised into an interview with his\ngirl-wife. The good Blackborough had consented to aid and abet, and had\nlent his house for the purpose; and, other friends being at hand to\nsecond him, he had opened, let us say, the door of the room in which Mary\nPowell was waiting, had ushered Milton in, and had left them together.\nThen, as Phillips imagines, had come Milton's two moods in succession,--\nthe first his instinctive mood of anger and rejection, and the second\nthat mood of his slow relenting which was witnessed and helped through by\nthe in-bustling friends:--\n\n_Mood First._\n\n_Samson_. My wife, my traitress! let her not come near me!\n\n_Chorus_. Yet on she moves; now stands and eyes thee fixt,\n  About to have spoke; but now, with head declined,\n  Like a fair flower surcharged with dew, she weeps,\n  And words addressed seem into tears dissolved,\n  Wetting the borders of her silken veil:\n  But now again she makes address to speak.\n\n_Dalila._ With doubtful feet and wavering resolution\n  I came, still dreading thy displeasure, Samson,\n  Which to have merited, without excuse,\n  I cannot but acknowledge: yet, if tears\n  May expiate (though the fact more evil drew\n  In the perverse event than I foresaw),\n  My penance hath not slackened, though my pardon\n  No way assured. But conjugal affection,\n  Prevailing over fear and timorous doubt,\n  Hath led me on desirous to behold\n  Once more thy face, and know of thy estate;\n  If aught in my ability may serve\n  To lighten what thou suffer'st, and appease\n  Thy mind with what amends is in my power,\n  Though late, yet in some part to recompense\n  My rash, but more unfortunate, misdeed.\n\n_Samson._ Out, out! hy\u00e6na!\n                           _Samson Agonistes_, 725-747.\n\n_Mood Second._\n\n  She ended weeping, and her lowly plight,\n  Immoveable till peace obtained from fault\n  Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought\n  Commiseration: soon his heart relented\n  Towards her, his life so late and sole delight,\n  Now at his feet submissive in distress,\n  Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,\n  His counsel whom she had displeased, his aid;\n  As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,\n  And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon.\n                           _Paradise Lost_, X. 937-946.\n\nWas this Milton's idealized history long afterwards of his own two moods\nin Blackborough's house in St. Martin's-le-Grand Lane some time in July\nor August 1645? So far as it was autobiography at all, I should not say\nthat it was much idealized, except in so far as Dalila in the land of the\nPhilistines, and Eve in Paradise, had to be represented poetically as\nbeautiful, eloquent, and fascinating, while of poor Mary Powell's claims\nto beauty we know little, and our information as to her eloquence and\nfascination consists in our irremovable impression that it was of her\nthat Milton had been thinking in that passage in his first Divorce Tract\nin which he described the hard fate of a man bound fast by marriage to\n\"an image of earth and phlegm.\" From the side of Milton there was, I\nthink, no idealizing: hardly else than as his own Samson, or his own\nAdam, in his poems, did Milton feel or speak on any important occasion of\nhis own real experience. If, then, the second mood now prevailed, and he\nyielded, it was only, I believe, because despair for himself and pity for\nanother overcame him jointly, and what was alone possible was accepted as\ndisastrously fated. So much by way of necessary anticipation, and that\nthere may not be a mistake, even for a moment, as to the real nature of\nthe reconciliation that had been effected. Meanwhile, the friends of both\nwife and husband were delighted with their success; and, till the new\nhouse in the Barbican should be ready, young Mrs. Milton went to lodge in\nthe house of the Widow Webber, Christopher Milton's mother-in-law, near\nSt. Clement's Church in the Strand.\n\n\nREMOVAL FROM ALDERSGATE STREET TO BARBICAN.\n\nSeptember 1645, when the New Model Army had stormed Bristol and was\notherwise carrying all before it in the English South-west, when Montrose\nin Scotland had been extinguished by David Leslie at Philiphaugh, and\nwhen the Presbyterian system had been so far arranged for England that\nthe first order of Parliament for the election of Elders in all the\nLondon parishes had gone out, and Triers of the competency of these\nElders had been appointed in all the London Presbyteries: then it was, as\nnear as one can calculate, that the interesting house in Aldersgate\nStreet was left by Milton, and he, his wife, his father, the two boys\nPhillips, and the other pupils, entered together into the new house in\nBarbican.\n\nIt was no great remove. The street called Barbican derived its name,\naccording to Stow, from the fact that at one time there had stood there\n\"a _burgh-kenning_, or watch-tower of the city, called in some language a\n_barbican_;\" and modern etymologists perfect Stow's observation by\ntracing the name, through the medi\u00e6val Latin _barbacana_, to the Persian\n_b\u00e1la khaneh_, meaning \"upper chamber,\" whence our less corrupt form\n_balcony_, actually identical with barbican. [Footnote: Stow, as quoted\nin Cunningham's _London_, Art. \"Barbican;\" and Wedgwood's _Dict. of\nEnglish Etymology_, Art. \"Balcony.\"] There had, in short, been a\nbarbican, or outer defence of the city, at this spot, a little beyond the\nparticular gate called Aldersgate, just as there were such things beyond\nothers of the city-gates; but the name had lingered only here as applied\nto the street or site where a barbican had been. The street, retaining\nits warlike name, still exists--a short street going off from Aldersgate\nStreet at right angles on one side, and within a walk of not more than\ntwo or three minutes from the site of Milton's Aldersgate Street house.\nThe house in Barbican was larger, and so much farther off from the city-\ngate; but that was all. There was no real change of neighbourhood or of\nstreet-associations. A dingy street now, dingier even than the main\nthoroughfare of Aldersgate Street, Barbican was then a fair enough bit of\nsuburban London towards the north; and it boasted, as we already know, of\nat least one aristocratic mansion in which Milton had some interest--the\ntown-house of the Earl of Bridgewater, ex-President of Wales, and the\npeer of _Comus_. The name \"Bridgewater Gardens\" still designates, without\na shred of garden left there, but only grimy printing-offices and the\nlike instead, the portion of the street which the mansion occupied. Nay\nmore, till within a few years ago; Milton's own house in Barbican, with\nsome modern change of frontage, and some filling-up of interstices right\nand left, was extant and known. Somehow, while the more important house\nin Aldersgate Street had perished from the memory of the neighbourhood\n(probably because the fabric itself had perished), the tradition of\nMilton still clung around this house in Barbican, I have passed it many a\ntime, stopping to look at it, when it was occupied, if I remember\nrightly, by a silk-dyer, or other such tradesman, exhibiting on his sign\nthe peculiar name of \"Heaven,\" and using the lower part of it for his\nshop. Though jammed in with other houses and undistinguished in the line\nof bustling street, it had the appearance of having once been a\ncommodious enough house in the old fashion; and I have been informed that\nsome of the old windows, consisting of thick bits of dim glass lozenged\nin lead, still remained in it at the back, and that the occupants knew\none of the rooms in it as \"the Schoolroom\" where Milton had used to teach\nhis pupils. But alas! one of the city railways took it into its head that\nit required to run through this precise bit of Barbican, and the house,\nwith others near it, was doomed to demolition. When I was last in\nBarbican part of the shell of the house was still standing, roofless,\ndisfloored, diswindowed, and pickaxed into utter raggedness, as so much\nrubbish yet waiting to be removed from the new railway gap. The\ninscription yet remained on the front-door--\"This was Milton's House,\" or\nto that effect--which had been very properly put there by the contractor\nor his workmen to lure people to a last look at the interior before the\ndemolition was complete. [Footnote: My information about the interior of\nthe house is from a friend who visited it just when it was doomed. Though\nI had passed it often when it was yet complete, I had unfortunately, not\nexpecting its doom, deferred going in till it was too late; and my last\nhomage to it had to be a lingering saunter near and in the railway gap\nbehind, when there was only the remnant of it described in the text.]\n\n\nFIRST EDITION OF MILTON'S COLLECTED POEMS: HUMPHREY MOSELEY THE\nBOOKSELLER.\n\nAmong Milton's first employments in his new and larger house in Barbican,\nwhile his wife was resuming her duties and the schoolroom was getting\ngradually into use, we are able to distinguish one of particular\ninterest. It was nothing else than the revision for the press of the\nproof-sheets of the first collected edition of his Miscellaneous Poems.\n\nBy his dealings with the Press hitherto, it is to be remembered, Milton\nhad made himself known to most people chiefly as a prose pamphleteer.\nExcept his lines _On Shakespeare_, written in 1630, and prefixed\nanonymously to the Second Folio Shakespeare in 1632; his _Comus_,\nwritten and acted in 1634, and sent to the press, also without the\nauthor's name, by his friend Henry Lawes in 1637; and his _Lycidas_,\nwritten in 1637, and printed in 1638, in the Cambridge University volume\nof Verses on Edward King's death, but only with the initials \"J.M.\":--\nexcept these, and perhaps another scrap or two of Latin or English verse\nthat had been printed in a semi-private manner, all Milton's poems,\nwritten at intervals over a period of more than twenty years, had\nremained in his own keeping in manuscript, and had been communicated to\nfriends only in that form. In consequence of what had been thus printed,\nor privately circulated, a certain reputation for Milton as a poet had,\nindeed, been established; but the voice of this reputation was hardly\nheard amid the much louder uproar caused by his eleven prose-pamphlets\nbetween 1641 and 1645. Now, to a man who believed Poesy to be his true\ncalling, who had consented reluctantly to put aside \"his garland and\nsinging robes\" in order that he might engage in the work of politics, and\nwho had announced while doing so that in that work it was but the\nstrength of his left hand he could lend and not the nobler cunning of his\nright, this state of public opinion about himself must have begun to be a\nlittle disagreeable. It was the most natural thing in the world that, as\nsoon as there should be a lull in the political tumult, the least leisure\nof the public for a return to purer and blander literature, Milton should\nmake some sign of resuming his garland, so as to remind those about him\nof his original vocation. But, precisely in the year 1045, when Naseby\nhad assured the victory of Parliament, there did come, for the first time\nsince the war had begun, or indeed since the Long Parliament had met,\nsuch a lull of the polemical tumult. The statistics of the English book-\ntrade, as they are presented in the Registers of the Stationers' Company,\nverify and illustrate this statement.\n\nEven in the year 1640, when there was political agitation enough in\nEngland, but the Long Parliament had not yet met, there was still so much\nleisure for the purer forms of literature in English society that London\npublishers were bringing out such things as Masques and other remains of\nBen Jonson, the Works of Thomas Carew, various Plays by Shirley,\nGlapthorne, Habington, Heywood, Killigrew, and Brome, an edition of\nHerrick's Poems, and Thomas May's Supplement to Lucan. As soon, however,\nas we pass beyond 1640, and the real work of the Long Parliament is\nbegun, such books almost entirely cease to appear. The matter then\nprovided for the reading of the English public consisted of a huge jumble\nof Pamphlets on the Church-question, Sermons, semi-controversial\nTreatises of Theology, Political Speeches, fragments of Ecclesiastical\nHistory, Prose Invectives and Satires, and latterly, when the Civil War\nwas in progress, an abundance of Diurnals, Intelligencers, Mercuries, and\nother news-sheets. Between 1640 and 1645 one does indeed discern\ntwinkling in this jumble some gems or would-be gems of the purer ray\nserene. The \"Epigrams Divine and Moral\" of Sir Thomas Urquhart, the\ntranslator of Rabelais, were published in April 1641; Howell's\n\"Instructions for Foreign Travel\" came out in September in the same year;\nBaker's \"Chronicle of the Kings of England\" in the following December; in\nApril 1642 there was a London edition of Thomas Randolph's Poems, which\nhad appeared originally at Oxford in 1638; and the publication of\nDenham's \"Cooper's Hill\" and his \"Tragedy called The Sophy\" is a rather\nnotable event of August 1642, the very month in which the King raised his\nstandard. In the same month one London publisher, Francis Smethwick,\nregistered for his copies a number of books of the poetical kind which\nhad been the property of his late father, including \"Mr. Drayton's\nPoems,\" \"Euphues's Golden Legacy,\" Meres's \"Witt's Commonwealth,\" and\nalso \"Hamblett, a Play,\" \"The Taming of the Shrew,\" \"Romeo and Juliet,\"\nand \"Love's Labour's Lost.\" This transaction, however, hardly implied\nthat these books were in demand, but only that Smethwick wanted to secure\nhis interest in them on succeeding to his father's business. Afterwards,\nwhile the war was actually raging, it is not till December 1644 that one\ncomes upon anything of the finer sort worth mentioning. On the 14th of\nthat month there was registered for publication the first edition of\n\"Poems, &c., written by Mr. Edmund Waller, of Beckonsfield, Esq., lately\na member of the Honourable House of Commons,\" but then, as we know, a\ndisgraced plotter, who, having, by great favour, been permitted to carry\nhis dear-bought life, and his remaining wealth, into exile in France,\nleft this parting gift to his countrymen, that they might think of him\nmeanwhile as kindly as they could. Except that I have not taken notice of\na publication or two of the voluminous Scotchman Alexander Rosse,\nChaplain to his Majesty, [Footnote: This Alexander Rosse, or \"Dr.\nAlexander Ross,\" made famous in _Hudibras_, was one of the singular\ncharacters of the time, and a memoir of him, with a complete list of his\nwritings, would be a not uninstructive curiosity. He was a native of\nAberdeen, born about 1590, but had migrated to England, where he became\nMaster of the Free School at Southampton, and Chaplain in Ordinary to\nKing Charles. By a succession of publications of all kinds, in Latin and\nin English., he acquired the reputation of being \"a divine, a poet, and\nan historian.\" He made a good deal of money, and, at his death in 1654,\nleft bequests, for educational purposes, to Aberdeen, Southampton,\nOxford, and Cambridge. ] the foregoing enumeration fairly represents, I\nbelieve, the amount of book-production of the purer or non-controversial\nkind that went on in London in the four loud-roaring years between 1640\nand 1645.\n\nIn 1645, however, and especially after Naseby, there are symptoms of a\nslightly revived leisure for other kinds of reading than were supplied by\nDiurnals, Sermons, Pamphlets, and books of Polemical Theology, and of a\nwillingness among the London booksellers to cater for this leisure. In\nthat year, interspersed amid the still continuing tide of Pamphlets,\nDiurnals, Sermons, and other ephemerides, were such novel appearances in\nthe London book-world as these--two Treatises, one physical, the other\nmetaphysical, by Sir Kenelm Digby, then abroad; an edition of Buxtorf's\nHebrew Grammar; an Essay by Lord Herbert of Cherbury; some metrical\nreligious remains of Francis Quarles, then just dead; some attempts to\nintroduce the mystic Jacob Bohme, by specimens of his works; a\ntranslation of \u00c6sop's Fables and those of Ph\u00e6drus; the issue of the\nsecond and third parts of the _Epistol\u00e6 Hoelian\u00e6_ or James Howell's\nLetters, with a re-issue of his \"Dodona's Grove;\" and a re-issue of\nRandolph's comedy of \"The Jealous Lovers.\" Clearly, as the Civil War was\ndrawing to a close, the Muses of pure History, pure Speculation or\nPhilosophy, Scholarship for its own sake, and even lighter Phantasy, did\nhover over England again, timidly seeking some spots where they might\nrest themselves in the all-prevailing controversy between Independency\nand Presbyterianism.\n\nAlmost always, in such cases, a social tendency is represented in the\nactivity of some particular person. Nor is it otherwise here. So far as\nPoetry and so-called Light Literature are concerned, one has no\ndifficulty in pointing to the particular London publisher who in 1645,\nand from that year onwards, stood out from all his fellows by his\nalertness in the trade. This was HUMPHREY MOSELEY, who had his shop at\nthe sign of the Prince's Arms in St Paul's Churchyard. Something in his\npersonal tastes, I am inclined to think, must have determined him to the\nline of business which he selected; so marked is his avoidance of all\ndealings in sermons, ephemeral treatises on theology, and pamphlets\neither way on the present crisis, and his preference for poetry and books\nof general culture. He had been in the trade, in partnership with a\nNicholas Fussel, in St. Paul's Churchyard, as early as 1634, [ Footnote:\nWood's Ath. II 503.] and shortly after that is heard of as in business\nfor himself. I have a note of him as registering for his copyright, on\nMarch 16, 1639-40, Howell's \"Dodona's Grove;\" and thenceforward, in worse\ntimes, he stuck to Howell. He not only published Howell's \"Instructions\nfor Foreign Travel\" in September 1641, and again the second and third\nparts of Howell's \"Letters\" in 1645, with a re-issue of \"Dodona's Grove;\"\nbut he acquired, in the same year, the copyright of the first part of the\n\"Letters,\" which had been originally brought out by another publisher.\nMore significant still is the fact that it was Moseley that was the\npublisher of Waller's Poems in December 1644. [Footnote: \"Poems &c.\nwritten by Mr. Ed. Waller of Beckonsfield, Esquire; lately a member of\nthe Honourable House of Commons. All the Lyrick Poems in this Booke were\nset by Mr. Henry Lawes, Gent. of the King's Chappell, and one of his\nMajestie's Private Musick. Printed and Published according to Order.\nLondon. Printed by T.W. for Humphrey Mosley at the Princes Armes in\nPaul's Churchyard: 1645:\" pp.96 small 8vo. My authority for the date of\nthe publication of the volume--December 1644--is the Stationers'\nRegisters.] After that date his tendency to trade-dealings in Poetry and\nthe like is so manifest in the Stationers' records that I find appended\nto my MS. notes, from these records, for the London Bibliography of the\nyear 1646, this memorandum:--\"_Poetry and Pure Literature looking up\nagain this year, and chiefly through the medium of Moseley's shop._\"\nBy that time Moseley had distinguished himself as the publisher of\noriginal editions of books, not only by Howell and Waller, but also by\nMilton, Davenant, Crashaw, and Shirley, and moreover as the ready\npurchaser of whatever copyrights were in the market of poems and plays by\nBeaumont and Fletcher, Webster, Ludwick Carlell, Shirley, Davenant,\nKilligrew, and other celebrities dead or living. To this group of\nMoseley's authors Cowley and Cartwright were soon added; and it was not\nlong before he snapped out of the hands of duller men Denham's Poems,\nCarew's Poems, various things of Sir Kenelm Digby, and every obtainable\ncopyright in any of the plays of Shakespeare, Massinger, Ford, Rowley,\nMiddleton, Tourneur, or any other of the Elizabethan and Jacoban\ndramatists. For at least the ten years from 1644 onwards there was, I\nshould say, no publisher in London comparable to Moseley for tact and\nenterprise in the finer literature.\n\nMoseley was only on the way to make all this reputation for himself, and\nindeed Waller's volume of Poems, published in Dec. 1644, was yet the\nprincipal advertisement of his shop, when he and Milton came together.\nPleased with the success of the Waller, it appears, Moseley thought of a\ncollection of Mr. Milton's Poems as a likely second experiment of the\nsame kind, and applied to Milton for the copy. The application was not\ndisagreeable to Milton; and, accordingly, some time after the middle of\n1645, or just while he was preparing to remove from Aldersgate Street to\nBarbican, and there came upon him the great surprise of his wife's re-\nappearance, Moseley and he were busy in arrangements for the new volume.\nMilton's acknowledged London publishers hitherto had been these three--\n\"Thomas Underhill, of the Bible in Wood Street\" (_Of Reformation_, 1641,\n_Of Prelatical Episcopacy_, 1641, and _Animadversions on Remonstrant's\nDefence_, 1641), \"John Rothwell, at the sign of the Sun in Paul's\nChurchyard\" (_Reason of Church Government_, 1641, and _Apology for\nSmectymnuus, 1642), and \"Matthew Symmons\" (the _Bucer Tract_, 1644); and\nthis last-mentioned Symmons, who does not give the locality of his shop,\nhad been probably the printer also of those pamphlets of Milton which\nbore no publisher's name (_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_, 1643,\n1644, and 1645, _Of Education_, 1644, _Areopagitica_, 1644, and\n_Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_, 1645). Now, however, these were\nforsaken for the moment, and for bringing out the Volume of Poems the\nconjunction was Milton and Humphrey Moseley. The revisal of the proof-\nsheets may have been begun in Aldersgate Street, but it must mainly, as I\nhave said, have been among Milton's first employments at the new house in\nBarbican. Here, at all events, is Moseley's entry of the new volume in\nthe Stationers' Registers: \"_Oct._ 6 [1645], _Mr. Moseley ent. for his\ncopie, under the hand of Sir Nath. Brent and both the Wardens, a booke\ncalled Poems in English and Latyn by Mr. John Milton._\" Usually the entry\nof a book in the Stationers' Registers was about simultaneous with its\npublication. In this case, however, there was a delay of nearly three\nmonths between the registration and the actual appearance. The precise\nday of the publication of the new volume was Jan. 2, 1645-6. [Footnote:\nThis is ascertained by a MS. note of the collector Thomason's, or by his\ndirection, on a copy among the King's Pamphlets in the British Museum;\nPress-mark E. 1126. \"Jan. 2\" is inserted before the word \"London\" in the\ntitle-page.] Either, therefore, Moseley had registered the volume before\nthe printing had proceeded far, or after the sheets were printed there\nwas some little cause of delay.\n\nThe following is the title-page of this interesting and now very rare\nvolume:--\n\n\"Poems of Mr. John Milton, both English and Latin, compos'd at several\ntimes. Printed by his true Copies. The Songs were set in Musick by Mr.\nHenry Lawes, Gentleman of the King's Chappel, and one of His Majestie's\nPrivate Musick.\n\n        'Baccare frontem\n  Cingite, ne vati noceat mala lingua futuro.'\n                           VIRGIL, _Eclog._ vii.\n\nPrinted and publish'd according to Order. London, Printed by Ruth\nRaworth, for Humphrey Moseley; and are to be sold at the signe of the\nPrinces Arms in Paul's Churchyard. 1645.\"\n\nThe volume is a very tiny octavo, divided into two parts in the paging.\nFirst come the ENGLISH POEMS, occupying 120 pages, and arranged thus:--\n_On the Morning of Christ's Nativity, compos'd_ 1629; _A Paraphrase on\nPsalm CXIV. _; _Psalm CXXXVI. _; _The Passion_; _On Time_; _Upon the\nCircumcision_; _At a Solemn Music_; _An Epitaph on the Marchioness of\nWinchester_; _Song on May Morning_; _On Shakespear_, 1630; _On the\nUniversity Carrier who, &c. _; _Another on the Same_; _L'Allegro_; _Il\nPenseroso_; _Sonnets_, English and Italian--ten in number (I. \"O\nNightingale;\" II. \"Donna leggiadra;\" III. \"Qual in colle,\" with the\nattached \"Canzone;\" IV. \"Diodati e te'l;\" V. \"Per certo i bei;\" VI.\n\"Giovane piano;\" VII. \"How soon hath Time;\" VIII. \"Captain or Colonel;\"\nIX. \"Lady that in the prime;\" X. \"Daughter to that good Earl\");--\n_Arcades_; _Lycidas_; _Comus_. [Footnote: To this enumeration of the\nEnglish pieces in the volume of 1645 I may append three bibliographical\nnotes--(1) Of the 28 pieces the original drafts of 10 still exist in the\nvolume of Milton MSS. in Trinity College, Cambridge--viz.: _On Time_,\n_Upon the Circumcision_, _At a Solemn Music_, Sonnets 7, 8, 9, and 10,\n_Arcades_, _Lycidas_, and _Comus_. All these drafts are in Milton's own\nhand, except that of Sonnet 8, only the heading of which is in his hand.\nOf the other 18 pieces, the most important of which are _L'Allegro_ and\n_Il Penseroso_, the original MSS. have not come down to us. (2) It will\nbe seen that two of the known early English Poems are omitted in the\nvolume: viz. the piece _On the Death of a Fail Infant dying of a Cough_--\n_i.e._ the poem on the death of his niece, the infant girl Phillips,\nwritten in 1626; and the College piece of 1628 entitled _At a Vacation\nExercise_. These pieces first appeared in the Second Edition of the Poems\nin 1673. (3) It may also be noted that the latest written pieces which\nappear in the volume of 1645 are Sonnets 9 and 10--the one to the\nanonymous young lady, the other to the Lady Margaret Ley. We have\nassigned them to the year 1644, but they _may_ have been as late as\n1645.] As if to call attention to _Comus_ as the longest and chief of the\npoems, it has a separate title-page, thus, \"_A Mask of the same Author,\npresented at Ludlow Castle, 1634, before the Earl of Bridgewater, then\nPresident of Wales, Anno Dom. 1645;_\" but, though there is this break of\na new title-page, the paging runs on without interruption, _Lycidas_\nending p. 65, and _Comus_ taking up the rest to p. 120. Here, however,\nthere is a _complete_ break, as if it were intended that the English\nPoems, there ending, might be bound by themselves. The LATIN POEMS follow\nas a separate collection, paged separately from p. 1 to p. 88, and with\nthis new title-page prefixed to them: \"_Joannis Miltoni Londinensis\nPoemata: quorum pleraque intra annum oetatis vigesimum conscripsit: nunc\nprimum edita. Londini, Typis R.R., Prostant ad Insignia Principis, in\nCoemeterio D. Pauli, apud Humphredum Moseley, 1645._\" There is, however,\na double arrangement of the Latin Poems, or a distribution of them into\ntwo classes. First come those which constitute the so-called ELEGIARUM\nLIBER; viz., the \"Elegies\" proper, numbered from I. to VII., as they now\nstand in all editions of Milton, together with the eight little scraps in\nthe same elegiac verse (five of them on the subject of the Gunpowder\nPlot, and three on the Italian singer Leonora) which some modern editors\nhave preferred to detach from the Elegies, and put under the separate\nheading of \"Epigrams.\" This is contrary to Milton's intention; for the\nphrase \"Elegiarum Finis\" _follows_ those scraps in the volume, showing\nthat he meant them to go with the Elegies, and that, in fact, he thought\nit permissible to call anything an Elegy that was written in the ordinary\nelegiac verse of alternate Hexameter and Pentameter. Accordingly, all his\nLatin poems in that kind of verse having been included in the _Elegiarum\nLiber_, all his other Latin poems, not in that kind of verse, but either\nin Hexameter pure or in rarer metres, together with two fragments of\nGreek verse, are regarded as \"Sylv\u00e6,\" and constitute the distinct\nSYLVARUM LIBER which ends the volume. First among the \"Sylv\u00e6\" come the\nsix Latin poems of the Cambridge period--_In obitum Procancellarii\nMedici, In Quintum Novembris, In obitum Pr\u00e6sulis Eliensis, Naturam non\npati Senium, De Ide\u00e2 Platonic\u00e2 quemadmodum Aristoteles intellexit, and Ad\nPatrem_; then, by way of typographic interruption, come the two scraps of\nGreek verse--viz. _Psalm LXIV_. and the scrap entitled _Philosophus ad\nRegem Quendam_, &c.; after which are the two Latin pieces, _Ad Salsillum_\nand _Mansus_, written in Italy, and the _Epitaphium Damonis_, written\nimmediately after the return to England. This last stands a little apart\nfrom the body of the \"Sylv\u00e6,\" as if Milton attached a peculiar sacredness\nto it.\n\nSuch is a general description of the First or 1645 Edition of Milton's\nMiscellaneous Poems. The volume, however, presents some points of\nadditional interest:----Has the reader noticed the motto on the title-\npage from Virgil's seventh Eclogue? It is peculiarly significant of the\nmood in which the volume was published. Milton, who had called himself\nThyrsis in the _Epitaphium Damonis_, here adopts in the happiest\nmanner the words of the young poet-shepherd Thyrsis in Virgil's pastoral.\nThyrsis there, contending with Corydon for the prize in poetry, begs from\nhis brother shepherds, if not the ivy of perfectly approved excellence,\nat least\n\n  \"Some green thing round the brow,\n  Lest ill tongues hurt the poet yet to be.\"\n\nCould anything more gracefully express Milton's intention in the volume?\nThis collection of his Poems, written between his sixteenth year and his\nthirty-eighth, was a smaller collection by much, he seems to own, than he\nhad once hoped to have ready by that point in his manhood; but it might\nat least correct the impression of him common among those who knew him\nonly as a prose pamphleteer. Something green round his brow for the\npresent, were it only the sweet field-spikenard, would attest that he had\ngiven his youth to Poesy, and would re-announce, amid the clamour of evil\ntongues which his polemical writings had raised, that he meant to return\nto Poesy before all was done, and to die, when he did die, a great Poet\nof England.\n\nThis feeling, which is the motive of the publication, appears curiously\nin all the details of its arrangement. The order in which the poems are\nprinted, within each division or class, is, as nearly as possible, the\norder in which they were written; the deviations being only such as\nproper editorial art required. To almost every juvenile piece, too,\nwhether in English or in Latin, there is prefixed some indication of the\nexact date of its composition; and the title-page of the Latin Poems\ndistinctly solicits attention to the fact that most of them were composed\nbefore the author was twenty. Even more remarkable than this care in the\ndating is the introduction into the volume of all the eulogiums which\nMilton had already received from private friends on account of the Poems,\nor of any portion of them. To the _Comus_ there is prefixed Henry\nLawes's eulogistic Dedication of it, in the edition of 1637, to Viscount\nBrackley, and also Sir Henry Wotton's cordial letter to Milton, with its\npraise of the poem in that edition, when Milton was on the start for his\ncontinental tour in the spring of 1638. To the Latin Poems as a whole\nthere is even a more formal vestibule of encomiums. First of all, there\nis a little preface by Milton in Latin apologizing to the reader for\ntroubling him with them. \"Though these following testimonies concerning\nthe Author,\" he says, \"were understood by himself to be pronounced not so\nmuch _about_ him as _over_ him, by way of subject or occasion--\nit being the general habit of men of brilliant genius, if they are at the\nsame time one's friends, to fashion their praises too eagerly rather by\nthe standard of their own excellencies than by truth--yet he was\nunwilling that the singular goodwill of such persons towards him should\nremain unknown, and the rather because others advised him strongly to the\nstep he is now taking. While therefore he puts from him with all his\nstrength the imputation of desiring overpraise, and would rather not have\nattributed to him more than is due, he cannot deny but he considers the\nopinion of him meantime by wise and celebrated men a very high honour.\"\nAccordingly there here follow the encomiums of his various Italian\nfriends, known to us long ago, and which had been carefully preserved by\nhim till now among his papers--the Latin distich by the famous Marquis\nManso of Naples; the outrageously complimentary Latin verses of the two\nRomans, Salzilli and Selvaggi; and the more interesting Italian ode of\ncompliment and Latin Dedication by the two Florentines, Francini and\nCarlo Dati. (See Vol. I. pp. 732-4, 753-4, and 768.) One has to remember\nthat the insertion of such commendatory verses in new volumes of poetry\nwas a fashion of the day. But, besides, there was really the anxiety for\n\"something green round the brow.\" In short, it is as if Milton said to\nhis countrymen--\"Here is plenty of greenery, and to spare, with florid\nstuff intermixed, of which I am rather ashamed: pick out as much or as\nlittle of it as you like; only, at this date in my life, to prevent\nmistake, let me have _some_ kind of garland.\"\n\nThe publisher, Humphrey Moseley, for one, was most willing to oblige\nMilton. Prefixed to the volume, on the blank space before the poems\nthemselves begin, is this most interesting preface in Moseley's own\nname:--\n\n\"THE STATIONER TO THE READER.\n\n\"It is not any private respect of gain, gentle Reader--for the slightest\nPamphlet is nowadays more vendible than the works of learnedest men--but\nit is the love I have to our own language, that hath made me diligent to\ncollect and set forth such pieces, both in prose and verse, as may renew\nthe wonted honour and esteem of our English tongue; and it's the worth of\nthese both English and Latin Poems, not the flourish of any prefixed\nencomions, that can invite thee to buy them--though these are not without\nthe highest commendations and applause of the learnedest Academicks, both\ndomestick and foreign, and amongst those of our own country the\nunparalleled attestation of that renowned Provost of Eton, Sir Henry\nWootton. I know not thy palate, how it relishes such dainties, nor how\nharmonious thy soul is: perhaps more trivial Airs may please thee better.\nBut, howsoever thy opinion is spent upon these, that encouragement I have\nalready received from the most ingenious men, in their clear and\ncourteous entertainment of Mr. Waller's late choice pieces, hath once\nmore made me adventure into the world, presenting it with these ever-\ngreen and not to be blasted laurels. The Author's more peculiar\nexcellency in these studies was too well known to conceal his papers or\nto keep me from attempting to solicit them from him. Let the event guide\nitself which way it will, I shall deserve of the age by bringing into the\nlight as true a birth as the Muses have brought forth since our famous\nSpenser wrote; whose poems in these English ones are as rarely imitated\nas sweetly excelled. Reader, if thou art eagle-eyed to censure their\nworth, I am not fearful to expose them to thy exactest perusal.\n\n\"Thine to command, HUMPH. MOSELEY.\"\n\nThis is most creditable to Moseley, and confirms the impression of him\nwhich is to be derived from all the known facts of his publishing life.\nOne notices, with real respect, his introductory statement about himself,\nthat, in an age when only pamphlets were thought vendible, he was\nresolved, from his own liking for good literature, to keep to a finer\nline of business; one observes with interest the admission that it was\nMoseley who had solicited the copy from Milton, and not Milton who had\noffered the copy; and one is struck with the justness of taste shown in\nthe hint that, however choice Mr. Waller's late Pieces might be, here was\na poet of \"more peculiar excellency.\" Above all, nothing could be\ncritically truer than the assertion that since Spenser's death there had\nbeen no English poetry of Spenser's kind equal to that contained in this\nvolume.\n\nAnother feature of the volume, for which Moseley, without doubt, is also\nresponsible, is a prefixed portrait of the Author. There was then living\nin London a certain William Marshall, an engraver and sketcher of designs\nfor books. He had been some fourteen or fifteen years in this employment;\nand among the many heads he had done, separately, or as frontispieces to\nbooks, ere those of Richard Brathwayte the Poet, Dr. Donne, Archbishop\nAbbot, Laud, and Dr. Daniel Featley. Very probably Moseley had already\nhad dealings with Marshall, as he had certainly had with the more\ncelebrated engraver Hollar, who had done a frontispiece for him for\nHowell's \"Instructions for Foreign Travel.\" At all events, Hollar being\nnow out of the way and in trouble (he and Inigo Jones were in the Marquis\nof Winchester's house at Basing when it was taken by Cromwell), it was\nMarshall that came in for most such pieces of engraving work as Moseley\nand other London publishers required. The connexion between him and\nMoseley became, indeed, a permanent one, so that Marshall is perhaps best\nremembered now by Horace Walpole's description of him as \"the graver of\nheads for Moseley's books of poetry.\" If the first head he did for\nMoseley was this for the edition of Milton's Poems in 1645, it was an\nunlucky beginning of the connexion. It turned out, at all events, to be\nan unfortunate piece of work for Marshall's own memory with posterity:--\nMoseley, we are to suppose, insisted on a portrait of Milton as a proper\nornament to be prefixed to such a volume, chose Marshall to do it, and\nsent him to Milton. Now Milton, as we know, had some recollection of\nMarshall, and not a very respectful one. It was Marshall that had done\nnot only Dr. Featley's portrait, but also the caricature of the different\nsorts of Anabaptists and Sectaries, including a river-scene with bathers\nof both sexes, which had been inserted in the Doctor's treatise entitled\n_The Dippers Dipt_. Milton, as we have seen (_ant\u00e8_, p. 311), while\nadministering punishment to Dr. Featley in his _Tetrachordon_ on account\nof a passage in this treatise, had not allowed the vulgarity of the\nengraving in Featley's book to escape. \"For which I do not commend his\n_marshalling_\" had been Milton's punning notice of it in a parenthesis of\nthe punishment. When, therefore, Mr. Marshall came to Milton from\nMoseley, Milton must have remembered him as the caricaturist for Dr.\nFeatley's book. Nevertheless, he seems to have given him every facility\nfor the portrait wanted. Marshall's habit, in such cases, was to take a\nsketch from the life when he could get it, but to assist himself with\nwhatever was at hand in the shape of a picture or former engraving.\nMilton, therefore, may have given him a sitting or two, but perhaps\navoided unnecessary trouble by referring to that portrait of himself at\nthe age of 21, now celebrated as \"the Onslow Portrait,\" which then hung\nin some room in the house in Barbican. As the forthcoming volume\nconsisted largely of Milton's juvenile Poems, an engraving from that\nportrait, touched up a little, would be the very thing. And so Marshall\nset to work. His dilatoriness over the plate may have been the cause of\nthe unusual delay in the publication of the volume after it had been\nregistered. In due time, however, the result was presented to Moseley and\nto Milton. And what a result! How they must have both stared! The general\ndesign of the plate was, indeed, pretty enough--an oval containing the\nportrait, with a background partly of curtain and low wall or window-\nsill, partly of an Arcadian scene of trees and meadow beyond, in which a\nshepherd is piping under one of the trees, and a shepherd and shepherdess\nare dancing; and then, outside the oval, in the four corners, the Muses\nMelpomene, Erato, Urania, and Clio, with their names. All this was\npassable; it was the portrait within the oval that gave the shock. The\nface is that of a grim, gaunt, stolid gentleman of middle age, looking\nlike anybody or nobody, with long hair parted in the middle and falling\ndown on both sides to the lace collar round the neck; one shoulder is\ncloaked, and the other shown tight in the buttoned tunic or coat; and the\narms meet clumsily across the breast, the left arm uppermost. Round the\noval was the legend, \"_Joannis Miltoni Angli Effigies, anno \u00e6tatis\nvigess: pri. W. M. Sculp._\"--i.e. \"Portrait of John Milton, Englishman,\nin the 2lst year of his age: W. M. Sculp.\" The legend _said_ twenty-one\nyears of age; the portrait _looked_ somewhere about fifty. What was to be\ndone? What _ought_ to have been done was to cancel the plate and print\nthe book without it. Perhaps not to vex Moseley, Milton did not insist on\nthis, but allowed the engraving, just as it was, to be prefixed to the\nvolume. But he took his revenge in one of the most malicious practical\njokes ever perpetrated. \"Mr. Marshall,\" he must have said to the\nunfortunate engraver, \"here are a few lines of Greek which I should like\nto have carefully engraved on the plate under the portrait,\" at the same\ntime handing him the following:--\n\n  [Greek: Amathei gegraphthai cheiri t\u00e6nde men eikona\n  Phai\u00e6s tach an, pras eidos autophues blepon.\n  Ton d'ektupoton ouk epignontes, philoi,\n  Gelate phaulou dusmim\u00e6ma xographou.]\n\nAway went Mr. Marshall, and duly, and with some pains, engraved these\nletters on the plate, utterly ignorant of their meaning. Accordingly,\nwhen the volume appeared (Jan. 2, 1645-6), purchasers of it did indeed\nfind Marshall's portrait of Milton in it, but those among them who knew\nGreek could read, underneath it, inscribed by Marshall's own graving\ntool, this damning criticism of his handiwork:--\n\n  \"That an unskilful hand had carved this print\n  You'd say at once, seeing the living face;\n  But, finding here no jot of me, my friends,\n  Laugh at the botching artist's mis-attempt.\"\n\n[Footnote:  This was very savage in Milton; but really, as it turned out,\nit was a prudent precaution. For, till 1670, Marshall's botch prefixed to\nthe Poems was the only published portrait of Milton-the only guide to any\nidea of his personal appearance for those, whether friends or foes,\nwhether in Britain or abroad, who were not acquainted with himself.\nEspecially among enemies on the Continent, as we shall find, both\nMarshall's portrait and Milton's sarcastic disavowal of it were eagerly\nscanned and interpreted for the worst. As late as 1655, Milton, in his\n_Pro se Defendio contra Alexandrum Morion_, had to refer to both\nportrait and disavowal as follows:--\"Now I am a Narcissus with you,\nbecause I would not be the Cyclops you paint me from your sight of the\nmost unlike portrait of me prefixed to my Poems. Really, if, in\nconsequence of the persuasion and importunity of my publisher, I allowed\nmyself to be clumsily engraved by an unskilful engraver, because there\nwas not another in the city in that time of war, this argued rather my\nentire indifference in the affair than the too great care with which you\nupbraid me.\" The passage quite confirms the view taken in the text of the\nway in which the portrait came to be published. In justice to Marshall,\nit is right to say that he had done much better things, and did better\nthings afterwards for Moseley, than this head of Milton. \"Marshall,\" says\nBliss (Wood's Ath. III. 518, Note), \"though in general a coarse and hasty\nperformer, is not to be despised, since his heads, though often very\nrough sketches, bear evident marks of authenticity and resemblance to the\noriginals. The best head he ever engraved, in my opinion, is one of Dr.\nDonne when young.\" I can confirm this by saying that his head of Featley\nreally gives one an idea of that obstinate and consequential old divine.\nI only wish he had done Milton half as well. About Marshall's engraving\nof Milton see Mr. J. F. Marsh's tract on the _Engraved and Pretended\nPortraits of Milton_ (Liverpool, 1860). Mr. Marsh thinks, with me,\nthat Marshall based his engraving partly on the Onslow picture, and that\nthat picture suggested the date, _\u00e6tat_. 21, so absurdly given to\nthe engraving.]\n\n\nTWO DIVORCE SONNETS, AND SONNET TO HENRY LAWES.\n\nMoseley's precious little volume, with the engraver Marshall thus grimly\nimmortalized in it, brings Milton to the beginning of 1646, or twelve\nmonths beyond his _Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_. His wife having been\nfor some months back with him, for better or worse, in the house at\nBarbican, he had dropped the Divorce argument, or at least its public\nprosecution. That he did so with a certain reluctance, and in no spirit\nof recantation, appears from two of his Sonnets, which must have been\nwritten about the time of the publication of his volume of Poems (Oct.\n1645--Jan. 1645-6), but which are not included in that volume, either\nbecause they were too late to come in their places after the Ten Sonnets\ncontained in it, or because Milton thought it better not then to print\nthem. \"_On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain\nTreatises_\" is the title given by Milton himself in MS. to the two\nSonnets together; but they may have been written separately.\n\nI.\n\n  I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs,\n    By the known rules of ancient liberty,\n    When straight a barbarous noise environs me\n    Of Owls and Cuckoos, Asses, Apes, and Dogs;\n  As when those hinds that were transformed to frogs\n    Railed at Latona's twin-born progeny,\n    Which after held the sun and moon in fee.\n    But this is got by casting pearl to hogs,\n  That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood,\n    And still revolt when Truth would set them free.\n    Licence they mean when they cry Liberty;\n  For who loves that must first be wise and good:\n    But from that mark how far they rove we see,\n    For all this waste of wealth and loss of blood.\n\nII.\n\n  A book was writ of late called _Tetrachordon_,\n    And woven close, both matter, form, and style;\n    The subject new. It walked the town a while\n    Numbering good intellects; now seldom pored on.\n  Cries the stall-reader \"Bless us! what a word on\n    A title-page is this!\" and some in file\n    Stand spelling false while one might walk to Mile-\n    End Green. Why is it harder, Sirs, than _Gordon_,\n  _Colkitto_, or _Macdonnell_, or _Galasp_?\n    Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek,\n    That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.\n  Thy age, like ours, O soul of Sir John Cheke,\n    Hated not learning worse than toad or asp,\n    When thou taught'st Cambridge and King Edward Greek.\n\nThe second of these Sonnets is printed first in all the editions of\nMilton, but there is proof that it was written second. [Footnote: It\nstands first in the Second or 1673 Edition of Milton's Poems; but in the\nCambridge MSS, it comes second in Milton's own hand.] And, while the two\ntogether form what may be called Milton's poetical farewell to the\nDivorce subject, the mood in the second, it may be noted, is more\nhumorous than in the first. In the first Milton, still angry, clenches\nhis fist in the face of his generation, as a generation of mere hogs and\ndogs, unable to appreciate any real form of the liberty for which they\nare howling and grunting; in the second the spleen is less, and he is\ncontent with a rigmarole of rhyme about the queer effects among the\nilliterate of the Greek title of his last Divorce Pamphlet. And here what\nis chiefly interesting in the rigmarole is the evidence that Milton had\nbeen recently attending to the news from Scotland. The \"_Colkitto_, or\n_Macdonnell_, or _Galasp_\" of the Sonnet is no other than our friend\nAlexander MacDonnell, _alias_ MacColkitto, _alias_ MacGillespie,\nMontrose's gigantic Major-general; and the \"Gordon\" is either Lord\nAboyne, the eldest son of the Marquis of Huntly, who adhered to Montrose\ntill Philiphaugh, or it is a general name for the many Gordons who were\nwith him (see _ant\u00e8_, pp. 348, 358, 367). The odd Scottish and Gaelic\nnames had amused Milton's delicate ear; _Gordon_ rhymed aptly to\n_Tetrachordon_; and hence the notion of the Sonnet. [Footnote: Those\nannotators on Milton who have tried to identify _Galasp_ at all have\nsupposed him to be the Mr. George Gillespie who was one of the Scottish\nDivines in the Westminster Assembly. There _may_ be a side-reference to\nhim, for Milton must have heard much of him; but the primary reference is\nnot to the Presbyterian minister, but to the huge Colonsay Highlander,\nrecently heard of everywhere as Montrose's comrade in arms, and who was\n_Colkitto_, _MacDonnell_, and _Galasp_, all in one.]\n\nA third Sonnet, written about the same time, shows even more distinctly\nthe calming effect on Milton's mind produced by his changed mode of life\nin the house in Barbican, after his wife's return and the publication of\nhis little Volume of Poems. It is the well-known Sonnet to his friend\nHenry Lawes, the musician.\n\nSo far as the two artists, William and Henry Lawes, concerned themselves\nin the politics of the time, they were, of course, Royalists. Officially\nattached to his Majesty's household and service, what else could they be?\nThe elder of the two, indeed, William Lawes, had gone into the Royalist\narmy, taken captain's rank there, and been slain quite recently at the\nsiege of Chester (October 1645), much regretted by the King, who is said\nto have put on private mourning for him. Henry, the younger, and much the\nmore celebrated as a composer, had remained in London, exercising his art\nas much as might be at such a time, and kept by it in acquaintance with\nmany who, differing in other things, were at one in their love of music.\nEverybody liked and admired the gentle Harry Lawes, and he was welcome\neverywhere. But there was still no family with which he was on more\nintimate terms than with his old patrons of the accomplished Bridgewater\ngroup, and there can have been no house where his visits were more\nfrequent than at their house in Barbican. True, the family was greatly\nreduced from what it had been in the old days of the _Arcades_ and\n_Comus_, when Lawes was teacher of music to its budding girls and\nboys, and the master and stage-director of their tasteful masques and\nprivate concerts. The Countess had been ten years dead; Lord Brackley,\nthe heir of the house, and the elder of the boy-brothers in _Comus_,\nhad wedded, in July 1642, when only nineteen years of age, the Lady\nElizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the powerful Royalist Earl, afterwards\nMarquis and Duke, of Newcastle; and one or two of his sisters, unmarried\nin the _Comus_ year, had since found husbands. With the widower\nEarl, however, inhabiting now his town-house in Barbican, and visiting\nbut seldom his country mansion at Ashridge, Herts, there still remained\nhis youngest daughter, the Lady Alice of _Comus_, verging on her\ntwenty-fifth year, and Mr. Thomas Egerton, the younger of the boy-\nbrothers in _Comus_, now a youth of about twenty. Probably elder and\nmarried members of the family gave the Earl their occasional company; for\nhe was now about sixty-five years of age, in an infirm state of health,\nsorely impoverished, and in the unfortunate condition of a Peer who would\nhave been with the King if he could, and whom the King had expected to be\nwith him, but who was obliged to plead his infirm health and his poverty\nfor a kind of semi-submission to Parliament. He had reluctantly taken the\nCovenant (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 39,40), and there are entries in the Lords\nJournals proving that his excuses for non-attendance in the House were\nbarely allowed to pass. Music and books were among the invalid Earl's\nchief recreations; and some of his happiest moments in his old age may\nhave been in listening to the Lady Alice, or another of his daughters,\nsinging one of Lawes's songs, with Lawes, now the privileged artist-\nfriend rather than the professional tutor, standing by or accompanying.\nWhat if it were the Lady Alice, and the song were that well-remembered\none of _Comus_ which she had sung, when a young girl, eleven years\nbefore, in the Hall of Ludlow Castle, before the assembled guests of her\nfather's Welsh Presidency, her proud mother then among the listeners,--\n\n  \"Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph that liv'st unseen\n  Within thy airy shell\"?\n\nIf so, the sound of her voice might have almost reached Milton in\n_his_ house close by in the same street. At all events, here, in the\nstreet called Barbican, by a strange chance, were assembled, within a few\nyards of each other, at the very time when _Comus_ was first\npublished by Milton himself, and acknowledged among his other poems, at\nleast five of the persons chiefly concerned in the masque on its first\nproduction--the Earl in whose honour it had been composed; the Lady\nAlice, and Mr. Thomas Egerton, two of the chief actors: the musician\nLawes, who had directed all, composed the music, and sustained the parts\nof Thyrsis and the Attendant Spirit in the, performance; and the poet who\nhad written the words.\n\nWhen Lawes was in Barbican of an evening, it was but a step for him from\nthe Earl's house to Milton's. And then would there not be more music,\nmingled with talk perhaps about the Bridgewater family, while Mrs. Milton\nsat by and listened? And would not the old Scrivener come down from his\nroom to see Mr. Lawes, and bring out his choicest old music-books, and\nalmost set aside his son in managing the visit for musical delight? So\none fancies, and therefore keeps to the interrogative form as the safest;\nbut the fancy here is really the most exact possible apprehension of the\nfacts as they are on record. Lawes's friendship with Milton had been\nuninterrupted since 1634; but it so chances that the third point in\nMilton's life at which his intimacy with Lawes emerges into positive\nrecord is precisely the winter of 1645-6, when Milton was the Earl of\nBridgewater's neighbour in Barbican, and his Volume of Poems was going\nthrough the press. Not only was there reprinted in this volume Lawes's\nDedication of the _Comus_ in 1637, \"To the Right Honourable John,\nLord Brackley, son and heir-apparent to the Earl of Bridgewater;\" but in\nthe very title-page of the volume, as arranged by Moseley, Lawes's name\nis associated with Milton's. \"_The Songs were set in musick by Mr.\nHenry Lawes, &c._,\" says the title-page; and this may mean that not\nonly the songs in _Arcades_ and _Comus_, but other lyrical pieces in the\nvolume, had been set to music by Lawes. If so, a good deal more of\nLawes's music to Milton's words may have been in existence about 1645\nthan his settings of the five songs in _Comus_, which are all that have\ncome down to us in his own hand. Songs of Milton set by Lawes may have\nbeen in circulation in MS. copies, and may have been as well known in\nmusical families as the numerous songs by Carew, Herrick, Waller and\nothers, which had been set by the same composer; and it may be to this\nthat Moseley alludes by the prominent mention of Lawes in the title-page\nof the collected Poems. And, if Lawes had done so much for Milton's\nverse, it was fitting that Milton should make some return in kind. He had\nindeed introduced skilful compliments to Lawes personally in his _Comus_;\nbut something more express might be now appropriate. Accordingly, on the\n9th of February, 1645-6, or five weeks after the publication of the\nPoems, Milton wrote the following:--\n\n  \"TO MY FRIEND MR. HENRY LAWES.\n\n  \"Harry, whose tuneful and well-measured song\n    First taught our English music how to span\n    Words with just note and accent, not to scan\n    With Midas ears, committing short and long,\n  Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,\n    With praise enough for Envy to look wan:\n    To after-age thou shalt be writ the man\n    That with smooth air could humour best our tongue.\n  Thou honour'st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing\n    To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire,\n    That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story.\n  Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher\n    Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing,\n    Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.\"\n\nThe original draft of this Sonnet, entitled as above, and with the date\n\"Feb. 9, 1645,\" attached, and a corrected transcript underneath, both in\nMilton's own hand, are in the Cambridge volume of Milton MSS. The Sonnet\nwas prefixed by Lawes, with the same title, in 1648 to a publication of\nsome of his own and his deceased brother's compositions, entitled\n_Choice Psalmes put into Musick for Three Voices_; but in the Second\nor 1673 Edition of Milton's Poems it reappeared with the title which it\nhas retained in all subsequent editions: viz. \"To Mr. Henry Lawes on his\nAirs.\" For biographical purposes it is well to remember the first title\nand the dating. The Sonnet is, in fact, a memorial of a time when Milton\nand Lawes must have been much together. [Footnote: The details about the\nstate of the Bridge water family in the text are partly from Todd's Note\nprefixed to _Comus_ (Todd's Milton, ed. 1852, IV 38-44), partly from\nentries in the _Lords Journals_ already referred to in this volume.\nTodd has also (_ibid._ 45-54) an elaborate, though ill-digested,\nnote on Lawes, with particulars of his continued connexion, to 1653 and\nbeyond, with various members of the Bridgewater family. In the\nStationers' Registers there is this entry:--\"Nov. 16, 1647, Rich.\nWoodnoth entered for his copy under the hands of Mr. Downham and Mr.\nBellamy, warden, a book called 'Compositions of Three Parts,' by Henry\nand William Lawes, servants to his Majesty.\" I suppose this was the book\npublished in 1648 with the title \"_Choice Psalmes_,\" &c.]\n\n\nCONTINUED PRESBYTERIAN ATTACKS ON MILTON: HIS ANTI-PRESBYTERIAN SONNET OF\nREPLY.\n\nAltogether it was beginning to be a more placid time with Milton. With\nhis book out, his wife restored to him, the Divorce argument dropped, and\nhis pupils to teach, he might look about him quietly on the state of\npublic affairs, and expect what should be the next call on him. There did\nnot seem to be any immediate call. In the month when his volume of Poems\nappeared Presbyterianism was at its fullest tide in Parliament; but in\nthe succeeding months, what with the increase of Recruiters in the\nCommons, what with the tramp of Independency in the field growing louder\nand nearer as the New Model ended its work, he could see the political\npower of the Presbyterians gradually waning, until, in April 1646, when\nCromwell reappeared in London, Anti-Toleration was abashed and the\nWestminster Assembly itself under control. The spectacle must have been\nquite to Milton's mind; but, as he had already expressed himself\nsufficiently on the main question between the Independents and the\nPresbyterians, and as nobody doubted on which side he was to be ranked,\nhe was disposed to take his ease on this subject too, and to leave the\nissue to the Parliament and the Army. He was too marked a man, however,\nto be quite let alone. The Presbyterian writers, true to their policy of\npublicly naming all prominent heretics and sectaries, and painting their\nopinions in the most glaring colours, with a view to disgust people with\nthe idea of a Toleration, could not part with Milton and his Divorce\nDoctrine. After he and his wife were in the Barbican house together, he\nwas still pursued by the hue and cry. Here are two specimens:--\n\n_Mr. Baillie on Milton._--\"Mr. Milton permits any man to put away his\nwife upon his mere pleasure without any fault, and without the cognisance\nof any judge,\" writes Baillie in the Table of Contents to the First Part\nof his _Dissuasive_, published in November 1645; and in the text of the\nwork (p. 116) the statement is amplified as follows:--\"Concerning\nDivorces, some of them [the Independents] go far beyond any of the\nBrownists; not to speak of Mr. Milton, who in a large treatise hath\npleaded for a full liberty for any man to put away his wife, whenever he\npleaseth, without any fault in her at all, but for any dislike or\ndyssympathy of humour. For I do not certainly know whether this man\nprofesseth Independency, albeit all the heretics here whereof ever I\nheard avow themselves Independents. Whatever therefore may be said of Mr.\nMilton, yet Mr. Gorting and his company were men of renown among the New\nEnglish Independents before Mistress Hutchinson's disgrace; and all of\nthem do maintain that it is lawful for every woman to desert her husband\nwhen he is not willing to follow her in her church-way.\" In other words,\nBaillie is not sure that it is fair to charge Milton's extreme opinion\nupon Independency as such, inasmuch as it may be the crotchet of a\nsolitary heretic; but he is inclined to think that Milton _is_ an\nIndependent, and he knows at least that Mr. Gorting and other\nIndependents have broached a milder form of the same heresy. In his Notes\n(pp. 144,145) he quotes sentences to the amount of a page from Milton's\n_Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce_ to prove that he does not\nmisrepresent him.--The \"Gorting\" here mentioned by Baillie is the \"Samuel\nGorton\" who had been such a sore trouble to the New Englanders, and even\nto Roger Williams at Providence, by his anarchical opinions and conduct\n(Vol. II. 601). He had returned or been ejected from America, and was\nmaking himself notorious in London. \"This I am assured of from various\nhands,\" wrote Edwards (_Gangr._ Part II. p. 144), \"that Gorton is here in\nLondon, and hath been for the space of some months; and I am told also\nthat he vents his opinions, and exercises in some of the meetings of the\nsectaries, as that he hath exercised lately at Lamb's Church, and is very\ngreat at one Sister Stagg's, exercising there too sometimes.\" This will\nexplain Baillie's allusion to Gorton in connexion with Milton's Divorce\nDoctrine. Strange that Gorton should be cited as holding a _milder_ form\nof the heresy than Milton's!\n\n_Mr. Edwards on Milton._--Of course, Milton got into the _Gangr\u00e6na._\nEverybody that deviated in anything, to the right or left, from the path\nof Presbyterian orthodoxy, got into that register of scandals; and we\nhave already availed ourselves of information incidentally supplied in\nthe Second and Third Parts of it as to the horror caused by Milton's\nDivorce Doctrine among the Presbyterians (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 189-192). We have\nstill to present, however, Edwards's direct notice of Milton in the First\nPart of his scandalous medley. It was published in January or February\n1645-6; so that, at the very time when Milton's volume of Poems was out,\nand he was writing his Sonnet to Lawes, he found himself pilloried again\nin the new book which all London was reading greedily. A leading portion\nof the book, as we know (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 143-5), consisted of a catalogue of\n176 \"Errors, Heresies, and Blasphemies\" that had been vented by divers\nSectaries and were then distracting and corrupting the soul of England.\nWell, the 154th Error, Heresy, and Blasphemy in this catalogue is this:--\n\"That 'tis lawful for a man to put away his wife upon indisposition,\nunfitness, or contrariety of mind, arising from a cause in nature\nunchangeable; and for disproportion and deadness of spirit, or something\ndistasteful and averse in the immutable bent of nature; and man, in\nregard of the freedom and eminency of his creation, is a law to himself\nin this matter, being head of the other sex, which was made for him;\nneither need he hear any judge therein above himself.\" To this summary by\nEdwards of Milton's Doctrine, partly in Milton's own words, the reference\nis appended in the margin: \"_Vide Milton's Doctrine of Divorce._\"\n(_Gangr\u00e6na_, Part I. p. 29.) And so for the moment Edwards dismisses\nMilton, very much as Baillie had done, to return to him again in the\nSecond and Third Parts of his _Gangr\u00e6na_, as Baillie was to do in the\nSecond Part of his _Dissuasive_.\n\nMilton was provoked. It was not in his nature to let any attack upon him,\nfrom whatever quarter, pass without notice; and attacks by persons of\nsuch popular celebrity as Baillie and Edwards could hardly be ignored.\nBut, as he had given up the public prosecution of the Divorce argument,\nhis punishment for Edwards and Baillie came in a different form from that\nwhich he had administered in the _Tetrachordon_ and _Colasterion_ to\nHerbert Palmer, Dr. Featley, Mr. Caryl, Mr. Prynne, and the anonymous\nattorney. It came in verse, thus--\n\n  \"ON THE FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE.\n\n  \"Because you have thrown off your Prelate lord,\n    And with stiff vows renounced his Liturgy,\n    To seize the widowed whore Plurality\n    From them whose sin ye envied, not abhorred,\n  Dare ye for this adjure the civil sword\n    To force our consciences that Christ set free,\n    And ride us with a Classic Hierarchy,\n    Taught ye by mere _A. S._ and _Rutherford?_\n  Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent\n    Would have been held in high esteem with Paul,\n    Must now be named and printed heretics\n  By _shallow Edwards_ and _Scotch What d'ye call._\n    But we do hope to find out all your tricks,\n    Your plots and packing, worse than those of Trent,\n      That so the Parliament\n  May, with their wholesome and preventive shears,\n  Clip your phylacteries, though baulk your ears,\n      And succour our just fears,\n  When they shall read this clearly in your charge--\n  New PRESBYTER is but old PRIEST writ large.\"\n\nMilton, we are to suppose, having already written two Divorce Sonnets,\ndid not care to write a third, but preferred to punish Edwards and\nBaillie in a general Anti-Presbyterian Sonnet. It turned out, however,\nnot a Sonnet proper, but a _Sonetto con coda_, as the Italians call\nit, or \"Sonnet with a tail\"--the Anti-Presbyterian rhythm prolonging\nitself beyond the fourteen lines that would have completed the normal\nSonnet, and demanding the scorpion addition of six lines more. Into this\npeculiar \"tailed Sonnet\" Milton condenses metrically all the rage against\nPresbytery, the Westminster Assembly, and the Anti-Tolerationists, which\nhad already broken forth at large in his later prose pamphlets. The piece\nis unusually full of historical allusions. It breathes throughout his\nacquired hatred of the Presbyterians for their opposition to Liberty of\nConscience, and their determination that the \"Classic Hierarchy,\" or\nsystem of Presbyterian _classes_ which they were establishing in\nEngland, should be as compulsory on all as the Prelacy they had thrown\noff; and there is a palpable side-hit at the recent acquisition by some\nof the leading Presbyterian Divines in the Assembly of University posts\nand the like in addition to their previous livings, notwithstanding their\noutcries against Pluralities in the time of Episcopacy. In this side-hit\nnot a few known Divines are slashed; and among them, I fear, Milton's old\ntutor Thomas Young, now Master of Jesus College, Cambridge, as well as\nVicar of Stowmarket. But the open personal references are four. The \"A.\nS.\" selected as one prominent expounder of Presbytery is the Scotchman,\nDr. Adam Steuart, who, under his initials \"A. S.,\" had been one of the\nfirst to rush into print in behalf of strict Presbytery and Anti-\nToleration against the _Apologetical Narrative_ of the Independents\nof the Assembly, and who had been replied to by John Good win, but had\nsince gone into Holland (_ant\u00e8_, p. 25). The \"Rutherford\" coupled\nwith him is the celebrated Scottish divine, and Commissioner to the\nAssembly, Samuel Rutherford, who had set forth several expositions of\nstrict Scottish Presbytery for the enlightenment of the English. \"Shallow\nEdwards\" is obvious enough: he is Mr. Edwards of the _Gangr\u00e6na_, once far\nfrom a nobody in London, but who will now, through Milton's mention of\nhim, be \"Shallow Edwards\" to the world's end. In Milton's draft of the\nSonnet he was \"hair-brained Edwards;\" but \"hair-brained\" was erased, and\n\"shallow\" substituted. The \"Scotch What d'ye call\" has cost the\ncommentators more trouble. Most of them have identified him with George\nGillespie, whom they also, though erroneously, suppose to be the \"Galasp\"\nof one of the Divorce Sonnets. There can be little doubt now, I think,\nthat I have detected the real \"What d'ye call\" in Gillespie's fellow-\nCommissioner from Scotland, our good friend Baillie, whose _Dissuasive_,\nwith its reference to Milton as one of the heretics of the time, had just\npreceded Edwards's _Gangr\u00e6na_. I am sorry for this, but it cannot be\nhelped. There was, I ought to add, in the original draft of the Sonnet, a\nfifth personal allusion, which Milton saw fit, on second thoughts, to\nomit. Line 17, which now stands \"_Clip your phylacteries, though baulk\nyour ears_\" (_i.e._\" though pass over your ears and leave them\nundipped\"), was originally \"_Crop ye as close as marginal P--'s ears_.\"\nAs Milton had already, in his _Colasterion_, said enough about Prynne and\nthe heavy margins of his many pamphlets, and as the circumstances in\nwhich Prynne had lost his ears made the subject hardly a proper one for a\npublic joke, it was but good taste in Milton to make the change.\n\nIt is from internal evidence that I assign this famous Anti-Presbyterian\noutburst of Milton to some early month of the year 1646. [Footnote: The\nlines were first published in the Second or 1673 Edition of Milton's\nPoems, and not there among the Sonnets, but as a piece apart, with the\ntitle, since always given to it, _On the New Forcers of Conscience\nunder the Long Parliament_. The draft of it among the Milton MSS. at\nCambridge has the simpler title _On the Forcers of Conscience_. This\ndraft, however, is not in Milton's own hand, but is a transcript by an\namanuensis. Hence we have not the means of determining the date so\nexactly as if Milton's own draft had been preserved. I am pretty\nconfident that the date cannot be later than 1646, and I fancy copies may\nhave been in private circulation in that year.] It fits in exactly with\nthe state of public affairs and of Milton himself at that time; all the\nmotives to it, public and private, were in existence by the March of that\nyear; and it is difficult to suppose that the composition was of much\nlater date. Or, if it was a little later, the lines fairly represent\nMilton's feeling at the time to which I assign them. In March, April, and\nMay, 1646, Milton was one of those Englishmen who had done for ever with\nPresbyterianism, who rejoiced over the curb imposed at length upon the\nWestminster Assembly by the Independents and Erastians of the Parliament,\nand who longed to see that conclave dismissed, and the Scots sent packing\nhome.\n\n\nSURRENDER OF OXFORD: CONDITION OF THE POWELL FAMILY.\n\nThat the Scots should be sent packing home, but that they should leave\nthe King behind them in English custody, was the result for which all the\nIndependents were anxious. Through May and June 1646, it was for Milton,\namong the rest, to watch the progress of the negotiations with the Scots\nat Newcastle round the person of the King, and at the same time to\nobserve the surrender of one after another of the few remaining Royalist\ngarrisons, including the great Royalist capital of Oxford. The siege of\nthis city by Fairfax, begun May 1, a week after the King had left it, and\ncontinued for seven or eight weeks with the help of Cromwell and Skippon,\nmust have been a matter of considerable personal interest to Milton, and\nof more interest to his wife. She was now in a state of health requiring\nas much freedom from anxiety as possible; but, while the siege was going\non, there was good reason for anxiety in the fact that her father and\nmother, with the rest of her family, or some of them, were in the\nbesieged city and undergoing its dangers. They had taken refuge there on\nthe approach of the Parliamentarian troops into Oxfordshire, leaving\ntheir house at Forest-hill to take its chance. What might that chance be,\nand what worse chances might come of the siege itself? It was a relief\nwhen the news came of the actual surrender of the city (June 24), on\nterms exceedingly liberal to the garrison, the citizens, and all the\nresident Royalists. The terms, indeed, were thought far too liberal by\nthe Presbyterians. \"The scurvy base propositions which Cromwell has given\nto the Malignants at Oxford has offended many,\" writes Baillie, June 26;\n[Footnote: Baillie, II. 376] the reason for the offence being that it was\nbut too clear that the Independents had been in haste to obtain Oxford on\nany terms whatever, in order that the army might be free to act, if\nnecessary, against the Scots in the north. Anyhow the surrender had taken\nplace. The Princes Rupert and Maurice had left the city with a retinue\nand promise of liberty to go abroad; the garrison, to the number of 7,000\nmen, had marched out honourably, with arms and baggage; security for the\nproperty of the citizens and the colleges had been guaranteed; and all\nthe miscellaneous crowd of Royalists of various ranks that had been\ncooped up so long in Oxford were at liberty to disperse themselves on\ncertain stipulated conditions. To one of the Articles of the Treaty of\nSurrender I must ask special attention, as it came to be of much domestic\nconsequence to Milton in future years:--\n\n\"XI. That all lords, gentlemen, clergymen, officers, soldiers, and all\nother persons in Oxford, or comprised in this capitulation, who have\nestates real or personal under or liable to sequestrations according to\nthe Ordinance of Parliament, and shall desire to compound for them\n(except persons by name excepted by Ordinance of Parliament from pardon),\nshall at any time within six months after the rendering of the garrison\nof Oxford be admitted to compound for their estates; which composition\nshall not exceed two years' revenue for estates of inheritance, and for\nestates for lives, years, and other real and personal estates, shall not\nexceed the proportion aforesaid for inheritances, according to the value\nof them: And that all persons aforesaid whose dwelling-houses are\nsequestered (except before-excepted) may after the rendering of the\ngarrison repair to them, and there abide, convenient time being allowed\nto such as are placed there under the sequestrations for their removal.\nAnd it is agreed that all the profits and revenues arising out of their\nestates after the day of entering their names as Compounders shall remain\nin the hands of the tenants or occupiers, to be answered to the\nCompounders when they have perfected their agreements for their\ncompositions; And that they shall have liberty, and the General's pass\nand protection, for their peaceable repair to and abode at their several\nhouses or friends, and to go to London to attend their compositions, or\nelsewhere upon their necessary occasions, with freedom of their persons\nfrom oaths, engagements, and molestations during the space of six months,\nand after so long as they prosecute their compositions without wilful\ndefault or neglect on their part, except an engagement by promise not to\nbear arms against the Parliament, nor wilfully to do any act prejudicial\nto their [Parliament's] affairs so long as they remain in their quarters.\nAnd it is further agreed that, from and after their compositions made,\nthey shall be forthwith restored to and enjoy their estates, and all\nother immunities, as other subjects, together with the rents and profits,\nfrom the time of entering their names, discharged from sequestrations,\nand from fifths and twentieth parts, and other payments and impositions,\nexcept such as shall be general and common to them with others.\"\n[Footnote: Whitlocke (ed. 1853), II. 38; also in Rushworth, VI. 282,\n283.]\n\nSome hundreds of persons in Oxford at the time of its surrender must have\nhad their movements for the next few months determined by this article.\nAmong these was Milton's father-in-law, Mr. Richard Powell.\n\nThe view we arrived at as to the condition of the Powell family before\nthe Civil War was (Vol. II. p. 499) that they were then \"an Oxfordshire\nfamily of good standing, keeping up appearances with the neighbour-\ngentry, and probably more than solvent if all their property had been put\nagainst their debts, but still rather deeply in debt, and their property\nheavily mortgaged.\" During the war, we have now to record, on the faith\nof a statement afterwards made by Mr. Powell himself, the losses of the\nfamily in one way or another had amounted to at least 3,000_l_.\nRemembering this heavy item, I will try to present in figures the state\nof Mr. Powell's affairs while he was shut up in Oxford:--\n\nI. PROPERTY.\n\n1. Lease, till 1672, of the Forest-hill mansion and      \u00a3\n       estate, worth about   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     270 a year.\n2. Furniture, household-stuff, and corn in the Forest-\n       hill mansion and appurtenances, valued at  .     500\n3. Wood and timber stacked about the Forest-hill\n       premises, worth    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     400\n4. Property in land and cottages at Wheatley,\n       valued at    .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .      40 a year.\n5. Debts owing to Mr. Powell .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     100\n\nII. DEBTS AND OBLIGATIONS.\n\n1. Due to Mr. John Milton, by recognisance since\n       1627, as unpaid part of an original debt of\n       \u00a3500   .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .     300\n2. Promised to the said Mr. Milton, when he married\n       Mr. Powell's eldest daughter, a\n       marriage portion of.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   1,000\n3. Due to Mr. Edward Ashworth, or his representatives,\n       in redemption of a mortgage on the\n       Wheatley property since 1631, a capital sum\n       (besides arrears of interest) of  .  .  .  .     400\n4. Due to Sir Robert Pye, in redemption of a mortgage\n       on the Forest-hill mansion and property\n       since 1640, a capital sum (besides arrears of\n       interest) of .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .   1,400\n5. Other debts, as estimated by Mr. Powell  .  .  .   1,200\n\nIt is difficult to square this ragged account (which, however, is the\nbest one can produce); [Footnote: My authorities for it are--(1) My own\nprevious accounts of the state of Mr. Powell's affairs before the ware,\nVol. II. pp. 492-9, based on authorities there cited. (2) \"A Particular\nof the Real and Personal Estate of Richard Powell of Forest-hill,\" after\nthe surrender of Oxford, attested by himself Nov. 21, 1646, and given in\nthe Appendix to Hamilton's _Milton's Papers_. (3) Other papers in the\nsame Appendix, especially an attestation of Milton himself at p. 95. (4)\nThe documents relative to Milton's Nuncupative Will printed by Todd and\nothers.] but the general effect is that Mr. Powell's affairs were in a\nwoful condition. It was almost mockery now to style him Mr. Powell of\nForest-hill and Wheatley; for, before he could call these Oxfordshire\nproperties his own, with their joint revenue of 310_l._ a year, he had to\nclear off a debt of 1,400_l._ to Sir Robert Pye, and another of 400_l._\nto one Ashworth, each with heavy arrears of interest. Actually, in\nfurniture, goods, corn, and timber in the house at Forest-hill and its\npremises, and in debts owing to him, he fancied himself worth 1,000_l._;\nbut his debts, apart from those to Pye and Ashworth, and apart also from\nthe 300_l_. legally owing to his son-in-law Milton (which, with the\npromised marriage-portion of 1,000_l._, might stand over to a convenient\ntime), amounted to 1,200_l._ Nay, this is too favourable a view; for,\nwhile the siege of Oxford had been going on, incidents had happened which\nmuch increased Mr. Powell's difficulties:--(l) The terms of the mortgage\nof the Forest-hill mansion and estate to Sir Robert Pye had been that\nthe mortgage was to be void if Mr. Powell should pay Sir Robert a sum of\n1,510_l._ by the 1st of July, 1641. This not having been done, Sir Robert\nhad had, ever since that date, a legal right to eject Mr. Powell from the\nmansion and lands and take possession of them for his debt. A friendly\ncompromise appears to have been arranged on the subject in May, 1642, by\nthe payment to Sir Robert of l10_l._, being the difference between the\noriginal debt and the higher sum which was to void the mortgage.\nNevertheless the right to take possession remained with Sir Robert; and\nthat he had not exercised it may have been as much owing to the fact that\nOxford was difficult of access to a Parliamentarian creditor during the\nwar as to neighbourly forbearance. But, now that Parliament was at the\ngates of Oxford, and its troops quartered in and about Forest-hill, it\nwas but common prudence in Sir Robert to use the only method left of\nsaving himself from the loss of his 1,400_l._ with the unpaid interest.\nSome time in May, accordingly, or early in June, while the siege of\nOxford was in progress, he caused his servant, or agent, Laurence Farre,\nto take formal possession of the Forest-hill premises. At the date of the\nsurrender of Oxford, therefore, Mr. Powell was no longer owner of the\nForest-hill manor and mansion; they belonged to his neighbour, Sir Robert\nPye. There was, perhaps, a temporary convenience in this for Mr. Powell.\nIf he had lost the property, his debt to Sir Robert was cancelled by the\nloss in the meantime; and, if at any future time he or his heirs should\nbe in a position to re-acknowledge the debt with arrears, arrangements\nfor the redemption of the property would be easier with the Pye family\nthan with strangers. Besides, Sir Robert had taken possession of the\nproperty just in time to anticipate its sequestration by Parliament as\npart of the estate of a Delinquent; and in this too there may have been\nsome intention of neighbourly service, or saving of future trouble, to\nMr. Powell. Still it was a hard thing for the Powells to know that their\nlease of their family residence and estate was gone, and they were no\nlonger the Powells of Forest-hill. [Footnote: The vouchers for the\nstatements in the text about the transfer of Forest-hill to Sir Robert\nPye in May or June, 1646, are in various documents printed in Mr.\nHamilton's _Milton Papers_. See especially p. 56 and Documents xxii.,\nxli., xlii., and xlv. in the Appendix. The Forest-hill property, we shall\nfind, did eventually come back to the Powell family; but it is worthy of\nremark that in Mr. Powell's own \"Particular\" of the state of his property\nin 1646 the Forest-hill lease is not mentioned, but only the goods and\nhousehold stuff on the premises. On the other hand, of course, the\n1,400_l_. and arrears of interest due to Sir Robert Pye are omitted from\nthe list of debts, as cancelled by the loss of the property.] (2). But\nnot only was the lease of the family house and lands gone. There had come\na sequestration, and worse than a sequestration, upon the goods,\nhousehold stuff, and timber on the Forest-hill premises, which formed now\nthe best part of Mr. Powell's worldly all. The order for the\nsequestration was issued by the Committee of Parliamentary Sequestrations\nfor the County of Oxford just after Sir Robert Pye had possessed himself\nof the premises; and, on the 16th of June, while Mr. Powell and his\nfamily were in Oxford with the rest of the besieged, three of the\nsequestrators, John Webb, Richard Vivers, and John King, with assistants\nand spectators, were rummaging the rooms and offices at Forest-hill, and\ntaking an inventory and valuation of all the furniture, goods, and stock\nof every kind contained in them. The inventory still exists, and has been\nused in our description of the house when Milton went to fetch his bride\nfrom it (Vol. II. pp. 500, 501). Now, however, it comes in more sadly. _A\ncopy of the Inventory, with the prices of the goods as they were\nappraysed the 16th of June 1646_, is the title of the document; and, as\nwe read it, we see the sequestrators, with their pens behind their ears,\ngoing round the house, and through the house, and in among the wood-\nyards, attended by gaping country-people, and jotting down particulars. A\ntrunk of linen first attracts them, and they set down its contents,\nincluding \"1 pair of sheets, 3 napkins, 6 yards of broad tiffany,\" at\n16_s._ Next is a heavier entry--to wit, \"240 pieces of tymber, 200 loades\nof firewood, 4 carts, 1 wain, 2 old coaches, 1 mare colt, 3 sows, 1 boar,\n2 ewes, 3 parcels of boards,\" valued in the aggregate at 156_l_. l2_s_.\nAnd so on they go, pell-mell, putting down \"hops in the wool-house\" at\n2_l_., \"a bull\" at 1_l._ 10_s._, \"14 quarters of mastline\" at l4_l._, \"5\nquarters of malt\" at 5_l._, \"6 bushels of wheat\" at 1_l._ 2_s._, two more\nparcels of wood at 100_l._ and 60_l._ respectively, a piece of growing\ncorn at 42_l._, a piece of growing wheat at 6_l._ l3_s._ 4_d._, and even\ntwo fields of meadow, which they leave unappraised for the good reason\nthat they had been \"eaten up by the souldiers.\" At this point also are\nmentioned, as also unappraised, some bit of land at Forest-hill,\napparently not included in the lease that had gone to Sir Robert Pye, and\nalso Mr. Powell's property at Wheatley. Then, having concluded the outer\nsurvey, and brought the total, so far as appraised, up to 400_l._ or a\nlittle more, the sequestrators proceed to a separate and special\ninventory of the household goods. \"In the hall\" they find furniture which\nthey value at 1_l._ 4_s._; \"in the great parlour\" 7_l._; \"in the little\nparlour\" 3_l._; \"in the study or boys' chamber\" 2_l._ l3_s._; and so on\nthrough the other rooms--\"Mrs. Powell's chamber,\" as the best furnished\nof all, counting for 8_l._ 4_s._, while \"Mr. Powell's study\" goes for\nonly 1_l._ l4_s._ Altogether the household stuff amounts in their\nestimate to a little over 70_l._ It was a monstrously good bargain to any\none who would give that sum for it. Nor, in fact, had the sequestrators\nbeen taking all the trouble of the inventory without inducement. Going\nabout with them all the while, and possibly haggling with them over the\nvalues, was an intending purchaser in the person of a certain Matthew\nAppletree from London--one of those dealers who followed in the wake of\nthe Parliamentary forces as they advanced into Royalist districts, with a\nview to pick up good bargains for ready money in the confiscated property\nof Delinquents. To this Appletree the aforesaid sequestrators, Webb,\nVivers, and King, did sell all the household stuff they had inventoried,\ntogether with the best part of the out-of-door-stock, including the\ncarts, wain, and old coaches, the mare, the bull, and other animals, and\nall of the timber except 100%, worth in keeping of a Mr. Eldridge. The\nsum which Appletree was to give for the whole was 335_l._, whereas the\nreal value may have been about 800_l._ or 900_l._; and no sooner had he\nconcluded his bargain than he began to cart some of the lighter things\naway. We can tell what went off in the first cart. They were: \"1 arras\nwork chayre, 6 thrum chayres, 6 wrought stooles, 2 old greene carpetts, 1\ntapestry carpett, 1 wrought carpett, 1 carpett greene with fringe, 3\nwindow curtaines.\" [Footnote: Document xxvi. in Appendix to Hamilton's\n_Milton Papers_, with references to other Documents in same Appendix.]\nAll this took place on the 16th of June, 1646, eight days before the\nsurrender of Oxford. On the preceding day, June 15, Cromwell had been at\nHalton, close to Forest-hill, seeing his daughter Bridget married to\nIreton.\n\nThe reader now understands the state of Mr. Powell's affairs, when he was\nreleased from Oxford, as well as he did himself, if not better. It was\nall very well that the Articles of Capitulation had provided for the\nliberty of all persons among the besieged to return to their several\nplaces of abode and resume their estates and callings, subject only to\ncomposition with Parliament within six months according to the fixed\nrates of fine for Delinquency. This may have been a privilege for many;\nbut it was poor comfort for the Powells. In the first place, they had now\nno home of their own to go to. Forest-hill was in possession of their old\nfriend, Sir Robert Pye, who was preparing to fit up the mansion afresh\nfor himself or some of his family, its redemption by Mr. Powell being now\nout of the question. But what remained was worse. Though the house and\nmanor of Forest-hill were gone, Mr. Powell, by the terms of the Treaty,\nmight still hope to compound for the wreck of his other property which\nlay under sequestration--viz. the small Wheatley estate; the goods,\nfurniture, timber, &c., which he had left on the Forest-hill premises;\nand also, it appears, some odd bits of land about Forest-hill not\nincluded in the mortgage to Sir Robert Pye. With what grief and anger,\nthen, must the family, on the surrender of Oxford, have learnt that even\nthis poor remainder of their property was for the most part\nirrecoverable--that not only had it been sequestrated by the County\nCommissioners, but most of it sold and some actually dispersed. There\nappears, indeed, to have been some very harsh, if not unfair and\nunderhand, dealing on the part of the sequestrating Commissioners in this\nmatter of the hurried sale of Mr. Powell's goods to Matthew Appletree. It\nbecame afterwards, as we shall find, the subject of legal complaint by\nthe Powells, and of a long and tedious litigation on their behalf. Only\ntwo facts need at present be noted. One is the significant fact that\namong the members of the County Committee who issued the order for the\nsequestration was a \"Thomas Appletree,\" clearly a relative of the\n\"Matthew Appletree\" who purchased the goods, while a third Appletree,\nnamed Richard, was also concerned somehow in the transaction. [Footnote:\nHamilton's _Milton Papers_: Appendix, Documents xlv. and xlvii.] One\nsuspects some collusion between the public sequestrators and the private\npurchaser. Then again, when the transaction came to be litigated, one\nobserves a discrepancy between the two parties as to its alleged date.\nThe preserved copy of the inventory and valuation, signed by the\nsequestrators, Webb, Vivers, and King, is distinctly dated \"the 16 of\nJune 1646,\" and as distinctly declares that day to have been the date of\nthe sale to Appletree. [Footnote: _Ibid._ Document xxvi.] If this is\ncorrect, the sale had occurred while the Treaty for the surrender of\nOxford was in progress, but exactly four days before it was completed and\nthe Articles of Surrender signed (June 20). On the other hand, the\nPowells afterwards invariably represented the sale as a violation of the\nArticles; they quoted June 17, and not June 16, as the date of the order\nfor sequestration issued by \"the Committee for the County of Oxford\nsitting at Woodstock;\" and they laid stress on the fact that the\nsequestrators Webb, Vivers, and King had sold the goods to Appletree\n\"within few days after the granting of the said Articles.\" [Footnote:\nHamilton's Milton Papers: Appendix, Documents xxviii. and xiv.] How the\ndiscrepancy is to be accounted for one does not very well see; but one\nagain suspects over-eagerness to injure Powell by obliging Appletree. Can\nthe sequestrators possibly have inventoried and sold the goods, as they\nthemselves declared, on the 16th, though the sequestrating Order was not\nformally issued till the 17th? If so, they were evidently in a hurry to\npush through the business before the Treaty for the Surrender of Oxford\nwas signed, so as to deprive Mr. Powell, if possible, of any advantage\nfrom it. Or, after all, can there have been any contrivance of ante-\ndating, to disguise the fact that the sale, though intended on the 16th,\nwas really pushed through between Saturday the 20th of June, when the\nArticles were signed, and Wednesday the 24th, when the surrender took\nplace? In either case it must have been a sore sight to Mr. Powell, when,\non this latter day, or the day after, he was free to walk over to Forest-\nhill, to find some of his goods already gone and Mr. Matthew Appletree\nsuperintending the carting away of the rest-all except the timber, which\nremained upon the premises till its removal should be convenient.\n[Footnote: This appears from an extract from \"the Certificate of the\nSolicitor for Sequestration in the County of Oxford,\" not given in Mr.\nHamilton's Milton Papers, but in Hunter's Milton Gleanings, pp. 31, 32.]\n\n\nTHE POWELLS IN LONDON: MORE FAMILY PERPLEXITIES: BIRTH OF MILTON'S FIRST\nCHILD.\n\nWhat was to be done? Only one thing was possible. Mr. Powell must go to\nLondon to compound for what shreds of his sequestrated property survived\nthe sale to Appletree, and at the same time to see whether he could have\nany redress at head-quarters against the Oxfordshire Committee of\nSequestrations. On other grounds, too, a removal to London was advisable\nor necessary. There, in Mr. Milton's house, the family would have a roof\nover their heads until some new arrangement could be made and while Mr.\nPowell prosecuted the composition business. Accordingly, on the 27th of\nJune, or three days after the surrender of Oxford, Mr. Powell obtained\nFairfax's pass, as follows:-\"Suffer the bearer hereof, Mr. Richard\nPowell, of Forest-hill in the county Oxon., who was in the city and\ngarrison of Oxford at the surrender thereof, and is to have the full\nbenefit of the Articles agreed unto upon the surrender, quietly and\nwithout let or interruption to pass your guards, with his servants,\nhorses, arms, goods, and all other necessaries, and to repair unto London\nor elsewhere upon his necessary occasions: And in all places where he\nshall reside, or whereto he shall remove, to be protected from any\nviolence to his person, goods, or estate, according to the said Articles,\nand to have full liberty, at any time within six months, to go to any\nconvenient port and to transport himself, with his servants, goods, and\nnecessaries, beyond the seas: And in all other things to enjoy the\nbenefit of the said Articles. Hereunto due obedience is to be given by\nall persons whom it may concern, as they will answer the contrary. Given\nunder my hand and seal the 27th day of June, 1646. (Signed) T. FAIRFAX.\"\n[Footnote: From the Composition Papers: Document i. in Hamilton's\nAppendix VOL. III.] Provided with this pass, Mr. Powell and Mrs. Powell,\nwith some of their sons and daughters, arrived in London some time early\nin July, and took up their abode for the while at their son-in-law\nMilton's in the Barbican. That they were there, and a pretty large party\nof them too, we learn from Phillips. \"In no very long time after her [the\nwife's] coming [back to Milton] she had a great resort of her kindred\nwith her in the house: viz. her father and mother and several of her\nbrothers and sisters, which were in all pretty numerous.\" The surrender\nof Oxford and the loss of Forest-hill were the immediate causes of this\ncrowding of the Barbican house with the Powell kindred, unless we are to\nsuppose that some of them had preceded Mr. Powell thither.\n\nPoor Mr. Powell's perplexities were never to have an end. He cannot have\nbeen more than a fortnight in London when he became aware not only that\nhe had small chance of redress at head-quarters against the injury\nalready done him by the Oxfordshire sequestrators, but that\nParliamentarian public opinion in Oxfordshire was pursuing him to London\nwith fell intent of farther damage. July 15, 1646, we read in the\n_Lords Journals_, \"A Petition of the inhabitants of Banbury was\nread, complaining that the one half of the town is burnt down, and part\nof the church and steeple pulled down; and, there being some timber and\nboards at one Mr. Powell's house, a Malignant, near Oxford, they desire\nthey may have these materials assigned them for the repair of their\nchurch and town. It is Ordered, that this House thinks fit to grant this\nPetition, and to desire the concurrence of the House of Commons therein,\nand that an Ordinance may be drawn up to that purpose.\" The Commons\nconcurred readily; for, in the _Commons Journals_ of the very next\nday, July 16, we read, \"The humble Petition of the inhabitants of Banbury\nwas read; and it is thereupon Ordered: That the Timber and Boards cut\ndown by one Mr. Powell, a Malignant, out of Forest Wood near Oxford, and\nsequestered, being not above the value of 300%., be bestowed upon the\ninhabitants of the town of Banbury, to be employed for the repair of the\nChurch and Steeple, and rebuilding of the Vicarage House and Common Gaol\nthere; and that such of the said Timber and Boards as shall remain of the\nuses aforesaid shall be disposed, by the members of both Houses which are\nof the Committee for Oxfordshire, to such of the well-affected persons of\nthe said town, for the rebuilding of their houses, as to the said\nmembers, or major part of them, shall seem meet.\" Here was a confiscation\nby Parliament itself of every moveable thing belonging to Mr. Powell that\nhad been left at Forest-hill after the sale to Appletree. All the\nprecious timber, including that bought by the harpy Appletree, but not\nyet removed by him, was voted to these cormorants of the town of Banbury:\nMr. Powell's condition was to be that of Job at his worst. He had come to\nLondon to plead the benefit of the Articles of Surrender; and behold,\nenemies in Oxfordshire and Parliament in London had conspired to strip\nhim totally bare!\n\nOne sees the poor gentleman in his son-in-law's house utterly broken down\nwith the accumulation of his misfortunes, hanging his head in a corner of\nthe room where they all met, letting his wife and daughters come round\nhim and talk to him, but refusing to be comforted. What mattered it to\nhim to be told of better times that might be coming, or even of the new\nlittle creature of his own blood that was then daily expected into the\nworld? To Mrs. Powell, however, this expected event was of more\nconsequence. She was a person of some temper and spirit; and, even in her\ntroubles, there was some spur upon her in her present motherly duty. And\nso, when, on the 29th of July, 1646, being Wednesday, and the day of the\nmonthly Fast, Milton's first-born child saw the light, at about half-past\nsix in the morning, and was reported to be a daughter, what could they do\nbut agree to name the little thing ANNE in honour of her grandmother?\n[Footnote: Pedigree of the Milton Family by Sir Charles Young, Garter\nKing at Arms, prefixed to Pickering's edition of Milton's Works, 1851.\nBut the original authority was an inscription in Milton's own hand on a\nblank leaf of his wife's Bible:--\"Anne, my daughter, was born July the\n29th, the day of the monthly Fast, between six and seven, or about half\nan hour after six in the morning, 1646.\" This, with subsequent entries on\nthe same leaf, was copied by Birch, Jan. 6, 1749-50, when the Bible was\nshown him by Mrs. Foster, granddaughter to Milton (daughter to his\nyoungest daughter Deborah), then keeping a chandler's shop in Cock Lane,\nnear Shoreditch Church. It was the Bible in which Milton had written the\ndates of his children's births. It was, however, his wife's book: \"I am\nthe book of Mary Milton\" was written on it in her hand.--The fact that\nthe 29th of July, 1846, on which Milton's first child was born, was\nWednesday and a day of public Fast, is verified by a reference to the\n_Commons Journals_. The Commons had but a brief sitting that day\nafter hearing Fast-day sermons by Mr. Caryl and Mr. Whittaker; and their\nchief business was to pass thanks to these two preachers for the same.]\nIt was the name also of Milton's sister, once Mrs. Phillips, now Mrs.\nAgar; but there is little doubt that this can have been thought of only\nincidentally, and that the real compliment was to Mrs. Powell. The babe\nwas, of course, shown to Mr. Powell in his sadness, and also to its other\ngrandfather, then in the house, who could be cheerier over it, as having\nless reason for melancholy. \"A brave girl,\" is Phillips's description of\nthe new-born infant; \"though, whether by ill constitution, or want of\ncare, she grew up more and more decrepit.\" The poor girl, in fact, turned\nout a kind of cripple. This, however, was not foreseen, and for the\npresent there was nothing but the misfortunes of the Powells to mar the\njoy in the Barbican household over the appearance of this little pledge\nof the reconciliation of Milton and his wife about a year before.\n\nAfter the little girl was born, they did rouse Mr. Powell to take the\nnecessary steps for the recovery of what could be recovered of his\nproperty, if that should prove to be anything whatsoever. The first of\nthese steps consisted in appearing personally, or by petition, before a\ncertain Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall, in Foster-lane, Cheapside, to whom\nhad been entrusted by Parliament the whole business of arranging the\ncompositions with Delinquents whose estates had been sequestrated. To\nthis Committee, which must have had a very busy time of it at the end of\nthe war, when would-be compounders were flocking in from north, south,\nand west, Mr. Powell, among others, addressed his petition on the 6th of\nAugust, 1646, in these terms: \"To the Honourable the Committee sitting at\nGoldsmiths' Hall for Compositions, the humble Petition of Richard Powell,\nof Forest-hill, in the County of Oxon., Esq., sheweth--That your\nPetitioner's estate for the most part lying in the King's quarters, he\ndid adhere to his Majesty's party against the forces raised by Parliament\nin this unnatural war; for which his Delinquency his estate lieth under\nsequestration. He is comprised within those Articles at the surrender of\nOxford; and humbly prays to be admitted to his composition according to\nthe said Articles. And he shall pray, &c.--RICHARD POWELL.\" [Footnote:\nHamilton's Milton Papers Appendix, Document ii.] This was all he could do\nin the meantime. As soon as the Committee should have leisure to attend\nto his case, he could take the other necessary steps. Among these would\nbe the preparation of the most perfect schedule of his estate, real and\npersonal, which he could draw up, the verification of every item of the\nsame, and (which would be the most difficult part of the business) his\nargument with the Committee that, by the Articles of Oxford, he ought to\nbe reinstated both in the goods and furniture which had been sold, at an\nunder value, by the Oxford sequestrators to Appletree, and in the\n300_l._, worth of his timber which had been hastily bestowed by\nParliament on the people of Banbury. To these matters it would be time\nenough to attend when the Committee at Goldsmiths' Hall had returned\ntheir answer to his Petition. Not till then either need he go through the\nformality of subscribing the Covenant in the presence of a parish-\nminister or other authorized person. That was, indeed, an indispensable\nformality for any Delinquent who would sue out his composition, or\notherwise signify his submission to Parliament. But it was a formality\nwhich a Delinquent in Mr. Powell's circumstances would willingly put off\nto the last moment.\n\nMilton's father-in-law was not the only one of his relatives who were\nengaged about this time in the disagreeable business of compounding for\ntheir Delinquency. His younger brother, Christopher Milton, was in the\nsame predicament. Our last glimpse of this gentleman was after the\nsurrender of Reading to the Parliamentarian Army under Essex, in April\n1643. He was then, we found (Vol. II. pp. 488-490), a householder in\nReading, and decidedly a Royalist; and, after the siege, when his father\ncame from Reading to London, to reside with his Parliamentarian brother,\nhe himself remained at Reading, a Royalist still. In the interim he had\neven been rather active as a Royalist, having been \"a Commissioner for\nthe King, under the great seal of Oxford, for sequestering the\nParliament's friends of three Counties.\" Latterly, in some such capacity,\nhe had gone to Exeter; and he had been residing in that city, if not in\n1644, when Queen Henrietta Maria was there, at least some time before its\nsiege by the New Model Army. On the surrender of Exeter (April 10, 1646),\non Articles similar to those afterwards given to Oxford, he had come to\nLondon on very much the same errand as that on which Mr. Powell came\nthree months later. More forward in one respect than Mr. Powell, he had\nat once begun his submission to Parliament by taking the Covenant. He did\nso before William Barton, minister of John Zachary, in Alders-gate Ward,\non the 20th of April, or almost immediately on his arrival in London.\nThat preliminary over, he had been residing, most probably, in the house\nof his mother-in-law. Widow Webber, in St. Clement's Churchyard, Strand,\nwhere Milton had boarded his wife while the house in Barbican was getting\nready. Not till August 7, the day after Mr. Powell had sent in his\nPetition for compounding to the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee, did\nChristopher Milton send in _his_ petition to the same body. Then,\nstill styling himself \"Christopher Milton, of Reading, in the county of\nBerks, Esq., a Councillor at Law,\" he acknowledged his Delinquency in\nhaving served as a Commissioner of Sequestrations for the King, but\nprayed that he might have the benefit of the Exeter Articles of\nSurrender, so as to be allowed to compound for his little property now\nsequestered in turn. \"I am seized in fee, to me and to my heirs,\" he said\nin his accompanying statement, \"in possession of and in a certain\nmessuage or tenement situate, standing, and being within St. Martin's\nparish, Ludgate, called the sign of the Cross Keys, and was of the yearly\nvalue, before these troubles, 40_l._ Personal estate I have none but\nwhat hath been seized and taken from me and converted to the use of the\nState. This is a true particular of all my estate, real and personal, for\nwhich I only desire to compound to free it out of sequestration, and do\nsubmit unto and undertake to satisfy and pay such fine as by this\nCommittee for Compositions with Delinquents shall be imposed and set to\npay for the same in order to the freedom and discharge of my person and\nestate.\" Two years' value of an estate was about the ordinary fine for\nDelinquency; but different grades of Delinquency were recognised, and the\nfines for very pronounced Delinquency were heavier. [Footnote:\nParticulars about Christopher Milton and his Delinquency are from\nHamilton's _Milton Papers_, pp. 62-64, and from Documents lxii. and\nlxiii. in Appendix.]\n\nWe have arrived, biographically as well as historically, at August 1646.\nIn this month, while Mr. Powell and Christopher Milton had begun\nseverally to sue out their compositions for Delinquency, it is on a\nrather crowded domestic tableau round Milton in Barbican that the curtain\ndrops. On one side of him was his own old father, on the other was his\nfather-in-law; the mother-in-law, Mrs. Powell, was there, with her\nmarried daughter Mrs. Milton, and the little baby Anne; how many of Mrs.\nMilton's brothers and sisters were in the group can hardly be guessed;\nthe two boys Phillips, and one knows not how many other pupils, fill up\nthe interstices between the larger people in front; and one sees\nChristopher Milton, his wife Thomasine, their children, and perhaps the\nWidow Webber, as visitors in the background. Of the whole company, I\nshould say, the mother-in law, Mrs. Powell, was, for the time being, and\nwhether to Milton's private satisfaction or not, the chief in command.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV.\n\nAUGUST 1646--JANUARY 1648-9.\n\n_HISTORY_:--THE LAST TWO YEARS AND A HALF OF THE REIGN OF CHARLES I.:--\n\nI. HIS CONTINUED CAPTIVITY WITH THE SCOTS AT NEWCASTLE, AND FAILURE OF\nHIS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE PRESBYTERIANS;\n\nII. HIS CAPTIVITY AT HOLMBY HOUSE, AND THE QUARREL BETWEEN THE ENGLISH\nPARLIAMENT AND THE ENGLISH ARMY;\n\nIII. HIS CAPTIVITY WITH THE ENGLISH ARMY, AND THEIR PROPOSALS TO HIM;\n\nIV. HIS CAPTIVITY IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT, AND THE SECOND CIVIL WAR;\n\nV. HIS TRIAL AND DOOM.\n\n_BIOGRAPHY_:-MILTON IN BARBICAN AND IN HIGH HOLBORN.--PRIVATE AND\nPUBLIC ANXIETIES: ODE TO ROUS, TWO MORE SONNETS, AND TRANSLATION OF NINE\nPSALMS: OTHER WORKS IN PROGRESS: LETTERS TO AND FROM CARLO DATI.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nCHARLES IN HIS CAPTIVITY.\n\n\nCharles himself becomes now the central object. For now, one may say, he\nwas left to think and act wholly for himself, and to work out by his own\ncogitations and conduct the rest of the long problem between him and his\nsubjects. From this point, therefore, one follows him with a more\nsympathetic interest than can be accorded to any part of his previous\ncareer. When his captivity began (which may be said to have been when the\nScots withdrew with him to Newcastle, May 1646) he was forty-five years\nand six months old. His hair was slightly grizzled; but otherwise he was\nin the perfect strength and health of a man of spare and middle-sized\nframe, whose habits had been always careful and temperate.\n\nHenrietta-Maria was nine years younger than her husband. For two years\nthey had not seen each other, her co-operation during that time having\nbeen given from her residence at or near Paris. There her effort had been\nto induce the French Queen Regent and Cardinal Mazarin to interfere\nactively for Charles, with or without the help of the Pope; and, when she\nhad not succeeded in that, she had contented herself with sending to\nCharles from time to time her criticisms of his procedure and her notions\nof the kind of arrangement he ought to try to make with his subjects in\nthe last extremity. The influence she had acquired over him was so great\nthat these missives were perfectly efficient substitutes for her black\neyes and French-English tongue when she had been with him. Unfortunately,\nhowever, the co-agency with his absent Queen to which he thus felt\nhimself obliged, and to which indeed he had solemnly pledged himself, had\nbecome the more perplexing because, in the particular of greatest\npractical moment to both, he and she tended different ways. Of the two\nmain concessions involved in any possible treaty with the Parliament,\nthat of the abandonment of Episcopacy and that of the surrender of the\nMilitia, Charles was most tenaciously predetermined against the first. It\nwas a matter of conscience with him. Next to the death of Strafford, the\nthing in his past life which caused him the most continued private\nremorse was his assent, in Feb. 1641-2, to the Bill excluding Bishops\nfrom Parliament: whatever happened, he would sin no more in that\ndirection. He would consent to any restriction of his kingly power in the\nMilitia and other matters, rather than do more in repudiation of\nEpiscopacy. Nay, he had reasoned himself into a belief that the course\nthus most to his conscience would be also the most expedient. Buoying\nhimself up with a hope that, though Parliament demanded both concessions,\nthey might let him off with one, he was of opinion that kingly power in\nthe Militia and other matters might be more easily fetched back by a\nretained Episcopacy than a lost Episcopacy could be restored by any\nremnant of his power in the Militia. With Queen Henrietta-Maria the\nreasoning was different. To her, a Roman Catholic, back now among her co-\nreligionists, what were all the disputes of British Episcopalians,\nPresbyterians, and Independents, but battles of kites and crows? If her\nhusband's kind of Protestant Church could have been retained, that of\ncourse would have been well; but, as things were, she had no patience\nwith those scruples of conscience for which he would sacrifice the most\nsubstantial interests of himself and his family. His main object ought to\nbe to retain as much of real kingly power as possible, to be enjoyed by\nhimself and her, and transmitted to their descendants; and might not this\nbe attained by a frank concession to the English of the Presbyterian\nsettlement, only with a personal dispensation to the King if he desired\nit very much, a reservation of liberty for the Roman Catholics of Ireland\nand England, and, of course, a toleration for the Queen herself in her\nprivate Roman Catholic worship?\n\nActually, with all the King's firmness within himself on the Episcopacy\nquestion, the Queen's influence had so far prevailed as to bring him into\na position where her views rather than his had chances in their favour.\nThat he was now a captive at all, that he was still in Great Britain to\nmaintain passively the struggle in which he had failed actively, was very\nmuch the Queen's doing. Again and again since the blow of Naseby, or at\nleast since Montrose's ruin at Philiphaugh, it had been in the King's\nmind to abandon the struggle for the time, and withdraw to Holland,\nDenmark, or some other part of the Continent. That he had not, while the\nsea was open to him, adopted this course, was owing in part to his own\nirresolution, but very considerably to his dread of the Queen's\ndispleasure. She did not want him to be on the Continent with her, a\ndependent on her relatives of the French Court or on the Dutch\nStadtholder; she wanted him to remain in Britain and struggle on,\nsomehow, anyhow. Nay, she had devised a particular way for him, and\nalmost compelled him to it. A flight to the Scots and a pact with them on\nthe basis of some acceptance of their Presbyterianism even for England:\nthis was the course which she had urged on him ever since his defeat by\nParliament had become certain; this was the course she had arranged for\nhim by causing the French Court to send over Montreuil to negotiate for\nhis reception among the Scots; and, though things had not turned out\nquite as she expected, and the Scots had shown no disposition to save\nCharles from the tremendous Nineteen Propositions of the English\nParliament, still she did not regret that the course had been taken. It\nwas for the King now to extricate himself from the Nineteen Propositions\nby his utmost ingenuity, and she did not doubt that this would be most\neasily done by adhering to the Scots, humouring them in all those parts\nof the Propositions that related to Presbytery, and evading or refusing\nthe rest. [Footnote: For this and last paragraph see _Charles I. in_\n1646, Introduction by Mr. Bruce, and the King's own Letters\n_passim_; Clar. 591-600 (Hist.) and 961 (Life); Hallam's Const.\nHist. (10th ed.), II. 182-188, with notes.]\n\nIrritating as the Queen's conduct in the main had been to Hyde, Hopton,\nand others of the Royalist exiles, there were particulars of selfishness\nin it which positively disgusted them. Having persisted in her\ndetermination that the Prince of Wales should reside with herself, and\nnowhere else, she had carried that point, as she did every other, with\nCharles; and since July the Prince, as well as his infant sister, the\nPrincess Henrietta-Maria, had been under her charge. Rather than\naccompany the Prince to Paris, and undertake the responsibility of\nadvising him in matters in which it would be necessary to detach him from\nhis mother, Hyde, Hopton, and Lord Capel had remained in Jersey, happy\nfor a time in their mutual society, and Hyde, as he tells us, passing the\npleasantest hours of his life in the composition of parts of his History.\nOthers of the King's late counsellors, such as Cottington, the Earl of\nBristol, and Secretary Nicholas, had domiciled themselves in Rouen, Caen,\nor elsewhere in France, away from Paris. But round the Queen, in Paris or\nat St. Germains, there _had_ gathered not a few of the exiles,\ngratifying the King more, as it proved, by this compliance than the\nothers did by their prudery. Among these were Lord Jermyn, Lord Digby,\nLord Percy, Lord Wilmot, and even Lord Colepepper, though he had at first\nagreed with Hyde in opposing the removal of the Prince from Jersey.\nConspicuous in the same group of refugees was the veteran Thomas Hobbes,\nNot that he had gone to Paris at that time, as the others had done, in\nthe mere course of Royalist duty. He had been there for several years on\nhis own account, that he might be out of the turmoil of affairs at home,\nand free to pursue his speculations in quiet, with the relaxation of\nwalks about Notre Dame and the Sorbonne, and much of the agreeable\ncompany of M. Gassendi. But the Prince could not be without a tutor, and\nHobbes was chosen to instruct him in mathematics and whatever could be\nbrought under that head. If what Clarendon says is true, the philosopher\nmust have had curious remarks to make on the relations between his royal\npupil and his mother, and on that lady's own behaviour. Though the Prince\nwas sixteen years of age, she governed him with a high hand. \"He never\nput his hat on before the Queen,\" says Clarendon; \"nor was it desired\nthat\nhe should meddle in any business, or be sensible of the unhappy condition\nthe royal family was in. The assignation which was made by the Court of\nFrance for the better support of the Prince was annexed to the monthly\nallowance given to the Queen, and received by her and distributed as she\nthought fit; such clothes and other things provided for his Highness as\nwere necessary; her Majesty desiring to have it thought that the Prince\nlived entirely upon her, and that it would not consist with the dignity\nof the Prince of Wales to be a pensioner to the King of France. Hereby\nnone of his Highness's servants had any pretence to ask money, but they\nwere contented with what should be allowed them; which was dispensed with\na very sparing hand; nor was the Prince himself ever master of ten\npistoles to dispose as he liked. The Lord Jermyn was the Queen's chief\nofficer, and governed all her receipts; and he loved plenty so well that\nhe would not be without it, whatever others suffered who had been more\nacquainted with it.\" In this last sentence there is an insinuation of\nmore than meets the eye. Henry Jermyn, originally one of the members for\nBury St. Edmunds in the Long Parliament, and created Baron Jermyn by\nCharles (Sept. 8, 1643) for his conspicuous Royalism, had long been the\nspecial favourite of the Queen and the chief of her household; after\nCharles's death he became the Queen's second husband by a secret\nmarriage; and so cautious a writer as Hallam does not hesitate to\ncountenance the belief that his relations to the Queen were those of a\nhusband while Charles was yet alive. [Footnote: Clar. 594-602 and 640;\nHallam, Const. Hist. (10th ed.), II. 183 and 188, with footnotes; and\nLetters of the King, to the Queen, numbered xxvii., xxviii., xxxii.,\nxxxv., and xxxviii. in Brace's _Charles I. in_ 1646. In the last of\nthese letters, dated Newcastle, July 23, Charles writes:--\"Tell Jermyn,\nfrom me, that I will make him know the eminent service he hath done me\nconcerning Pr. Charles his coming to thee, as soon as it shall please God\nto enable me to reward honest men. Likewise thank heartily, in my name,\nColepepper, for his part in that business; but, above all, thou must make\nmy acknowledgments to the Queen of England (for none else can do it), it\nbeing her love that maintains my life, her kindness that upholds my\ncourage; which makes me eternally hers, CHARLES R.\"]\n\nSuch were Charles's circumstances, such was his real isolation, when his\ncaptivity began. It was to last all the rest of his life, or for more\nthan two years and a half. The form and place of his captivity were\nindeed to be varied. There were to be four stages of it in all, the first\nonly being his detention among the Scots at Newcastle. At the point which\nwe have reached in our narrative, viz. the conclusion of the Civil War,\nthree months of this first stage of the long captivity (May-August 1646)\nhad already elapsed. We have now, therefore, to follow the King, with an\neye also for the course of events round him, through the remainder of\nthis stage of his captivity, and through the three stages which succeeded\nit.\n\n\nFIRST STAGE OF THE CAPTIVITY: STILL WITH THE SCOTS AT NEWCASTLE: AUG.\n1646--JAN. 1646-7.\n\nBalancings of Charles between the Presbyterians and the Independents--His\nNegotiations in the Presbyterian direction: The Hamiltons his Agents\namong the Scots--His Attempt to negotiate with the Independents: Will\nMurray in London--Interferences of the Queen from France: Davenant's\nMission to Newcastle--The Nineteen Propositions unanswered: A Personal\nTreaty offered--Difficulties between the Scots and the English\nParliament--Their Adjustment: Departure of the Scots from England, and\nCession of Charles to the English--Westminster Assembly Business, and\nProgress of the Presbyterian Settlement.\n\nThree months of Scottish entreaty and argumentation had failed to move\nCharles. He would not take the Covenant; he would not promise a pure and\nsimple acceptance of Presbytery; and to the Nineteen Propositions of the\nEnglish Parliament he had returned only the vaguest and most dilatory\nanswer.\n\nThe English Parliamentarians, as a body, were furious, and the milder of\nthem, with the Scots, were in despair. \"We are here, by the King's\nmadness, in a terrible plunge,\" Baillie writes from London, Aug. 18; \"the\npowerful faction desires nothing so much as any colour to call the King\nand all his race away.\" In another letter on the same day he says, \"We\n[the Scots in London] strive every day to keep the House of Commons from\nfalling on the King's answer. We know not what hour they will close\ntheir doors and declare the King fallen from his throne; which if they\nonce do, we put no doubt but all England would concur, and, if any should\nmutter against it, they would be quickly suppressed.\" And again and again\nin subsequent letters, through August, September, and October, the honest\nPresbyterian writes in the same strain, breaking his heart with the\nthought of the King's continued obstinacy. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 389\n_et seq._]\n\nIt must not be supposed that Charles was merely idle or inert in his\nobstinacy. In the wretched phrase of those who regard politics as a kind\nof game, he was \"playing his cards\" as well as he could. What was\nconstantly present to his mind was the fact that his opponents were a\ncomposite body distracted by animosities among themselves. He saw the\nPresbyterians on the one wing and the Independents on the other wing of\nthe English or main mass, and he saw this main mass variously disposed to\nthe smaller and very sensitive Scottish mass, to whose keeping he had\nmeanwhile entrusted himself. Hence he had not even yet given up the hope,\nwhich he had been cherishing and expressing only a month before his\nflight to the Scots, that he \"should be able so to draw the Presbyterians\nor the Independents to side with him for extirpating one the other, that\nhe should really be King again.\" [Footnote: From a letter to Lord Digby,\ndated March 26, 1646, quoted by Godwin (II. 132-3) from Carte.] He could\nnot now, of course, pursue that policy in a direct manner or with the\nexpectation of immediate success. But he could pursue it indirectly. He\ncould extract from the Nineteen Propositions the two main sets of\nconcessions which they demanded--the concession of Presbytery and what\nwent along with that, and the concession of the Militia and what went\nalong with that; and, holding the two sets of concessions in different\nhands, he could alternate between that division of his opponents which\npreferred the one set and that which preferred the other, so as to find\nout with which he could make the best arrangement. By a good deal of\nyielding on the Episcopacy question, coupled with a promise to suppress\nSects and Heresy, might he not bribe the Scots and Presbyterians to join\nhim against the Independents? By a good deal of yielding on the Militia\nquestion, coupled with a promise of Toleration for the Sects, might he\nnot bribe the Independents to join him against the Presbyterians, and\nperhaps even save Episcopacy? Which course would be the best? Might not\nthat be found out most easily by trying both?\n\nIn accordance so far with the advices from France, Charles had begun with\nthe Presbyterian \"card,\" and had played it first among the Scots. We have\nseen the classification he had made of the Scots, from his observation of\nthem at Newcastle, into the four parties of the Montroses, the Neutrals,\nthe Hamiltons, and the Campbells. The Montroses, or absolute Royalists,\nwere now nowhere. After having lurked on in his Highland retreat, with\nthe hope of still performing some feat of Hannibal in the service of his\ncaptive Majesty, Montrose had reluctantly obeyed the orders to capitulate\nand disband which had been sent to him as well as to all the Royalist\ncommanders of garrisons in England, and, without having been permitted\nthe consolation of going to Newcastle to kiss his Majesty's hand, had\nembarked, with a few of his adherents, at Stonehaven, Sept. 3, in a ship\nbound to Norway. The first of the four parties of Scots in the King's\nreckoning of them being thus extinct, and the second or Neutrals making\nnow no separate appearance, the real division, if any, was into the\nHamiltons and the Campbells. The division was not for the present very\napparent, for Hamilton and his brother Lanark had not been ostensibly\nless urgent than Argyle and Loudoun that his Majesty would accept the\nNineteen Propositions. But underneath this apparent accord his Majesty\nhad discerned the slumbering rivalry, and the possibility of turning it\nto account. He had regained the Hamiltons. When the Duke, indeed, came to\nNewcastle in July to kiss the hand of his royal kinsman from whom he had\nbeen estranged, and by whose orders he had been in prison for more than\ntwo years, the meeting had been rather awkward. Both had \"blushed at\nonce.\"  But forgiveness had passed between them; and, though the King in\nhis letters to the Queen continued to speak of the \"bragging\" of the\nHamiltons, and of his \"little belief\" in them, the two black-haired\nbrothers did not know that, but were glad to hear themselves again\naddressed familiarly by the King as \"Cousin James\" and \"Lanark.\" Through\nthese Hamiltons might not a party among the Scots be formed that should\nbe less stiff than Argyle, Loudoun, and the others were for concurrence\nwith the English in all the Nineteen Propositions? The experiment was\nworth trying, and in the course of September the King did try it in a\nvery curious manner.\n\nThe Duke of Hamilton, who had meanwhile paid a visit to Scotland, had\nthen returned to Newcastle at the head of a new deputation from the\nCommittee of the Scottish Estates, charged with the duty of reasoning\nwith his Majesty. Besides the Duke, there were in the deputation the\nEarls of Crawford and Cassilis, Lords Lindsay and Balmerino, three lesser\nbarons, and three burgesses. They had had an interview with the King, and\nhad pressed upon him the Covenant and the Nineteen Propositions by all\nsorts of new arguments, but without effect. The next day, however, they\nreceived a communication from his Majesty in writing. After expressing\nhis regret that his conversation with them the day before had not been\nsatisfactory, he explains more fully an arrangement which he had then\nproposed. Whatever might be his own opinion of the Covenant, he by no\nmeans desired from the Scots anything contrary to their Covenant. But was\nit not the main end of the Covenant that Presbyterial Government should\nbe legally settled in England? Well, he was willing to consent to this\nafter a particular scheme. \"Whereas I mentioned that the Church-\ngovernment should be left to my conscience and those of my opinion, I\nshall be content to restrict it to some few dioceses, as Oxford,\nWinchester, Bristol, Bath and Wells, and Exeter, leaving all the rest of\nEngland fully under the Presbyterian Government, with the strictest\nclauses you shall think upon against Papists and Independents.\" In other\nwords, Charles offered a scheme by which Presbytery and Episcopacy should\nshare England between them on a strict principle of non-toleration of\nanything else, Presbytery taking about four-fifths, and Episcopacy about\none-fifth. He argues eagerly for this scheme, and points out its\nadvantages. \"It is true,\" he says, \"I desire that my own conscience and\nthose that are of the same opinion with me might be preserved; which I\nconfess doth not as yet totally take away Episcopal Government: but then\nconsider withal that this [scheme] will take away all the superstitious\nsects and heresies of the Papists and Independents; to which you are no\nless obliged by your Covenant than the taking away of Episcopacy.\" How\nfar this scheme of the King was discussed or even published does not\nappear. It was one which the Scottish Commissioners collectively could\nnot even profess to entertain; and, however well disposed Hamilton may\nhave been privately to abet it, he dared not give it any countenance\nopenly. [Footnote: Authorities for this and the last paragraph are--\nNapier's Montrose, 631 _et seq._; Burnet's Lives of the Hamiltons\n(ed. 1852), 359-375; Rushworth, VI. 232, and 327-329; King's Letters l.\nand lxiii. in _Brace's Charles I_, in 1646.  The remarkable Paper of\nthe King proposing a compromise between Episcopacy and Presbytery is\ngiven entire both by Rushworth and by Burnet It is not dated, but is one\nof several letters given by both these authorities as written by the King\nin September 1646. Burnet, who had a copy before him in Lanark's hand,\nnotes the absence of the date. In a postscript to the letter, however, as\ngiven in Rushworth, the King says: \"I require you to give a particular\nand full account hereof to the General Assembly in Scotland;\" and in\nBurnet's copy the words are \"to the General Assembly _now sitting in\nScotland_.\" This phrase would refer the Paper to some time between\nJune 3 and June 18 when the Assembly was last in session, its next\nmeeting not being till August 4, 1647. In that case the Paper must have\nbeen delivered not to the deputation mentioned in the text, but to the\nprior deputation from Scotland. of which Lanark was one (_ant\u00e8_, pp.\n412-418), This is possible; but it does not lessen the significance of\nthe document in connexion with the King's dealings with the Hamiltons in\nSeptember, The extant copy of the Paper seen by Burnet was in Lanark's\nhand; it must therefore have been mainly through the Hamiltons that\nCharles wanted to feel the pulse of Scotland respecting his proposal; and\nthe proposal, if first made in June, must have been a topic between the\nKing and the Hamiltons in subsequent months. Altogether, however, I\nsuspect, the proposal did not go far beyond the King and the Hamiltons, I\nhave found no distinct cognisance of it in Baillie or in the Acts of the\nAssembly of 1646.]\n\nAnd so, with a heavy heart, Hamilton, in the end of September, returned\nto Scotland. Foreseeing the King's ruin, he had resolved to withdraw\naltogether from the coil of affairs, and retire to some place on the\nContinent. In vain did his brother Lanark fight against this resolution;\nand not till he had received several affectionate letters from the King\ndid he consent to remain in Britain on some last chance of being useful.\nActually, from this time onwards, Hamilton and Lanark, though not yet\ndaring a decidedly separate policy from that of Argyle and his party in\nScotland, did work for the King as much as they could within limits. He\ncontinued to correspond with both, but chiefly with Lanark.\n\nNot the less, while the King was trying to bargain with the Presbyterians\nthrough the Hamiltons, was he intriguing in the opposite direction. His\nagent here was a certain Mr. William Murray, son of the parish-minister\nof Dysart in Scotland, and known familiarly as Will Murray. He had been\npage or \"whipping-boy\" to Charles in his boyhood, had been in his service\never since, had been recently in France, but had returned early in 1646.\nHis connexions with the King being so close, and his wiliness notorious,\nhe had been arrested by Parliament and committed to the Tower as a spy;\nand it had cost the Scottish Commissioners some trouble--Baillie for one,\nbut especially Gillespie, who was related to Murray by marriage--to\nprocure his release on bail. This having been accomplished in August, he\nhad been allowed to go to his master in Newcastle, the Scottish\nCommissioners vouching that he would use all his influence to bring the\nKing into the right path. He had been well instructed by Baillie as to\nall the particulars of the duty so expected from him, not the least of\nwhich, in Baillie's judgment, was that he should get the King to dismiss\nHobbes from the tutorship of the Prince at Paris. Once with the King,\nhowever, Murray had forgotten Baillie's lectures, and relapsed into his\nwily self. \"Will Murray is let loose upon me from London,\" the King\nwrites to the Queen Sept. 7; but on the 14th he writes that Murray has\nturned out very reasonable, and that, though he will not absolutely trust\nhim, the rather because he is not a client of the Hamiltons, but \"plainly\ninclines more to Argyle,\" yet he hopes to make good use of him. On the\n2lst we hear of \"a private treaty\" he has made with Murray; and the\nresult was that, in October, Murray, created Earl of Dysart in prospect,\nwas back in London on a secret mission, the general aim of which was the\nconciliation of the Independents. On the condition that the King should\nsurrender on the Militia question, give up the Militia even for his whole\nlife, would the Parliamentary leaders consent to the restoration of a\nLimited Episcopacy after three or five years? It was a dangerous mission\nfor Murray, \"so displeasing that it served only to put his neck to a new\nhazard;\" and he was obliged to keep himself and his proposals as much\nwithin doors as he could. [Footnote: Baillie, II. 391-396, and Appendix\nto same vol., 509, 510; Burnet's Hamiltons, 378; and Hallam, II. 187-8,\nand Notes.] To the Queen at Paris her husband's continued hesitation on\nthe Episcopacy question seemed positively fatuous. Her letters, as well\nas Jermyn's and Colepepper's, had not ceased to urge bold concession on\nthat question, and a paction with the Scots for Presbytery. Now,\naccordingly, their counsels to this effect became more emphatic. The\nQueen thought the King perfectly right in refusing his personal signature\nto the Covenant, and advised him to remain steady to that refusal, and\nalso to his resolution not to let the Covenant be imposed upon others;\nshe was moreover sure that he ought not to abandon Ireland or the English\nRoman Catholics to the mercies of Parliament; but, with these exceptions,\nshe would close with the Scots and Presbyterians in the matter of Church-\ngovernment, if by that means she could save the Militia and the real\nsubstance of kingly prerogative. \"We must let them have their way in what\nrelates to the Bishops,\" she wrote to Charles, Oct. 9/19; \"which thing I\nknow goes quite against your heart, and, I swear to you, against mine\ntoo, if I saw any one way left of saving them and not destroying you.\nBut, if you are lost, they are without resource; whereas, if you should\nbe able again to head an army, we shall restore them. Keep the Militia,\nand never give it up, and by that all will come back--(_Conservez-vous\nla Militia, et n'abandonnez jamais, et par cela tout reviendra_).\"\nColepepper, always rough-speaking, used more decided language. Nothing\nremained for the King, he wrote, but a union with the Scottish nation and\nthe English Presbyterians against the Independents and Anti-monarchists;\nand to secure such a union Episcopacy must go overboard. His Majesty's\nconscience! Did his Majesty really believe that Episcopacy only was\n_jure divino_, and that there could be no true Church without\nBishops? If so, Colepepper personally did not agree with him, and doubted\nwhether there were six Protestants in the world that did. \"Come,\" he\nbreaks out at last, \"the question in short is whether you will choose to\nbe a King of Presbytery, or no King and yet Presbytery or perfect\nIndependency to be.\" [Footnote: Baillie, II. 389 _et seq._;\nRushworth VI. 327 _et seq._; Clarendon, 605; Hallam, II. 185-6; and\nQueen's Letter in the original French in Appendix to Mr. _Bruce's\nCharles I. in_ 1646.]\n\nIt was not only by letter that such counsels from France reached Charles.\nBellievre, who had succeeded Montreuil as French ambassador in England,\nand had been much with the King at Newcastle, plying him with the same\ncounsels, had reported to Mazarin that some person of credit among the\nEnglish exiles should be sent over, expressly to reason with Charles on\nthe all-important point. They seem to have had some difficulty at Paris\nin finding a proper person for the mission. To have sent Hobbes, even if\nhe would have gone, would have been too absurd. Hobbes a successor of\nAlexander Henderson in the task of persuading the King to accept\nPresbytery! The person sent, however, was the one next to Hobbes in\nliterary repute among the Royalist exiles, the one most liked by Hobbes,\nand oftenest in his company. He was no other than the laureate and\ndramatist Will Davenant, known on the London boards by that name for a\ngood many years before the war, but now Sir William Davenant, knighted by\nthe King in Sept. 1643 for his Army-plotting and his gallant soldiering.\nHe was over forty years of age, and had just turned, or was turning, a\nRoman Catholic in Paris, or perhaps rather a Roman Catholic Hobbist.\nClarendon, with a sneer at Davenant's profession of play-writer, makes\nmerry over the choice of such an agent by the Queen, Jermyn, and\nColepepper, and relates the result with some malice. Arrived at Newcastle\nlate in September, or early in October, Davenant had delivered his\nletters to the King, and proceeded to argue according to his\ninstructions. Charles had heard him for a while with some patience, but\nin a manner to show that he did not like the subject of his discourse.\nDetermined, however, to do his work thoroughly, Davenant had gone on,\nbecoming more fluent and confidential, It was the advice of all his\nMajesty's friends that he should yield on the question of Episcopacy!\n\"What friends?\" said the King. \"My Lord Jermyn,\" replied Davenant. His\nMajesty was not aware that Lord Jermyn had given his attention to Church\nquestions. \"My Lord Colepepper,\" said Davenant, trying to mend his\nanswer. \"Colepepper has no religion,\" said the King, bluntly; and then he\nasked whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer (_i.e._ Clarendon himself,\nthen Sir Edward Hyde) agreed with Colepepper and Jermyn. Davenant could\nnot say he did, for Sir Edward was not in Paris with the Prince, as he\nought to have been, but in Jersey: and he proceeded to convey from the\nQueen some insinuations to Hyde's discredit. The King, Clarendon is glad\nto tell, had defended him, and said he had perfect trust in him, and was\nsure _he_ would never desert the Church. Something of the wit, or of the\nRoman Catholic Hobbist and freethinker, had then flashed out in the\nspeech of the distressed envoy. He \"offered some reasons of his own in\nwhich he mentioned the Church slightingly.\" On this the King had blazed\ninto proper indignation, given poor Davenant \"a sharper reprehension than\nhe ever did to any other man,\" told him never to show his face again, and\nfrowned him to the door. And so, says Clarendon, \"the poor man, who had\nindeed very good affections,\" returned to Paris crestfallen. [Footnote:\nClar. 606, and Wood's Ath. III. 801, 805. The King's Letters mention\nDavenant's presence at Newcastle and the purport of his argument, but\nwithout tolling of any such _scene_ between him and Davenant as Clarendon\ndescribes. Davenant had not arrived at Newcastle Sept. 26, but was there\nOct. 3. He was back in Paris in November.]\n\nPerturbed by the Queen's difference from him on the matter he had most at\nheart, and saddened by the failure of his own schemings in opposite\ndirections, Charles appears to have sunk for a time into a state of\nsullen passiveness, varied by thoughts of abdication or escape. By\nDecember, however, he had again roused himself. By that time, Will Murray\nhaving returned to him with fresh suggestions from London, he had made up\nhis mind to send to the English Parliament an Answer to their Nineteen\nPropositions in detail. He had prepared such an Answer, and on the 4th of\nDecember he sent a draft of it to the Earl of Lanark in Edinburgh. In\nthis draft he goes over the Propositions one by one, signifying his\nagreement where it is complete, or the amount of his agreement where it\nis only partial. In such matters as the management of Ireland, laws\nagainst the Roman Catholics, &c., he will yield to Parliament; but he\nwould like an act of general oblivion for Delinquents. In the matter of\nthe Militia his offer is to resign all power for ten years. In the matter\nof the Church he offers his consent to Presbytery for three years, as had\nbeen settled by Parliament, with these provisions--(l) that there be\n\"such forbearance to those who through scruple of conscience cannot in\neverything practise according to the said rules as may consist with the\nrule of the Word of God and the peace of the kingdom;\" (2) \"that his\nMajesty and his household be not hindered from that form of God's service\nwhich they have formerly done;\" and (3) that he be allowed to add twenty\npersons of his own nomination to the Westminster Assembly, to aid that\nbody and Parliament in considering what Church-government shall be\nfinally adjusted after the three years' trial of Presbytery. Altogether,\nthe concessions were the largest he had yet offered, and an elated\nconsciousness of this appears in the letter which conveyed the Draft to\nLanark for the consideration of him and his friends in Scotland. Only on\none point is he dubious. The clause promising a toleration for scrupulous\nconsciences may not please the Scots! He explains, however, that that\nclause had been inserted \"purposely,\" to make the whole \"relish the\nbetter\" with the English Independents, and adds, \"If my native subjects\n[the Scots] will so countenance this Answer that I may be sure they will\nstick to me in what concerns my temporal power, I will not only expunge\nthat clause, but likewise make what declarations I shall be desired\nagainst the Independents, and that really without any reserve or\nequivocation.\" This was Charles all over!--Alas! Lanark's reply was\nunfavourable. The Toleration clause, he wrote, was but one of the\nstumbling-blocks. As far as he could ascertain Scottish opinion, he dared\nnot \"promise the least countenance\" to the King's proposals about the\nChurch, omitting as they did all mention of the Covenant, and\ncontemplating an entire re-opening of the debate on Presbytery. Nor was\nit from Lanark only that the Draft met discouragement. From the Queen, to\nwhom also a copy had been sent, the comments that came, though from a\npoint of view different from Lanark's, were far more cutting. The\nsurrender of the Militia for ten years amazed her. \"By that you have also\nconfirmed them the Parliament for ten years; which is as much as to say\nthat we shall never see an end to our misfortunes. For while the\nParliament lasts you are not King; and, for me, I shall never again set\nfoot in England. And with this shift of your granting the Militia you\nhave cut your own throat (_Et avec le biais que vous avez accord\u00e9 la\nMilice, vous vous este coup\u00e9 la gorge_).\" On the promised concession\nwith respect to Ireland she remarks: \"I am astonished that the Irish do\nnot give themselves to some foreign king; you will force them to it at\nlast, seeing themselves made a sacrifice.\"--The result was that, though\nthe terms of Charles's draft Answer got about, and he was in a manner\ncommitted to them, the message which he did formally send to Parliament,\non the 20th of December, was quite different from the Draft. It explained\nthat, though he had bent all his thoughts on the preparation of a written\nAnswer to the Nineteen Propositions, \"the more he endeavoured it he more\nplainly saw that any answer he could make would be subject to\nmisinformations and misconstructions.\" He repeats, therefore, his earnest\ndesire for a personal treaty in London. [Footnote: Burnet's Hamiltons,\n381-389 (for the interesting correspondence between the King and Lanark);\nKing's Letters, liii.-lxii. in Bruce's _Charles I. in_ 1646, and\nQueen's Letters in Appendix to the same: Rushworth, VI. 393; and Parl.\nHist. III. 537.]\n\nMeanwhile, quite independently of the King, his messages, or his wishes,\nmatters had been creeping on to a definite issue. For four months now\nthere had been a most intricate debate between the Scots and the English\nParliament on the distinct and yet inseparable questions of the Disposal\nof the King's Person and the Settlement of Money Accounts. Though the\nreasoning on both sides on the first question was from Law and Logic, it\nwas heated by international animosity. Lord Loudoun was the chief speaker\nfor the Scottish Commissioners in the London conferences; the great\nspeech on the English side was thought to be that of Mr. Thomas\nChalloner, a Recruiter for Richmond in Yorkshire; but the speeches,\npublished and unpublished, were innumerable, and a mere abstract of them\nfills forty pages in Rushworth. Not represented by so much printed matter\nnow, but as prolix then, was the dispute on the question of Accounts. The\nclaim of the Scots for army-arrears and indemnity was for a much vaster\nsum than the English would acknowledge. This item and that item were\ncontested, and the Accounts of the two nations could not be brought to\ncorrespond. Not even when the Scots consented to a composition for a\nslump sum roughly calculated was there an approach to agreement. The\nScots thought 500,000_l_. little enough; the English thought the sum\nexorbitant. Equally on this question as on the other it was the\nIndependents that were fiercest against the Scots and the most careless\nof their feelings; and again and again the Presbyterians had to deprecate\nthe rudeness shown to their \"Scottish brethren.\" And so on and on the\ndouble dispute had wound its slow length between the two sets of\nCommissioners, the English Parliament looking on and interfering, and the\nScottish Parliament, after its meeting on the 3rd of November,\ncontributing its opinions and votes from Edinburgh. [Footnote: Rushworth,\nVI. 322-372.]\n\nTo Charles in Newcastle all this had been inexpressibly interesting. A\nrupture between the English and the Scots, such as would occasion the\nretreat of the Scots into their own country, carrying him with them, was\nthe very greatest of his chances; and it was in the fond dream of such a\nchance that he had procrastinated his direct dealings with the English\nParliament. But from this dream there was to be a rude awakening. It came\nin December, precisely at the time when he was corresponding with the\nQueen and Lanark over his proposed compromises on all the Nineteen\nPropositions. Already, indeed, there had been signs that the dispute\nbetween the two nations was working itself to an end. By laying entirely\naside the question of the Disposal of the King's person, and prosecuting\nthe question of Accounts by itself, difficulties had been removed and\nprogress made. It had been agreed that the sum to be paid to the Scots\nshould be 400,000_l._ in all, one-half to be paid before they left\nEngland, and the rest in subsequent instalments; and actually on the 16th\nof December the first moiety of 200,000_l._ was off from London in\nchests and bags, packed in thirty-six carts, to be under the charge of\nSkippon in the North till it should be delivered to the Scots. Yes! but\nwould it ever be delivered to the Scots? Not a word was in writing as to\nthe surrender of the King by the Scots, but only about their surrender of\nthe English towns and garrisons held by them; and, so far as appeared,\nthe money was to be theirs even if they kept the King. Here, however, lay\nthe very skill of the policy that had been adopted. Instead of persisting\nin the theoretical question of the relative rights of the two nations in\nthe matter of the custody of the King, and wrangling over that question\nin its unfortunate conjunction with a purely pecuniary question, it had\nbeen resolved to close the pecuniary question by putting down the money\nin sight of the Scots as undisputedly theirs on other grounds, and\nallowing them to decide for themselves, under a sense of their duty to\nall the three kingdoms, whether they would let Charles go to Scotland\nwith them or would leave him in England. Precisely in this way was the\nissue reached. But oh! with what trembling among the Scots, what wavering\nof the balance to the very last! Dec. 16, the very day when the money\nleft London, there was a debate in the Scottish Parliament or Convention\nof Estates in Edinburgh, the result of which was a vote that the Scottish\nCommissioners in London should be instructed to \"press his Majesty's\ncoming to London with honour, safety, and freedom,\" for a personal\ntreaty, and that resolutions should go forth from the Scottish nation \"to\nmaintain monarchical government in his Majesty's person and posterity,\nand his just title to the crown of England.\" This vote, passing over\naltogether the question of the surrender of the King, and pledging the\nScots to his interests generally, was a stroke in his favour by the\nHamilton party in the Convention, carried by their momentary\npreponderance. But the flash was brief. There was in Edinburgh another\norgan of Scottish opinion, more powerful at that instant than even the\nConvention of Estates. This was the Commission of the General Assembly of\nthe Kirk, or that Committee of the last General Assembly whose business\nit was to look after all affairs of importance to the Kirk till the next\nGeneral Assembly should meet. The Commission then in power, by\nappointment of the Assembly of June 1646, consisted of eighty-nine\nministers and about as many lay-elders; and among these latter were the\nMarquis of Argyle, the Earls of Crawford, Marischal, Glencairn, Cassilis,\nDunfermline, Tullibardine, Buccleuch, Lothian, and Lanark, besides many\nother lords and lairds. It was in fact a kind of ecclesiastical\nParliament by the side of the nominal Parliament, and with most of the\nParliamentary leaders in it, but these so encompassed by the clergy that\nthe Hamilton influence was slight in it and the Argyle policy all-\nprevailing. Now, on the very day after that of the Hamilton resolutions\nin Parliament for the King (Dec. 17), and when Parliament was again in\ndebate, the Commission spoke out. In \"A Solemn and Seasonable Warning to\nall Estates and Degrees of Persons throughout the Land\" they proclaimed\ntheir view of the national duty. Nothing could be more dangerous, they\nsaid, than that his Majesty should be allowed to come into Scotland, \"he\nnot having as yet subscribed the League and Covenant, nor satisfied the\nlawful desires of his loyal subjects in both nations;\" and they therefore\nprayed that this might be prevented, and that, in justice to the English,\nto whom the Scots were bound by the Covenant, the King should not be\nwithdrawn at that moment from English influence and surroundings. This\nopinion of the Commission at once turned the balance in the Convention.\nThe resolutions of the previous day were rescinded; and on that and the\nfew following days it was agreed, Hamilton and Lanark protesting, that\nnothing less than the King's absolute consent to the Nineteen\nPropositions would be satisfactory, and that, unless he made his peace\nwith the English, he could not be received in Scotland. When the letters\nwith this news reached Charles at Newcastle, he was playing a game of\nchess. He read them, it is said, and went on playing. He had a plan of\nescape on hand about the time, and the very ship was at Tynemouth. But it\ncould not be managed. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 389-393; Burnet's\nHamiltons, 389-393; Baillie, III. 4, 5; Parl. Hist. III. 533-536.]\n\nJanuary 1646-7 was an eventful month. On the 1st it was settled by the\ntwo Houses that Holdenby House, usually called Holmby House, in\nNorthamptonshire, should be the King's residence during farther treaty\nwith him; and on the 6th the Commissioners were appointed who should\nreceive him from the Scots, and conduct him to Holmby. The Commissioners\nfor the Lords were the Earls of Pembroke and Denbigh and Lord Montague;\nthose for the Commons were Sir William Armyn (for whom Sir James\nHarrington was substituted), Sir John Holland, Sir Walter Earle, Sir John\nCoke, Mr. John Crewe, and General Browne. On the 13th these Commissioners\nset out from London, with two Assembly Divines, Mr. Stephen Marshall and\nMr. Caryl, in their train, besides a physician and other appointed\npersons. On the 23rd they were at Newcastle. On the whole, the King\nseemed perfectly content. When the English Commissioners first waited on\nhim and informed him that they were to convey him to Holmby, he \"inquired\nhow the ways were.\" On Saturday, Jan. 30, the Scots marched out of\nNewcastle, leaving the King with the English Commissioners, and Skippon\nmarched in. Within a few days more, the 200,000_l._ having been\npunctually paid, and receipts taken in most formal fashion, as prescribed\nby a Treaty signed at London Dec. 23, the Scots were out of England. The\nScottish political Commissioners (Loudoun, Lauderdale, and Messrs.\nErskine, Kennedy, and Barclay) had left London immediately after the\nconclusion of the Treaty. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Jan. 7 and 12,\n1646-7; Rushworth, VI. 393-398; Parl. Hist. III. 533-536; Burnet's\nHamiltons, 393-397. Burnet has a curious blunder here, and founds a joke\non it. Before the Scottish Commissioners left London, he says, there was\na debate in the Commons as to the form of the thanks to be tendered to\nthem. It was proposed, he says, to thank them for their _civilities and\ngood offices_, but the Independents carried it by 24 votes to strike out\nthe words _good offices_ and thank them for their _civilities_ only. \"And\nso all those noble characters they were wont to give the Scottish\nCommissioners on every occasion concluded now in this, that they were\n_well-bred gentlemen_.\" On turning to the Commons Journals for the day in\nquestion (Dec. 24, 1646), one finds what really occurred. It was reported\nthat Loudoun, Lauderdale, and the other Scottish Commissioners, were\nabout to take their leave, and that they desired to know whether they\ncould do any service for the English Parliament with the Parliament of\nScotland. The vote was on the question whether thanks should be returned\nto them _for all their civilities and for this their last kind offer_.\nThe Independents (Haselrig and Evelyn, tellers) wanted it to stand so;\nthe Presbyterians (Stapleton and Sir Roger North, tellers) wanted an\n_addition_ to be made, _i.e._, I suppose, wanted some particular use to\nbe made of the offer of the Commissioners to convey a message to the\nScottish Parliament. Actually it was carried by 129 to 105 that the\nquestion should stand as proposed by the Independents; and, the Lords\nconcurring next day, the Commissioners were thanked in those terms.]\n\nWith the Scottish lay Commissioners, there returned to Scotland at this\ntime a Scot who has been more familiar to us in these pages than any of\nthem. For a long time, and especially since Henderson had gone, Baillie\nhad been anxious to return home. Having now obtained the necessary\npermission, he had packed up his books, had taken a formal farewell of\nthe Westminster Assembly, in which he had sat for more than three years,\nhad received the warmest thanks of that body and the gift of a silver\ncup, and so, in the company of Loudoun and Lauderdale, had made his\njourney northwards, first to Newcastle, thence to Edinburgh, and thence\nto his family in Glasgow. On the whole, he had left the Londoners, and\nthe English people generally, at a moment when the state of things among\nthem was pleasing to his Presbyterian heart. For, both in the Parliament\nand in the Westminster Assembly, notwithstanding the engrossing interest\nof the negotiations with and concerning the King, there had been, in the\ncourse of the last five months, a good deal of progress towards the\ncompletion of the Presbyterian settlement. Thus, in Parliament, there had\nbeen (Oct. 9) \"An Ordinance for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops\nwithin the Kingdom of England and the Dominion of Wales, and for settling\ntheir lands and possessions upon Trustees for the use of the\nCommonwealth.\" It was an Ordinance the first portion of which may seem\nbut the unnecessary execution of a long-dead corpse; but the second\nportion was of practical importance, and prepared the way for another\nmeasure (Nov. 16), entitled \"An Ordinance for appointing the sale of the\nBishops' lands for the use of the Commonwealth.\" Then in the Westminster\nAssembly there had been such industry over the _Confession of Faith_\nthat nineteen chapters of it had been presented to the Commons on Sept.\n25, a duplicate of the same to the Lords Oct. 1, and so with the residue,\ntill on Dec. 7 and Dec. 12 the two Houses respectively had the text of\nthe entire work before them. The Houses had not yet passed the work, or\npermitted it to be divulged, but had only ordered a certain number of\ncopies to be printed for their own use; nay they had, with what seemed an\nexcess of punctiliousness, required the Assembly to send in their\nScriptural proofs for all the Articles of the Confession; but still, when\nBaillie left London, that great business might be considered off the\nAssembly's hands. A good deal also had been done in the _Catechisms_\nby the Assembly; and, if the Assembly's revised edition of Rous's\n_Metrical Version of the Psalms_ had not received full Parliamentary\nenactment, that was because the Lords still stood out for Mr. Barton's\ncompeting Version. It was satisfactory to Baillie that, on his return to\nScotland, he could report to his countrymen that so much had been done\nfor the Presbyterianizing of England. There were, indeed, drawbacks. Both\nin London and in Lancashire, where the machinery of Presbytery was\nalready in operation, the procedure was a little languid; and in other\nparts of England, \"owing to the sottish negligence of the ministers and\ngentry of the shires more than the Parliament,\" they were wofully slow in\nsetting up the Elderships and the Presbyteries. Even worse than this was\nthe unchecked abundance of Sects and Heresies throughout England, and the\nprevalence of the poisonous tenet of Toleration. An Ordinance for the\nsuppression of Blasphemies and Heresies, which had been occupying a Grand\nCommittee of the Commons through September, October, November, and\nDecember, had not yet emerged into light. These were certainly serious\ncauses of regret to Baillie, but his mood altogether was one of\nthankfulness and hope. \"This is the incomparably best people I ever knew\nif they were in the hands of any governors of tolerable parts,\" had been\nhis verdict on the English in a letter of Dec. 7, when he was preparing\nto take leave of them. An Ordinance against Heresies and Blasphemies\nwould make them perfect, and till that came were there not substitutes?\nHad not a number of the orthodox ministers of London put forth a famous\ntreatise, called _Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici_, arguing for\nthe Divine Right of Presbytery in a manner which left nothing to be\ndesired? The Second Part of Baillie's own _Dissuasive from the Errors\nof the Time_, published just as he was leaving London (Dec. 28, 1646),\nand intended as a parting-gift to the English, might also do some good!\nAnd, though he himself was no longer to sit in the Westminster Assembly,\nhad he not left there his excellent colleagues, Samuel Rutherford and\nGeorge Gillespie? [Footnote: Baillie, II. 397-403, 406-7, 410-416, and\nIII. 1-5; Rushworth, VI. 373-388; Parl. Hist. III. 518; Commons and Lords\nJournals of dates given; Neal's Puritans III. 350-51.]\n\n\nSECOND STAGE OF THE CAPTIVITY: AT HOLMBY HOUSE: FEB. 1646-7--JUNE 1647.\n\nThe King's Manner of Life at Holmby--New Omens in his favour from the\nRelations of Parliament to its own Army--Proposals to disband the Army\nand reconstruct part of it for service in Ireland--Summary of Irish\nAffairs since 1641--Army's Anger at the proposal to disband it--View of\nthe State of the Army: Medley of Religious Opinions in it: Passion for\nToleration: Prevalence of Democratic Tendencies: The Levellers--\nDetermination of the Presbyterians for the Policy of Disbandment, and\nVotes in Parliament to that effect--Resistance of the Army: Petitions and\nRemonstrances from the Officers and Men: Regimental Agitators--Cromwell's\nEfforts at Accommodation: Fairfax's Order for a General Rendezvous--\nCromwell's Adhesion to the Army--The Rendezvous at Newmarket, and Joyce's\nAbduction of the King from Holmby--Westminster Assembly Business: First\nProvincial Synod of London: Proceedings for the Purgation of Oxford\nUniversity.\n\nHolmby or Holdenby House in Northamptonshire had been built by Lord\nChancellor Hatton in Elizabeth's time, but afterwards purchased by Queen\nAnne for her son Charles while he was but Duke of York. It was a stately\nmansion, with gardens, very much to the King's taste. It was not till the\n16th of February that he arrived there, the journey from Newcastle having\nbeen broken by halts at various places, at each of which crowds had\ngathered respectfully to see him, and poor people had begged for his\nroyal touch to cure them of the king's evil. Near Nottingham he had been\nmet by General Fairfax, who had dismounted, kissed his hand, and then\nturned back, conveying him through that town, and conversing with him.\n[Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 398; Whitlocke (ed. 1853), II. 115; Sir Thomas\nHerbert's _Memoirs of the last Two Years of the Reign of King Charles\nI._.(1813), 13-15. Herbert was a kinsman and _prot\u00e9g\u00e9_ of the Pembroke\nfamily, who had travelled much in the East, published an account of his\ntravels, and had acquired quiet and \u00e6sthetic tastes. He had been in\nvarious posts of Parliamentary employment, procured for him by Philip,\nEarl of Pembroke; but, having accompanied that Earl when he went to\nNewcastle as one of the Commissioners to take charge of the King, he had\nattracted the King's regard, so that, on the dismissal of some of the\nKing's attendants at Holmby, _he_ was selected to be one of the grooms of\nthe bedchamber. He remained faithfully with the King to his death,\ncherished his memory afterwards, was made a baronet by Charles II. after\nthe Restoration, and died in 1681. Two or three years before his death he\nwrote, at a friend's request, the above-mentioned _Memoirs_, containing\ninteresting reminiscences and anecdotes of Charles in his captivity. They\nwere reprinted in 1702 and again in 1813 (see a memoir of Herbert in\nWood's Ath. IV. 15-42).]\n\nDuring the four months of the King's stay at Holmby his mode of life was\nvery regular and pleasant. The house and its appurtenances, being large,\neasily accommodated not only the King and all his permitted servants, but\nalso the Parliamentary Commissioners and their retinue, besides Messrs.\nMarshall and Caryl, Colonel Graves as military commandant, and the under-\nofficers and soldiers of the guard. The allowance of Parliament for the\nKing's own expenses was 50_l._ a day, so that \"all the tables were\nas well furnished as they used to be when his Majesty was in a peaceful\nand flourishing state.\" At meal-times the Commissioners always waited\nupon his Majesty, and the two chaplains were generally also present. It\nwas almost his only complaint that Parliament persisted in keeping these\ntwo reverend gentlemen about him, and would not let him have chaplains of\nhis own persuasion. But, though he declined the religious services of\nMessrs. Marshall and Caryl, and said grace at table himself rather than\nask them to do so, he was civil to them personally, and allowed such of\nhis servants as chose to attend their sermons. On Sundays Charles kept\nhimself quite retired to his private devotions and meditations, and on\nother days two or three hours were always spent in reading and study.\nAmong his favourite English books were Bishop Andrewes's Sermons,\nHooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, Herbert's Poems, Fairfax's Tasso,\nHarrington's Ariosto, Spenser's Faery Queene, and, above all,\nShakespeare's Plays, his copy of the Second Folio Edition of which is\nstill in extant, with the words \"_Dum spiro spero: C. R._\" written\non it by his own hand. But he read also in Greek and Latin, and fluently\nin French, Italian, and Spanish. At dinner and supper he ate of but a few\ndishes, and drank sparingly of beer, or wine and water mixed by himself.\nHe disliked tobacco extremely, and was offended by any whiff of it near\nhis presence. His chief relaxations were playing at chess after meals,\nand walking much in the garden; but, not unfrequently, as he was fond of\nbowls and there was no good bowling-green at Holmby, he would ride to\nLord Spencer's house at Althorp, about three miles off, or even to Lord\nVaux's at Harrowden, nine miles off, at both of which places there were\nexcellent bowling-greens and beautiful grounds. In these rides, of\ncourse, he was well attended and watched, but still not so strictly but\nthat a packet could sometimes be conveyed to him by a seeming country-\nbumpkin on a bridge, or a letter in cipher entrusted to a sure hand.\nAlways through the night at Holmby a light was kept burning in the King's\nchamber, in the form of a wax-cake and wick inside a large silver basin\non a low table by the bed, on which also were placed the King's two\nwatches and the silver bell with which he called his grooms. This custom\nhad begun at Oxford and had become invariable. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI.\n452-4; Parl. Hist. III. 551 and 557-9; Clar. 608; but chiefly Herbert's\nMemoirs, 15-25, 61-65, 124-126, and 131. It is remarkable that Herbert,\nwho mentions the other favourite English books of Charles named in the\ntext, does not mention Shakespeare; for Charles's copy of the Second\nFolio, now in the Royal Library at Windsor, was given to Herbert himself\nby Charles before his death, and bears, in addition to the inscription in\nCharles's hand, this in Herbert's, \"_Ex dono Serenissimi Regis Car.\nservo suo humiliss. T. Herbert_\" (Lowndes by Bohn, 2,257). Herbert\nmentions that _Dum spiro spero_ was a favourite motto with Charles,\ninscribed by him on many books. But that Shakespeare was a prime\nfavourite of Charles we have Milton's authority in the well-known phrase\nin the [Greek: Gakonoklast\u00e6s]--\"one whom we well know was the closet\ncompanion of these his solitudes, William Shakespeare.\"]\n\nOf course there were continued negotiations between Charles and the\nParliament. Anything done in this way, however, during the four months of\nthe stay at Holmby, hardly deserves notice. For at that time there was a\nhuge new clouding of the air in England, pregnant with no one knew what\nchanges, and making the postponement of conclusions between the King and\nthe Parliament quite natural on both sides. All the world has heard of\nthe extraordinary quarrel between the Long Parliament and its own\nvictorious Army.\n\nThe war being over, and the troublesome Scots out of England at last,\nwhat remained but to disband the Parliamentarian Army, and enter on a\nperiod of peace, retrenched expense, and renewed industry? This was what\nall the orthodox politicians, and especially all the Presbyterians, were\nsaying. In the very act of saying it, however, they faltered and\nexplained. By disbanding they did not mean complete disbanding; some\nforce must still be kept up in England for garrison duty, as a police\nagainst fresh Royalist attempts; they meant the disbanding of all beyond\nthe moderate force needed for such use; nay, they did not even then mean\nactual disbanding of all the surplus; they contemplated the immediate re-\nenlistment and re-organization of a goodly portion of the surplus for\nservice in another employment. What that was, who needed to be told? Did\nthere not remain for England a tremendous and long-postponed duty beyond\nher own bounds? Now at length, now at length, was there not leisure to\nattend to the case of unhappy Ireland?\n\nUnhappy Ireland! Her history at any time is hard to write; but no human\nintellect could make a clear story of those five particular years of\ntriple distractedness which intervene between the murderous Insurrection\nof 1641-2 (Vol. II. pp. 308-314) and the beginning of 1647. One can but\nnote a few points.\n\nThrough the first year or more of the Insurrection there seemed to be but\ntwo parties in Ireland. There was the vast party of the Insurgents, or\nConfederates, including the whole Roman Catholic population of the\nisland, both the old Irish natives, who had mainly begun the Rebellion,\nand the Catholics of English descent who had joined in it. Gradually the\nmere spasmodic atrocity of the first Rebels had been changed into\nsomething like an organized warfare, commanded in chief by Generals\nPreston and Owen Roe O'Neile, while the political conduct of the\nRebellion and the government of Confederate Ireland had been provided for\nby the assembling at Kilkenny of a Parliament of Roman Catholic lords,\nprelates, and deputies from towns and counties, and by the appointment by\nthat body of county-councils, provincial councils, and a supreme\nexecutive council. The other party in Ireland was the small Protestant\nparty, consisting of the mixed English and Scottish population of certain\ndistricts of the east and north coasts, with the surviving Protestants\nfrom other parts amongst them, and with Dublin and other strongholds\nstill in their possession. At their head ought to have been the Earl of\nLeicester, Stafford's successor in the Irish Lord-Lieutenancy. But, as\nLeicester had been detained in England by the King, the management had\ndevolved on the Lords Justices and Councillors resident in Dublin, and on\ntheir military assessor, James Butler, 12th Earl of Ormond, who had been\nLieutenant-General of the Irish forces under Strafford. In fact it was\nthis able Ormond that had to fight the Rebellion. Though supplies and\nforces, with some good officers, were sent over from England, and a\nspecial army of Scots under General Monro had been lent to the English\nParliament for service in Ulster, it was still Ormond that had to direct\nin chief. His success had been very considerable.\n\nIn the course of 1643, however, after the Civil War had begun in England,\nIreland and the Rebellion there had become related in a strangely complex\nmanner to the struggle between the King and the Parliament. Whatever\nshare the King may have had, through the Queen, in first exciting the\nRoman Catholics, he had come to regard the Irish distraction as a\nmagazine of chances in his favour. If he could get into his own hands the\ncommand of the Protestant forces employed in putting down the Rebellion,\nhe would have an army in Ireland ready for his service generally, and the\npolicy would then be to come to an arrangement with the Roman Catholic\nInsurgents, so as to free that army, and perhaps the Insurgents too, for\nhis service in England. Now, though the Lords Justices and most of the\nCouncillors in Dublin were Parliamentarian in their sympathies, Ormond\nwas a Royalist, of a family old in Ireland, far from fanatical in his own\nProtestantism, and with many relatives and friends among the Roman\nCatholics. Willing enough, therefore, to fight on against the\nConfederates, he was yet as willing, on instructions from Oxford, to make\nan arrangement with them in the King's interests. Actually, on the 15th\nof September, 1643, he did make a year's truce with the Rebels, which\npermitted the despatch of some portions of his own force, mixed with\nIrish Roman Catholics, to the King's assistance in England. Vehement had\nbeen the outcry of the English Parliamentarians over this breach of the\nKing's compact with them to leave the conduct of the Irish war wholly to\nthe Parliament; and from that moment there were two Protestant powers or\ntrusteeships for the management of the Irish Rebellion. Ormond, made a\nMarquis, and raised to the Lord-Lieutenancy in Leicester's place (Jan.\n1643-4), was trustee for the King, and continued to rule in Dublin, bound\nby his truce. In other parts of Ireland, however, the war was maintained\nin the interests of Parliament and by instructions from London--in\nMunster by Lord Inchiquin; in Connaught by Sir Charles Coote; and in\nUlster by Monro and his Scots, in conjunction with English officers and\nadvisers. So the imbroglio had gone on, a mere chaos of mutual sieges and\nskirmishes in bogs, and Ireland in fact, through the stress of the Civil\nWar at home, all but abandoned to herself in the meantime. The\nConfederates were stronger after the end of Ormond's year of truce than\nthey had been before; and in 1645 they were up again against Ormond, as\nwell as against Inchiquin, Coote, and Monro. They had already received\nhelp from France and Spain, and in Oct. 1645 there arrived among them no\nless than a Papal nuncio, Archbishop Rinuccini, with a retinue of other\nItalians, to take possession of the tumult in the name of his Holiness,\nand regulate it sacerdotally. In this complexity Ormond had still kept\nhis footing. He had kept it even in the midst of a sudden shock given to\nhis Vice-royalty by Charles himself.\n\nWithout Ormond's knowledge, Charles had been trafficking for months with\nthe Confederate Irish Catholics through another plenipotentiary. In Jan.\n1645-6 it came out, by accident, that the Roman Catholic Earl of\nGlamorgan, to whose presence in Ireland for some months no particular\nsignificance had been attached, had been treating, in Charles's name, for\na Peace with the Confederates on the basis not merely of a repeal of all\npenal laws against their Religion, but even of its establishment in\nIreland. All Britain and Ireland were aghast at the discovery, and even\nOrmond reeled. Recovering himself, however, he did what he could to save\nCharles from the results of his own double-dealing. Glamorgan was\nimprisoned for a time, with tremendous threats; all publicity was given\nto Charles's letters authorizing proceedings against him as \"one who\neither out of falseness, presumption, or folly, hath so hazarded the\nblemishing of his Majesty's reputation with his good subjects, and so\nimpertinently framed these Articles out of his own head;\" and meanwhile\nCharles's letters of consolation to Glamorgan, with his thanks, and\npromises of \"revenge and reparation,\" remained private.\n\nOne consequence of the Glamorgan exposure, happening as it did when the\nKing had been all but completely beaten in England, was a resolution of\nParliament that Irish affairs should be managed thenceforward not by the\nmere Committee for these affairs meeting at Derby House, Westminster, and\ncommunicating with Inchiquin, Coote, and others in Ireland, but by \"a\nsingle person of honour,\" in fact a Parliamentary Lord-Lieutenant. For\nthis high post there was chosen Philip Sidney, Viscount Lisle, M.P. for\nYarmouth in the Isle of Wight. This was partly a tribute to Lord Lisle's\nown zeal and to service he had already rendered in Ireland, partly a\ncompliment to his father, the Earl of Leicester, whom Charles had\ndisplaced from the Lord-Lieutenancy to make way for Ormond. Accordingly,\nfrom April 1646, while Ormond remained in power for Charles at Dublin, it\nwas in the name of Lord Lisle, as \"Lord Lieutenant-General,\" that all\ncommissions for Parliament respecting Ireland were issued. Lord Lisle,\nhowever, had not gone over to Ireland, but had been waiting till he could\ntake troops with him. It remained, therefore, for Ormond to do what he\nfinally could in Ireland for the fallen King. He had been in negotiation\nwith the Confederates for a Peace on more respectable terms than\nGlamorgan's, and yet valuable for the King; and though, after Charles's\nflight to the Scots, letters had come from Newcastle (June 11)\ncountermanding previous instructions, Ormond had persevered. On the 28th\nof July, 1646, _Ormond's Articles of Peace with the Irish Rebels_\nwere signed at Dublin and published for general information. They\npromised the repeal of all acts against the Roman Catholic Religion in\nIreland, and admission of Roman Catholics to a proportion of all places\nof public trust; and the recompense was to be an army of 10,000 Irish for\nhis Majesty's assistance in England. The indignation among the\nParliamentarians in Ireland, and throughout England and Scotland, was\nimmense, and Ormond was the best-abused man living. Fortunately for him,\nhe was extricated from the consequences of his own Treaty. The Papal\nNuncio disowned it as insulting to the Church after Glamorgan's; the\nRoman Catholic clergy gathered round the Nuncio; there were riots\nwherever it was proclaimed; excommunications were thundered against its\nadherents; the Confederate Commissioners who had made the Treaty were\nimprisoned; the Nuncio himself became generalissimo, and, with Owen Roe\nO'Neile's army on one side of him and General Preston's on the other,\ndeclared war afresh against Ormond, and marched in his robes upon Dublin.\nFor Ormond then there remained one plain duty. To save English rule and\nthe existence of Protestantism in Ireland, he must hand over Dublin and\nthe entire management of the war to the English Parliament. Having\nprocured the King's full consent, he began a treaty with Parliament to\nthis effect in Nov. 1646. As he was staunch in his desire to make the\nbest bargain for the King he could, he was in no hurry; so that in\nFebruary 1646-7, when the King was taken to Holmby, Ormond was still in\nDublin, going on with the Treaty. In reality, however, by that time\nIreland was as good as transferred to the Parliament. They had acted on\nthe knowledge. Dec. 23,1646, \"Resolved that this House doth declare that\nthey will prosecute and carry on an offensive war in Ireland for the\nregaining of that kingdom to the obedience of the kingdom of England;\"\nJan. 4, 1646-7, \"Resolved that an Ordinance be forthwith prepared and\nbrought in for establishing and settling the same Form of Church-\ngovernment in the kingdom of Ireland as is or shall be established in the\nkingdom of England;\" such were two momentous votes of the Commons when\nthe King was about to leave Newcastle. Nay, on the 28th of January, when\nthe Scots were handing over the King to the English, Lord Lisle had left\nLondon for Ireland to assume his Lord-Lieutenancy. A new sword of State\nhad been made for him; his Irish Council, of nine members at \u00a3500 a year\neach, had been nominated; and, at his special request, Major Thomas\nHarrison of the New Model had accompanied him. [Footnote: Authorities for\nthe summary of Irish affairs from 1641 to 1647 given in the text are--\nRushworth, VI. 238-249; Clar. 641, and at various other points; Whitlocke\nunder Jan. 25 and 28 and March 9, 1646-7; Godwin, I. 245 _et seq._,\nand II. 102 _et seq._; Commons Journals of dates given, with other\nentries from Dec. 1646 to Feb. 1646-7; and Carte's Ormond. Carte's large\nbook is of some value from the abundance of information that was at his\ndisposal, but is intrinsically silly.]\n\nWhat could Lord Lisle do without troops? Now was the time for England to\nperform fully for \"the gasping and bleeding Island\" that duty of which,\nwith all the excuse of her own pressing needs, she had been long too\nnegligent. Now was the time to revenge the massacre of 1641, and re-\nsubject Ireland to English rule and the one only right faith and worship.\nAnd were not the means at hand? An army of 25,000 or 30,000 Englishmen\nwas now standing idle: why not disband and cashier part of them, and\nrecast the rest into a new army for the service of Ireland? The question\nwas obvious and natural to all; but it was put most loudly by the\nPresbyterians, because of a peculiar interest in it. They had never liked\nthe Army of the New Model; all its victories had not reconciled them to\nit, or made them cease to regret the Army of the Old Model, That had been\na respectable army, with the Earl of Essex at its head; this was an army\nof Independents, Sectaries, Tolerationists. Might not the disbanding of\nthis army be so managed as to be at once a deliverance of England from a\ngreat danger and the salvation of Ireland? What was necessary in the\nprocess was to get rid of Cromwell, his followers among the officers, and\nthe most peccant parts of the soldiery, so as to leave a sufficient mass\nto be re-formed, with additions, into an army of the Old Model type, the\ncommand of which might be given to Fairfax if he would take it, or\nperhaps to honest Skippon, or, best of all, to Sir William Waller.\n\nThis had been the understanding between the English Presbyterians and\ntheir Scottish friends since the close of the war. [Footnote: In a letter\nof Baillie's October 2, 1646, he expects \"the Sectarian Army disbanded\nand that party humbled.\"] There was, however, another party likely to\nhave a voice in the business. This was the Army itself.\n\nNever under the sun had there been such an army before. It was not large\naccording to our modern ideas of armies: only some 25,000 or 30,000 men,\nfour-fifths of them foot-soldiers and the rest horse-troopers and\ndragoons. But imagine these all hardy men, thoroughly drilled and\ndisciplined, and conscious that it was they who had done the work, they\nwho had fought the battles, they who had saved England. Imagine farther\nthat this Army had somehow come to be constituted, through its entire\nmass, on Cromwell's extraordinary principle, announced by him to Hampden\nat the beginning of the war, that the power of an army depends ultimately\non the \"spirit,\" or intrinsic moral mood, of the individuals composing\nit. Imagine that the atoms of this army were all \"men of a spirit,\" men\nwho had not fought as hirelings, but as earnest partakers in a great\ncause. Imagine them, if you like, as an army of fanatics. This phrase,\nhowever, might mislead, unless qualified.\n\nThe common conception of an army of fanatics is that of an army mad for\none set of tenets. Now the Parliamentary Army was really, as the\nPresbyterians called it, an Army of Sectaries. It was a miscellany of all\nthe forms of Puritan belief known in England, with forms of belief\nincluded that were not Puritan. The much largest proportion, after\nPresbyterians, of whom there were many, and ordinary Independents, of\nwhom there were more, were Sectaries of the fervid and devout sorts, such\nas Baptists, Old Brownists, and Antinomians, with mystical Millenaries\nand Seekers, all passionately Scriptural, saturated with the language and\nhistory of the Old Testament, and zealously Anti-Romanist and Anti-\nprelatic; and these, on the whole, were the men after Cromwell's heart.\nSuch, among others, was Harrison--whom Baxter, who had seen much of him,\nclasses at this time among the Anabaptists and Antinomians, telling us\n\"he would not dispute at all [with Baxter], but he would in good\ndiscourse very fluently pour out himself in the extolling of Free Grace,\nwhich was savoury to those that had right principles, though he had some\nmisunderstandings of Free Grace himself:\" a man, adds Baxter, \"of\nexcellent natural parts for affection and oratory, but not well seen in\nthe principles of his Religion; of a sanguine complexion; naturally of\nsuch a vivacity, hilarity, and alacrity, as another man hath when he hath\ndrunken a cup too much;\" and whom Baxter had once heard, in a battle,\nwhen the enemy began to flee, \"with a loud voice break forth into the\npraises of God, with fluent expressions, as if he had been in a rapture.\"\nBut there were also in the army Sectaries of a cooler or easier order--\nArminians, Anti-Sabbatarians, Anti-Scripturists, Familists, and Sceptics.\nHardly a form of odd opinion mentioned in our conspectus of English Sects\nin a former chapter but had representatives in the Army; nay, new\nspeculative oddities had broken out in some regiments; and it may be\ndoubted whether even in the English mind of our own time there is any\nform of speculation so peculiar as not to have had its prototype or\nlineal progenitor in that mass of steel-clad theorists contemporary with\nthe Westminster Assembly. Nor did each man keep his theory to himself.\nThere were constant prayer-meetings in companies and regiments, and\nmeetings for theological debate; troopers or foot-soldiers off duty would\nexpound or harangue to their fellows in camp, or even from the pulpits of\nparish-churches when such were convenient; whenever the Army halted there\nwas a hum of holding-forth. There were army-chaplains, it is true, and\nsome of them, such as Peters, Dell, and Saltmarsh, great favourites; but,\non the whole, the regular cloth was in disrepute: those who belonged to\nit were spoken of as the _Levites_ or priests by profession; the\nneed for such a profession was voted obsolete; and any man was held to be\nas good for the preaching office as any other, if he had the preaching\ngift. And with the respect for ordination had vanished the respect for\nmost of the regular Church-forms and symbols. Not only did preaching\nofficers and troopers, when they chanced to enter parish-churches, often\neject the regular ministers from the pulpits, and hold forth themselves\ninstead--in which kind of practice Colonel Hewson and Major Axtell are\nreported to have been conspicuous; but the contempt for established\ndecencies of worship had vented itself, at least in occasional instances,\nin very profane humours. Soldiers had scandalized country-congregations\nby sitting with their hats on during prayer and singing; and Hewson's men\nwere said once to have kept possession of a parish-church for eight days,\nhaving a fire in the chancel, and smoking tobacco _ad libitum_. Such\nwere, doubtless, mere excesses here and there, which would have been\nrebuked by the more serious men who formed the bulk of the Army; but it\nis quite certain that even among these that extreme kind of Independency\nhad become common which repudiated a National Church of any kind\nwhatsoever, nay denied that there was any Church on earth at all, any\nsystem of spiritual ordinances visibly from God, anything but a great\ninvisible brotherhood of Saints, walking in this life's darkness,\npassionately using meanwhile this symbol and that to feature forth the\nunimaginable, glad above all in the great glow of the present Bible, but\nexpecting also, each soul for itself, rays and shafts from the Light\nbeyond. Of this kind of indifferency to all competing forms of external\nworship, and even of doctrine, combined with either a mystical and dreamy\npiety, or a wildly-fervid enthusiasm, Dell and Saltmarsh, among the army-\nchaplains, seem to have been the most noted exponents; but it was really\na modification of that which is already known to us as the _Seekerism_ of\nRoger Williams. At all events, that absolute doctrine of Toleration which\nRoger Williams had propounded, and which was logically inseparable in his\nmind from Independency at its purest, had found its largest discipleship\nin the Parliamentary Army. Toleration to some extent was the universal\nArmy tenet; even the Presbyterians of the Army, with some exceptions, had\nlearnt to be Tolerationists in some degree. But a very full principle of\nToleration had possessed most, and the most absolute possible principle\nwas avowed by many. \"If I should worship the Sun or Moon. like the\nPersians, or that pewter-pot on the table, nobody has anything to do with\nit,\" one sectary had been heard to say; and some even had \"justified the\nIrish Rebellion,\" on the ground that the Irish \"did it for the liberty of\ntheir consciences and for their country.\" If this last extreme\napplication of the Toleration doctrine did actually come from the mouth\nof a sectary serving in the Army (which is not quite clear from the\nreport), it must be regarded, I suspect, as one of those eccentricities\nof mess-table debate which, when Baxter talked of them to Colonel\nPurefoy, vouching that he had heard such things himself, that officer\nindignantly refused to credit, saying, \"If Noll Cromwell should hear any\nsoldier speak but such a word, he would cleave his crown.\" Precisely the\nToleration doctrine, however, was that in which Cromwell himself was most\nthorough-going and most distinctly the representative of the whole Army.\nEven Baxter, after his two years of army-chaplaincy, spent in observing\nthe medley of sects around him and combating their errors, could not\nrefer Cromwell with positive certainty to any one of the Sects. He seemed\nmost for the Anabaptists, Antinomians, and Seekers, but \"did not openly\nprofess what opinion he was of himself.\" But on Toleration of Religious\nDifferences he was explicit and decided. All that were most to his mind\nin the Army \"he tied together by the point of Liberty of Conscience,\nwhich was the common interest in which they did unite.\" [Footnote: This\ndescription of the Parliamentary Army is a digest of the best knowledge I\nhave been able to form from various readings in contemporary books and\nstudy of Army documents; but particulars of it are from Baxter's\nAutobiography (1696), Part I. 52-57, and Edwards's _Gangr\u00e6na_, Parts II.\nand III. _passim_. The good, though narrow and hypochondriac, Baxter may\nbe thoroughly relied on for whatever he vouches as a fact known to\nhimself; otherwise, _cum grano_. Edwards has to be put into the witness-\nbox and cross-examined unmercifully, not as a wilful liar, but as an\nincredibly spiteful collector of gossip for the Presbyterians. After all,\nmany of the so-called ribaldries and profanities reported by him of the\nArmy Sectaries turn out innocent enough, or only very rough jokes, as\nwhen a soldier told a godly old woman that, if she did not believe in\nuniversal redemption, she would be damned. Perhaps his most horrible\nstory is that of some soldiers taking a horse into a village church in\nHunts and baptizing him in all due form at the font, giving him the name\nof _Esau_ because he was hairy. The story, with a certificate of its\ntruth by seven of the villagers, will be found in Gangr\u00e6na, Part III. 17,\n18. But, if the atrocity ever did occur, its date, according to Edwards\nhimself, was June 2, 1644, _i.e._ in the time of the Old Model Army, to\nwhich the very objection of Cromwell and others was that it did not\nconsist sufficiently of \"men of a spirit.\"]\n\nThere were three reasons why this extraordinary Army should object to\nbeing disbanded:--(1) They had large and long-deferred claims upon the\nParliament for arrears of pay, compensation for losses, provision for the\nwounded and disabled and for widows and orphans, indemnity also for\nillegal or questionable acts done in the time of war. Was the Army to let\nitself be disbanded without due security on these points? (2) There was\nthe unsettled question of Religious Toleration. The whole drift of things\nin the Parliament and in the Westminster Assembly seemed to be to a\nuniform and compulsory Presbyterianism; and was that a prospect to which\nthe Army, or nine-tenths of it, could look forward placidly? The Army did\nnot want to undo the Presbyterian settlement as already decreed, but they\nwere unwilling to disband before a Toleration under that settlement had\nbeen arranged. (3) Over and above these two reasons, and in powerful\nconjunction with them, was another. The Army, although an Army, had not\nceased to regard itself as a portion of the English people; nay, it had\ncome to regard itself as a select portion of that people, whose\nopportunities of thinking and reasoning on political affairs had been\npeculiarly good. It had come to be, in its own belief, an organ of\npolitical opinion, representing wishes and feelings of large parts of the\npopulation which were not represented in Parliament, and representing\nthese in the form of conclusions for the future more radical and more\ndefinite than any that Parliament alone was ever likely to work out. In\nshort, those democratic ideas the prevalence of which in the Army had so\nsurprised Baxter when he first joined it had now become paramount. It was\nnot only that the Army had formed views more severe than those of the\nPresbyterians as to the proper terms of the settlement to be made with\nthe King; it was that the Army thought the present the time for\ndiscussing the whole subject of the constitution of the country. The\nHouse of Lords, for example! Whether there should be a Peerage at all,\nlegislating in a separate House by mere hereditary right, might be a very\nfair question, and was one on which the Army had pretty decided opinions\nBut that the House of Lords then sitting--not the assembled Peerage of\nEngland at all, but a mere fifth-part of that Peerage, in the shape of\nsome twenty-eight persons meeting from day to day, sometimes as few as\nhalf-a-dozen of them at a time, and not only partaking with the other\nHouse in the legislation, but often obstructing that House, thwarting it,\nthrowing out its measures,--that this should continue who would maintain?\nNo! the House of Lords must go, and the sole House in England must be the\nother House, the \"House of Representers.\" But here too there was room for\nimprovement. The House of Commons then sitting was numerically\nsubstantial enough, now that it had been Recruited; and no one could look\nback on the great things which the House had done without gratitude and\nadmiration. But were there not signs of exhaustion, debility, and wrong-\nheadedness, even in that House, arising partly from its long independence\nof the People, partly from the imperfect system of suffrage under which\nit had been elected. Only in an imperfect sense could the existing House\nbe called a \"House of Representers;\" and, as soon as should be\nconvenient, it must be dissolved and succeeded by a House fully deserving\nthat name. For the election of such a House there must be a reform of the\ndetails of the electoral system, including the abolition of such\nanomalies as the return of one-twelfth of the whole House by the single\nand remote county of Cornwall, and a redistribution of seats in\naccordance with the proportions of population and property in the various\nparts of England. All these ideas, and many more, anticipating with\nsurprising exactness the Parliamentary Reform movements of much later\ntimes, were agitating the Parliamentary Army while the King was in his\ncaptivity at Holmby. Pamphlets from London, actively circulated among the\nregiments, aided the discussion and supplied it with topics and catch-\nwords. Especially popular among the soldiers, and keeping up their\nexcitement more particularly against the House of Lords, were the\npamphlets that came from John Lilburne and an associate of his named\nRichard Overton.--Lilburne, whom we left in October 1645, just released\nfrom the short imprisonment to which he had been committed by the Commons\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 390), had gone on again in his old pugnacious way, till,\nby Prynne's contrivance, he found himself in the clutches of the Lords.\nCalled before that House, in June 1646, for a Letter he had printed,\ncalled _The Just Man's Justification_, he had amazed the Peers by\nconduct such as they had never seen before. He had refused to kneel,\nrefused to take off his hat, refused to hear the charges against him,\nstopped his ears while they were read, denied the jurisdiction of the\nPeers, stamped at them, glared at them, told them his whole mind about\nthem, appealed to the Commons as the sole power in the State, and\naltogether behaved like a mad ox. They had consequently fined him \u00a34,000,\nand committed him to Newgate for seven years. For similar offences to the\nPeers, and similar contumacy when charged with them, Richard Overton, a\nprinter and assiduous publisher of pamphlets, had also been sent to\nprison two months afterwards (Aug. 1646). There was considerable sympathy\nwith both among the Londoners, and the Independents in the Commons had\ntaken up Lilburne's case and procured the appointment of a Committee on\nit. Nor even in Newgate, it appears, had he been debarred the use of pen\nand ink; for, in addition to his former pamphlets, there had come from\nhim fiercer and fresh ones--_Anatomy of the Lords' Tyranny_, _London's\nLiberty in Chains_, _The Free Man's Freedom_, _The Oppressed Man's\nOppressions_, _The Resolved Man's Resolution_, &c. These were the\npamphlets of Lilburne which, together with Overton's, one of which was\n_An Arrow Shot into the Prerogative Bowels of the Arbitrary House of\nLords_, were popular with the common soldiers of the Parliamentary Army,\nand nursed that especial form of the democratic passion among them which\nlonged to sweep away the House of Lords and see England governed by a\nsingle Representative House.--Baxter, who reports this growth of\ndemocratic opinion in the Army from his own observation, distinctly\nrecognises in it the beginnings of that rough ultra-Republican party\nwhich afterwards became formidable under the name of THE LEVELLERS. All\nthe while, however, there was also a quiet formation, in some of the\nsuperior and more educated minds of the Army, of sentiments essentially\nRepublican, but more reserved and tentative in the style of their\nRepublicanism. Among these minds too it had become a question whether a\nmere settlement with the King even on the basis of the Nineteen\nPropositions would suffice, and whether the hour had not come for organic\nchanges in the Constitution of England. Perhaps the leader of Army\nthought in this direction was Cromwell's son-in-law Ireton. [Footnote:\nBaxter _ut supra_; Gangr\u00e6na, part III. _passim_; Lords Journals, June 10,\n11, 23, and July 11, 1646 (Lilburne's case), and Aug. 11 (Overton's);\nGodwin, II. 407 _et seq._; Wood's Ath. III. 353] That the English\nPresbyterians, bereft now even of that overrated support which had been\nafforded them by the presence of a Scottish Army in England, should have\nrushed into a struggle with the English Army, such as it has been\ndescribed, without trying so much as a compromise on the Toleration\nquestion, is one of the greatest examples of political stupidity on\nrecord. They seem to have calculated mainly on the fact that they had a\nmajority in Parliament. Of the few Lords forming the Upper House they\ncould count nearly all as decidedly with them. In the Commons, too, where\nthe balance had always been more nearly equal, Presbyterianism had of\nlate been gaining force. Why it had been so is not very obvious. The\nlatest Recruiters may have been politicians of a more Presbyterian type\nthan the earlier ones; and of these earlier Recruiters some who had come\nin as Independents may have veered round. Men whose opinions are not very\ndecided tend naturally to the winning side, and the King's flight to the\nScots and their long possession of him had put Presbyterianism in the\nlikelihood to win. However it had happened, the Presbyterians had of late\nbeen preponderating in the Commons. In a vote on Sept. 1, 1646, affecting\nthe relations of the Parliament to the Scots, the Presbyterians had\nbeaten the Independents by 140 to 101; in another vote on Dec. 25, on the\nquestion whether the words \"according to the Covenant\" should be added to\na Resolution, the _Yeas_ or Presbyterians had beaten by 133 to 91; and in\nan interesting vote on Dec. 31, on the question whether the words \"or\nexpound the Scriptures\" should be added to a Resolution forbidding\nunordained persons to preach, the _Yeas_ or Presbyterians had beaten by\nno fewer than 105 to 57. In this last vote Cromwell was one of the\nTellers for the _Noes_ or Independents. In testing divisions these\nnumbers may be taken as representing the relative strengths of the two\nparties in the end of 1646 and the beginning of 1647. But, even with a\nconsiderable majority in the Commons, and with the Lords all but wholly a\nPresbyterian House, the confidence of the Presbyterians in confronting\nthe Army can be accounted for only by reckless leadership. Holles and\nStapleton, their most forward men in the Commons, appear to have been men\nof but ordinary faculty and decidedly rash temper, incomparably inferior\nto their great opponents. One argument they had, of which they did not\nfail to make the most. The City of London was eminently and staunchly\nPresbyterian; and would that great city, the central money-power of the\nnation, allow the Government to be dictated to by an Army of Sectaries?\n[Footnote: Commons Journals of dates given, with divisions generally\nbetween Aug. 1646 and Feb. 1646-7; Godwin, II. 263 _et seq._]\n\nThe struggle, long foreseen, began actually in the first two months and a\nhalf of the King's stay at Holmby, _i.e._ in February, March, and\nApril, 1646-7. The gauntlet was thrown down by Parliament. Feb. 19, in an\nunusually full House, it was carried by 158 (Holles and Stapleton\ntellers) against 148 (Haselrig and Evelyn tellers), that no force of Foot\nbeyond what was necessary for garrisons should be kept up in England, but\nonly a certain force of Horse. On the 5th of March there came a vote on\nthe important question who should be the Commander-in-chief of the\nretained Army, and so jealous had the Presbyterians become even of\nFairfax, because of his connexion with the existing Army, that the\nIndependents, though going for him to a man, carried his appointment but\nby a majority of 12. Subsequent resolutions, carried without division,\nwere that no member of the House should hold a military command\n(Cromwell's Self-denying Ordinance cleverly repeated against himself),\nthat no officer in the future Army under Fairfax should be above the rank\nof Colonel, and that all officers should take the Covenant; and when, on\nthe farther and more outrageous proposition, that all officers must\nconform to the Presbyterian Church-government, the Independents forced a\ndivision; they lost by 108 _Noes_ (Haselrig and Evelyn), against 136\n_Yeas_ (Holies and Stapleton). By additional Resolutions of March 29\nand April 8 the arrangements were completed. It was formally resolved\nthat all the Foot of the existing Army not required for the garrisons\nshould be disbanded, and that the future Army of Horse under Fairfax\nshould consist of nine regiments of 600 each, or 5,400 in all, recruited\nout of the existing Army or otherwise. The Colonels for the nine re-\nmodelled regiments were named, some of them cavalry Colonels of the\nexisting Army, but not all. Cromwell's own regiment, or the regiment that\nshould be built out of any safe shred of it with other materials, was to\ngo to the Presbyterian Major Huntingdon.----So much for England and\nWales; but what of the new Army for Ireland? That also had been arranged\nfor. March 6, it was voted by the Commons that the Army for Ireland\nshould consist of 8,400 foot, 3,000 horse, and 1,200 dragoons, to be\nrecruited as far as possible from the existing English Army. But how\nabout the command of this Army and the government of Ireland while it\nshould be serving there? Lord Lisle, then in Ireland as Lord-Lieutenant\nfor the Parliament, was one of Cromwell's disciples, and had been\nappointed by Cromwell's influence. It would not do to leave _him_ in\ncommand. Fortunately, he had been appointed but for a year; and, to avoid\nre-appointing him, it was resolved (April 1) that the previous vote of\nthe Houses for the management of Ireland through \"a single person of\nhonour\" should be rescinded, and that, while the Civil Government should\nrevert to the two Lords-Justices in Dublin, the military command should\nbe in the hands of a Field-Marshal, attended by Parliamentary\nCommissioners. Sir William Waller was named for this Field-Marshalship;\nbut the Presbyterians did not go to the vote for him; and Skippon, then\nat Newcastle, and unaware of the honour intended for him, was unanimously\nchosen (April 2). The Presbyterian Massey was to be his Lieutenant-\nGeneral. As an inducement to officers and soldiers of the English Army to\nre-enlist for the Irish service, high pay was promised, with an option of\ntaking part of it in the valuable form of Irish lands. [Footnote: Commons\nJournals of the dates given.]\n\n0, if you had been at Saffron Walden in Essex, where the bulk of the\nEnglish Army was quartered, when the news of these votes of the Commons\nreached them! What murmurs among the common soldiers, what consultations\namong the officers! The officers, as was fitting, took the lead. A\ndeputation of four Colonels and five Lieutenant-colonels had already gone\nto London (March 22) with a Petition and Remonstrance. They had been\nreceived graciously enough by the Lords, but coldly and with rebuke by\nthe Commons. Then, a great Petition being in preparation throughout the\nArmy, to be signed by both officers and men, and addressed to Fairfax as\nCommander-in-chief, there had come, on a hasty motion by Holles, a\nDeclaration of the two Houses (March 29-30) voting the same dangerous and\nmutinous, and threatening proceedings against such as should go on with\nit. With vast self-control on the part of the Army, and much good\nmanagement on the part of Fairfax, the offensive Petition had been\nsuppressed; and through a great part of April the dispute took the form\nof conferences between Fairfax and his officers and five Commissioners\nsent down to the Army from Parliament (Waller and Massey among them) to\nargue for the disbandment and promote re-enlistment for Ireland. At these\nconferences the questions of arrears, indemnity, the rate of pay in\nIreland, &c., were all discussed, and the Commissioners tried to give\nsatisfactory explanations. It was a great point with the Army whether\nSkippon would accept the Irish Field-Marshalship; and at one of the\nconferences, when Colonel Hammond was expressing this for his comrades,\nand saying that nothing would be more likely to induce them to enlist for\nIreland than the knowledge that that \"great soldier\" was to be in\ncommand, \"_All, all!_\" cried the assembled officers, \"_Fairfax and\nCromwell, and we all go!_\" No real conciliation, however, was\neffected; and on the 26th of April the Commissioners, in their \"perfect\nlist\" of officers who had agreed individually to go to Ireland, could\nreport but three Colonels, and a proportionate following of Captains and\nsubalterns. Among the men it was worse. In one company, eight score\nstrong, twenty-six had volunteered to go with their Captain; in another\nthe Captain could not get a single man to join him. Parliament was taken\naback by this ill success; but Holles and his party were undaunted. It\nwas a gleam in their favour that Skippon, coming to London from\nNewcastle, did at length (April 27) accept the Irish Field-Marshalship.\nThe Houses voted him their thanks and a gift of 1,000_l._and on the\nsame day it was carried in the Commons, by the overwhelming majority of\n114 to 7 (the Independents evidently abstaining from the vote), that the\nArmy, horse and foot, should be immediately disbanded with payment of six\nweeks of arrears. Orders were also issued for the appearance at the bar\nof the House of some of the most refractory superior officers and the\narrest of several subalterns; and at the same moment the Common Council\nof the City of London proved their Presbyterian zeal by ejecting Alderman\nPennington and other prominent Independents from the Committee of the\nCity Militia. On the very day of this concurrence of Presbyterian\ndemonstrations (April 27) there was presented to the Commons a \"Humble\nPetition of the Officers in behalf of themselves and the Soldiers,\" with\nan accompanying \"Vindication\" of their recent conduct. Lieutenant-general\nThomas Hammond headed the list of Petitioners; next came Colonels\nWhalley, Lambert, Robert Lilburne, Rich, Hewson, Robert Hammond, and\nOkey; then Lieutenant-colonels Pride, Kelsay, Reade, Jubbs, Grimes, Ewer,\nand Salmon; then Majors Rogers, Axtell, Cowell, Smith, Horton, and\nDesborough; and there followed about 130 captains and inferior officers.\nSuch an Officers' Petition might well have given the Presbyterians pause;\nbut three days afterwards (April 30) there came something more\nextraordinary. It was a Letter brought to town, and delivered to Skippon\nand Cromwell for presentation to the House, by three private troopers,\nprofessing to be \"agents\" or \"agitators\" or \"adjutators\" for some\nregiments in the Army. It used very high language indeed. It complained\nof the \"scandalous and false suggestions\" current against the Army, spoke\ndarkly of \"a plot contrived by some men who had lately tasted of\nsovereignty,\" and declared flatly that the soldiers \"would neither be\nemployed for the service of Ireland nor suffer themselves to be disbanded\ntill their desires were granted, and the rights and liberties of the\nsubjects should be vindicated and maintained.\" The amazed House ordered\nthe three troopers who had brought the Letter, and who were waiting\noutside, to be brought in. They came in, gave their names as Edward\nSaxby, William Allen, and Thomas Sheppard, and stood stoutly to their\nbusiness. Holles and his clique were for committing them to prison; but,\nSkippon certifying that they were honest men, and another member\nsuggesting that, if they were committed at all, it should be \"to the best\ninn of the town, and sack and sugar provided for them,\" the more good-\nhumoured counsel prevailed, and they were dismissed. Nay, their\nappearance and their Letter had produced an impression. In Holles's own\nwords, \"the House flatted,\" began to think it had been too peremptory,\nand resolved that Skippon, Cromwell, Ireton, and Fleetwood, should go at\nonce to Saffron Walden, as mediators between it and the Army. [Footnote:\nCommons Journals of all the cited dates; Rushworth, VI. 444-475;\nWhitlocke, II. 121-137; Parl. Hist. III. 560-576; Holles's Memoirs by\nhimself (1699), pp. 88-90.]\n\nAgents, or Agitators, or Adjutators, the three bold troopers had called\nthemselves; and it was the first time the Houses had heard the name. It\nannounced, however, an important reality. The common soldiers had made up\ntheir minds that they could not leave the struggle for the Army's rights\nwholly in the hands of the officers, and that it might assist these\nofficers if they, the rank and file, with the corporals and sergeants,\nformed an organization among themselves for the same ends. Accordingly,\ntrusty men in each regiment had been chosen to meet and consult with\nothers of other regiments, and the name \"Agitators\" or \"Adjutators\" had\nbeen given to these deputies. Very soon the organization was so perfect\nthat every troop or company had its two Agitators, every regiment its\ndistinct Agitatorship composed of the Agitators of the several troops or\ncompanies, and so by gradation upwards to general meetings of the\nAgitators of the whole Army and special meetings of Committees for\nmaturing business more privately. Too obvious a connexion between this\nassociation and the higher army-officers was inconvenient; but it was\nuseful to have connecting links in officers of the lower ranks; and the\nPresidency of the Agitators came, at length, to be vested in one such\nofficer. This was James Berry, one of the captains of Fairfax's own\nhorse-regiment, in which Desborough was Major. He had been a clerk in\nsome iron-works in the west of England, and was \"of very good natural\nparts, especially mathematical and mechanical.\" Before the war he and\nRichard Baxter had been bosom friends; but, since he had come into the\nArmy and been much in the society of Cromwell, he had become, says\nBaxter, a man of new lights in religion, regarding the old Puritans of\nhis acquaintance as \"dull, self-conceited men of a lower form.\" During\nBaxter's two years of army-chaplaincy, Berry had never visited him, nor\neven seen him, except once or twice accidentally. [Footnote: Rushworth,\nVI. 485: Holles, 86, 87; Baxter's Autobiography, Part I. 57 and 97.]\n\nThrough the greater part of May, Fairfax being then in London, Cromwell,\nand his fellow-commissioners, Skippon, Ireton, and Fleetwood, remained at\nSaffron Walden, busy in their work of mediation. Three successive letters\nto Speaker Lenthall reported the amount of their success. It was next to\nnothing. They had obtained, they say in the last of the three letters\n(May 17), a complete statement of the grievances of the Army, in the form\nof papers which they would bring to town; but meanwhile they found the\nsoldiers so unsettled that they did not think it safe to leave them.\nSkippon and Ireton, in fact, did remain; but Cromwell and Fleetwood\nreturned to town, May 21, to report to the House in greater detail. Among\nthe documents they brought with them, representing the opinions and\ndemands of the Army, was one which had been prepared with extraordinary\ncare. The various votes relating to the Army having been read to each\nregiment by its commanding officer, the regimental Agitatorships\n(apparently now first fully constituted) had reported the opinions and\ndemands of the regiments severally, and these opinions and demands had\nbeen digested into one Draft at a conference of the chief officers, on\nthe principle of including only such demands as were made unanimously by\nall the regiments. Rushworth does not give the document, but describes it\nas fair and moderate, and tells us in particular that, while it\ncomplained of misrepresentations and ill-treatment, and desired\nreparation, it denounced only one person by name. One is not surprised to\nlearn that this was the Rev. Mr. Edwards. His _Gangr\u00e6na_, it was\nsaid, had been written expressly to make the Army odious. [Footnote:\nLetters in Appendix IX. to Carlyle's Cromwell; Commons Journals of May\n21; and Rushworth, VI. 485-6.]\n\nModerate or not, the Army's _ultimatum_ obtained but an unfriendly\nhearing in the two Houses; and, between the 22nd and the 28th of May,\nFairfax having meanwhile returned to the Army, they issued their opposed\n_ultimatum_ in a sharp series of orders. The entire army of Foot was\nto be disbanded, willing or unwilling, on the terms fixed: Fairfax's own\nregiment at Chelmsford on June 1, Hewson's at Bishop's Stortford on June\n3, Lambert's at Saffron Walden on June 5, and so on regiment by regiment,\neach on a named day and at a named place, a Committee of the two Houses\nto be present at each disbanding, and Skippon also to be present to\nenlist such of the disbanded men as would go to Ireland. These orders\nreached Fairfax at Bury St. Edmund's in Suffolk, to which he had removed\nhis head-quarters. They threw the Army into an ungovernable uproar, which\nsubsided in a day or two into an ominous calm. For a great resolution had\nbeen taken. The Agitators, at a meeting on Saturday, May 29, had drawn up\na petition to Fairfax for a speedy Rendezvous of the whole Army at one\nplace for united action; and a council of officers, to the number of 200,\nwith Ireton among them, had declared themselves on the same day to the\nsame effect. They advised Fairfax to grant the Rendezvous, telling him\nthat, if he did not, the men would hold one themselves and it was sure\nthen to end in tumult. Fairfax had taken the advice; and in the last days\nof May orders were out for the \"contraction of the Army's quarters\" by\ndrawing the dispersed regiments closer together, and for a general\n\"Rendezvous\" at Kentford Heath, close to Newmarket, on Friday the 4th of\nJune. [Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 582-588, and Rushworth, VI. 494-500.]\nFairfax, with whatever hesitation, had thus thrown in his lot with the\nArmy. Skippon, though he had accepted the Irish Field-Marshalship, almost\nrepented having done so, and was one at heart with his old comrades. Of\nthe other officers only a small minority, whether from Presbyterian\npredilections or out of mere respect for authority, wavered towards\nParliament. The chief of these were Colonels Harley, Herbert, Fortescue,\nSheffield, Butler, Sir Robert Pye, and Graves, this last being the\nColonel in charge of the King at Holmby. On the other side, round\nFairfax, and sustaining him, were Generals Ireton and Hammond, as next in\nrank; with Whalley, Rich, Okey, Rainsborough, Robert Lilburne, Sir\nHardress Waller, Robert Hammond, Lambert, Hewson, Ewer, Kelsay,\nIngoldsby, Pride, Axtell, Jubbs, Desborough, and other Colonels,\nLieutenant-Colonels, and Majors, among whom is not to be forgotten the\nenthusiast Harrison, back from Ireland just at the right moment. But what\nof Fleetwood and Cromwell, left in their places in the House of Commons?\nWhich way they would go nobody could doubt; but the question was whether\nthey might not be seized as hostages by the Presbyterians and detained in\nLondon. As far as Fleetwood was concerned, the danger was over on the 2nd\nof June; on which day he had leave from the House \"to go into the\ncountry,\" and went we can imagine whither. For Cromwell the danger was\ngreater. He too, however, had made his arrangements. On the evening of\nthe 3rd of June, or early on the following morning, just in time to avoid\nthe arrest and impeachment which Holles and the Presbyterians were\npreparing for him, he rode quietly out of London in the direction of the\nArmy. As far as can be ascertained, he had waited purposely to cover\nFleetwood's departure, and be himself the last army-man to leave the\nCommons. [Footnote: Commons Journals, June 2; Whitlocke, May 31;\nRushworth, VI. 464-8 and 495; Holles 85, 86; Clar. 611; Godwin, II. 311,\n312. Cromwell's so-called \"Flight to the Army\" is an incident made much\nof by Royalist and Presbyterian writers, and Clarendon's account of it\nand what preceded it is a perfect jumble of incompatible dates and\nconfused rumours. What all those writers (Holles, Clement Walker,\nClarendon, Baxter, Burnet, &c.) wanted to make out, and really succeeded\nin transmitting as a fact, was that Cromwell's whole conduct through the\ndispute between the Army and Parliament, up to the moment of his flight,\nhad been a tissue of the profoundest craft and hypocrisy. He had pushed\non the policy of disbandment in the Parliament on the one hand, and on\nthe other he had fomented the mutiny in the Army through the Agitators;\nto lull suspicion when it was roused, he had at the last moment protested\nin the House in the presence of Almighty God that he knew the Army would\nlay down their arms; and not till his flight was the whole depth of his\ndissimulation known! On these statements, and the disposition of mind\nthat could invent them or believe in them, see Mr. Carlyle's impressive\nwords (Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, I. 220-222). The real facts are\nto be gathered or inferred from the Commons Journals. Cromwell had been\nin London through February, March, and April, while the votes for\ndisbandment, &c. were passed, unable to resist those votes, but anxious\nto prevent a rupture, and doing his best to that end: and not till after\nhis return from his mission of mediation to the Army (May 21), or even\ntill after the Army's resolution for a Rendezvous (May 29), were his\nhopes of a reconciliation utterly gone.]\n\nThe general Rendezvous of the Army was duly held, as appointed, near\nNewmarket, in Cambridgeshire, on Friday the 4th of June. There were\npresent seven foot-regiments and six regiments of horse--a full\nrepresentation of the Army, though not the whole. There was the utmost\ndisplay of resolution. One great general Petition was agreed to; a solemn\nengagement was drawn up and signed by officers and soldiers; Fairfax rode\nfrom regiment to regiment, addressed each, and was received with outcries\nof applause. The proceedings were not over on the 4th, but protracted\nthemselves into the next day. On that day it was that a strange\nexcitement or suspense, which had been visible in all faces from the very\nbeginning of the Rendezvous, in consequence of news then received, was\nrelieved by the arrival of farther news. \"Joyce has done it! Joyce has\ndone it!\" were the words that might then have been heard through the\nassembled Army, caught up and repeated by group after group of talking\nsoldiers over the heath. [Footnote: Rushworth, VI. 504-512.]\n\nWho was Joyce, and what had he done? These questions take us back to the\nKing at Holmby.--His Majesty, watching the course of the struggle between\nthe Parliament and the Army, had at last, on the 12th of May, sent in his\nlong-deferred Answer to the Nineteen Propositions. It was substantially\nthe Draft which he had submitted to the Queen and the Earl of Lanark in\nthe preceding December, but had suppressed (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 505-6). He\noffered the surrender of the Militia for ten years, and assent to\nPresbytery for three years, but with a reserve of the Liturgy for himself\nand his household, and the right of adding twenty divines to the\nWestminster Assembly to assist in the final settlement of the Church-\nquestion. The clause about a toleration for tender consciences, inserted\nin the former Draft as a bait for the Independents, was now totally\nomitted. In other words, Charles had thought the moment favourable for\nre-opening negotiations with the Presbyterians. The reception of his\nLetter by Parliament had been encouraging. It had been read in the Lords,\nMay 18; and it had then been carried in that House by a majority of 15 to\n9 that his Majesty should be brought at once from Holmby to some place\nnearer London, for the convenience of treating with him. Oatlands in\nSurrey had been named, and the concurrence of the Commons requested.\nActually on May 21, the very day when Cromwell and Fleetwood returned to\nthe Commons from their mission to the Army, the matter had been mentioned\nin that House. Although no decision had been come to, the Independents\nand the Army had taken alarm. Colonel Graves, commanding the guard at\nHolmby, was a Presbyterian; some of those everlasting Scottish\nCommissioners were back in London, in their old quarters at Worcester\nHouse; nay, one of them, the Earl of Dunfermline, had obtained leave from\nthe two Houses (May 13) to visit the King at Holmby! What might not be in\nagitation under this proposal of a removal of the King to Oatlands? What\nso easy as for the Presbyterians, with Colonel Graves for their agent, to\nsecure the King wholly to themselves, and so, having bargained with him\non their own terms, to invite back the Scots and defy the Army? Such had\nbeen questions gossiped over in the Army at the very time when for other\nreasons the resolution was taken for a general Rendezvous. This very\ndanger of some Presbyterian plot for removing the King from Holmby was an\nadditional reason for the Rendezvous and the contraction of the Army's\nquarters. But the Rendezvous was not enough. Simultaneously with the\nRendezvous, and to turn it to full account, something else was necessary.\nWhat that was had also been discussed among the Agitators with every\nprecaution of secrecy; select parties of troopers from different\nregiments had been told off for the enterprise; and a George Joyce, once\na tailor, but now cornet in Fairfax's lifeguard, had been appointed to\ntake the lead. [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals of dates given; and\nParl. Hist. III. 577-581, containing the King's Letter.]\n\nAs early as Wednesday June 2, or two days before the Rendezvous at\nNewmarket, there had been a suspicious appearance of parties of horse\ngathering to a body near Holmby. That night there was no doubt about it;\nand Colonel Graves, who had reasons for thinking that he was their main\nobject, had just made his escape, when, about one in the morning of June\n3, the troopers were in the park and meadows surrounding the house.\nBefore daylight they were within the gates, Graves's men having let them\nin and at once fraternized with them. The whole of that day was spent by\nthe troopers, Joyce acting as their spokesman, in a parley with the\nCommissioners in charge of the King--viz.: Lord Montague of Boughton, Sir\nJohn Coke, Mr. Crewe, and General Browne--the King meanwhile aware of\nwhat was going on, but keeping his privacy. Messengers had been sent off\nfrom the Commissioners to London; where, accordingly, on Friday the 4th,\nthere was great excitement in the two Houses. That same morning the news\nwas known in the Army at Newmarket, just before the proceedings of the\nRendezvous began, not much to the surprise of some there perhaps, but\ncertainly to the surprise of Fairfax himself. He could not then\ncountermand the Rendezvous; but at once he detached Whalley and his\nhorse-regiment, to gallop to Holmby, take Colonel Graves's place, and see\nthat no harm was done. By that time, however, Joyce had completed his\nbusiness. Passing from his first topic with the Commissioners, which had\nbeen Colonel Graves and his plot, he had insisted on seeing the King; had\ncompelled the Commissioners late at night on the 3rd to introduce him\ninto his Majesty's bedchamber; had there apologized, talked with his\nMajesty, answered his questions, and distinctly informed him that he had\nauthority from the Army to carry him away from Holmby. The King, amused\nand interested, as it seemed, rather than displeased, had taken the night\nto think over the matter; and by six o'clock next morning he had left his\nchamber, and was again in colloquy with Joyce, who had his troopers all\nmounted and ready where they could be seen. His Majesty did not seem\ndisinclined to go, but was naturally inquisitive as to the authority by\nwhich Joyce acted. Had he a commission from Fairfax? Mr. Joyce could not\nsay he had. Had he any commission at all? \"_There_ is my commission,\nyour Majesty,\" said Joyce at last, pointing to his mounted troopers. \"A\nfair commission and well-written,\" said the King, smiling: \"a company of\nas handsome, proper gentlemen as ever I saw in my life.\" In short, as\nthere was no help for it, he supposed he must go. And so, actually, after\nvain protests and solemn threats by the Commissioners, and especially by\nGeneral Browne, to all which Joyce listened unmoved, the party did set\noff at a trot from Holmby, about two o'clock in the afternoon of June 4,\nwith Joyce at their head, and the King in their charge, accompanied by\nthe Commissioners. The Scottish Earl of Dunfermline, who had witnessed\nmuch of the affair, had posted off to London, The Rendezvous at Newmarket\nwas then going on. [Footnote: Original accounts of Joyce's conduct at\nHolmby and abduction of the King are (1) Letters of the Commissioners\nfrom Holmby, June 3 and 4, and from Childersley June 8, addressed to\nManchester as Speaker of the Lords, and given in the Lords Journals; (2)\nFairfax's Letters to Speaker Lenthall, of June 4 and 7, in the Commons\nJournal giving Fairfax's account of the information he had collected, and\nof his own proceedings in consequence; (3) A very curious and interesting\ncontemporary account called \"_An Impartial Narration, &c._,\" reprinted by\nRushworth in five folio pages (VI. 513-517). On reading this paper, one\nsoon finds, from lapses from the third into the first personal pronoun,\nthat the writer is Joyce himself. The narrative, though by a man stiff at\nthe pen and rather elated by the importance of his act, appears perfectly\ntrustworthy, and supplies, many particulars. Clarendon's version of the\nincident is very loose and inaccurate. He huddles into one day what was\nreally an affair of two, &c.]\n\nJoyce having given the King the option, within a certain extent, of the\nplace to which he would be conveyed, his Majesty himself had suggested\nNewmarket. Thither, accordingly, they were bound. The evening of the 4th\nbrought them to Huntingdon, where his Majesty rested that night in the\nmansion-house of Hinchinbrook, once the property of Cromwell's uncle, Sir\nOliver, but now of Colonel Edward Montague. Next day (Saturday, June 5)\nthey were again on their march for Newmarket, when they were met, about\nfour miles from Cambridge, by Whalley and his regiment of horse. Joyce,\nof course, then retired from the management. Whalley, in accordance with\nhis instructions, was willing to convey the King and the Commissioners\nback to Holmby; but this his Majesty positively declined. Till there\nshould be farther deliberation, therefore, his Majesty was quartered at\nthe nearest convenient house, which chanced to be Sir John Cutts's at\nChildersley, near Cambridge. Here he remained over Sunday the 6th and\nMonday the 7th. Meanwhile both in London and at Newmarket the commotion\nwas boundless. The full news had reached the two Houses on Saturday the\n5th. Next day, though it was Sunday, they re-assembled for prayer and\nbusiness; but nothing practical could be thought of; all was panic,\npassing into a mood of submissiveness to the Army. The only show of\nanger, even in words, up to the mark of the occasion, was in a paper\ngiven in to a Committee of the two Houses by the Scottish Commissioners,\nwith a speech in their name by the Earl of Lauderdale. The Scottish\nnation had been insulted; its resentment might be expected; it would co-\noperate at once with the Parliament for \"the rescuing and defending his\nMajesty's person,\" &c.! It was easier for the Scottish Commissioners to\nspeak in this strain than for the Parliament to take corresponding\naction. The opportunity was now wholly with the Army. That they would\nadopt Joyce's deed, and take the full benefit of it, could not be\ndoubted; or, if it could, the procedure of Fairfax at once put an end to\nthe doubt. On Saturday and Sunday he was lifting his Rendezvous from\nNewmarket; by Monday the 7th he had brought his army bodily round about\nCambridge, so as to encircle the King; and on that day he, Cromwell,\nTreton, and Hammond, with Whalley, Waller, Lambert, and other chief\nofficers, were assembled in interview with the King and the Commissioners\nat Childersley House. No persuasion could induce his Majesty to go back\nto Holmby. Much of the conversation turned on Joyce's daring act and his\nauthority for it; and Joyce, having been called in, underwent a long\nexamination and cross-examination on this point. Very little could be got\nout of him, except that he had had no commission from Fairfax, and yet\nthat he considered his authority perfectly sufficient. Let the question,\nhe said, be put to the Army itself whether they approved of what he had\ndone, and, if three-fourths or four-fifths did not approve with\nacclamations, he would be hanged with pleasure. The Commissioners thought\nJoyce deserved hanging in any case; but the King, who had taken a liking\nfor him, told him that, though it was a great treason he had done, he\nmight consider himself pardoned. Joyce having then withdrawn, and the\nKing, having consented to remain with the Army, it was agreed that he\nshould be conveyed to Newmarket next day. [Footnote: Lords and Commons\nJournals of June 5 and 6; Parl. Hist. III. 591-594; Rushworth, VI. 545-\n550, with the previously-mentioned \"Impartial Narration\" of Joyce. To\nthis day nothing more is positively known of the real origin of the\nscheme of the King's abduction than Joyce allowed himself to reveal. We\nhave Fairfax's own solemn word \"as in the presence of God\" that he was\nutterly ignorant of the transaction till it was over; and in the same\nLetter (June 7) he \"dares be confident\" the officers and the body of the\nArmy were equally ignorant. Royalist and Presbyterian writers attribute\nthe act directly to Cromwell. It was planned, says Holles, at a meeting\nat Cromwell's house in London, May 30; and Clarendon and others lay\nstress on the fact that the very day of Cromwell's flight from London\n\"was the day of Joyce's appearance at Holmby. The Presbyterian Major\nHuntingdon, Cromwell's own Major, afterwards distinctly declared, Aug.\n1648, that Joyce had his instructions from Cromwell, and that Joyce\nhimself averred this to excuse himself from Fairfax's displeasure (Parl.\nHist. III. 967-8). I suspect that, whatever Cromwell and Ireton may have\nprivately sanctioned, the thing was managed among the Agitators; and it\ndoes not seem impossible that the original design was to seize Graves at\nHolmby, quash his supposed plotting there with Lord Dunfermline, and take\npossession of the King for the Army without removing him. As to the\nabduction, Joyce may have been left a discretion.]\n\nBefore we pass on, with the King, into the third stage of his captivity,\nwe have to report briefly the progress that had been made, during his\nstay at Holmby, in one or two matters of public concern, not directly\ninvolved in the feud between the Parliament and the Army.\n\nIn April 1647, there had been a vigorous resumption of the Church-\nquestion in the Commons, in consequence of the Report of a Committee on\nobstructions which had arisen to the Presbyterian settlement. There was\ngreat sluggishness all over the country in establishing elderships and\nclasses; returns from counties were deficient; even in London the\nProvincial Synod had not yet met! To remove these obstructions various\norders were passed, the Lords concurring (April 20-29). The most\nimportant of these was one for the immediate meeting of the FIRST\nPROVINCIAL PRESBYTERIAN SYNOD OF LONDON. It met in the Convocation House\nof St. Paul's, on Monday, May 3, 1647, and consisted of 108\nrepresentatives of the London classes or Presbyteries, in the proportion\nof three ministers and six lay-elders from each. Dr. Gouge, of\nBlackfriars, was chosen Prolocutor or Moderator of this first Synod, and\nthe term of the Moderatorship and of the Synod itself was to be for half\na year, or till November 1647; after which the Second Synod, similarly\nelected, was to meet, with a new Moderator; and so on, every six months,\nSynod after Synod, in Presbyterian London for ever. Of the First Synod,\nunder Dr. Gouge, we need only say that they arranged to meet twice a\nweek, and that, with the leave of the Parliament, they transferred their\nmeeting-place from St. Paul's to Sion College. The discussions there may\nhave been a little crippled by the fact that the new Presbyterian Church\nof England was not yet provided with an authorized _Confession of\nFaith_. The text of such a document, as prepared by the Westminster\nAssembly, had been before the two Houses since Dec. 1646 (_ant\u00e8_, p.\n512); the Lords on the 16th of February had urged the Commons in almost\nreproachful terms to quicken their pace in that business; the Commons on\nthe 22nd of April had at length roused themselves so far as to order the\nWestminster Assembly to send in the Scriptural proofs which they had been\npreparing according to a previous order; but, though on the 29th of April\nthese proofs were actually received and the Assembly thanked, it was not\ntill the 19th of May that the Commons did begin, Math printed copies of\nthe Confession before them, to examine the work, paragraph by paragraph.\nOn that day and May 28 they considered and passed, without division, and\napparently without much debate, the three first chapters of the\nConfession--viz.: Chap. I. _Of the Holy Scriptures_ (ten paragraphs);\nChap. II. _Of God and the Holy Trinity_ (three paragraphs); Chap. III.\n_Of God's Eternal Decrees_. The next chapter, entitled _Of Creation_, was\nto be proceeded with punctually on Wednesday next, June 2; but, when that\nday came, Fairfax's orders for the Army Rendezvous were out, Joyce was\nprowling about Holmby, and the \"Creation\" had to be postponed. [Footnote:\nCommons and Lords Journals of the days given (also a curious entry in\nCommons Journals of April 27); Rushworth, VI. 476; Neal, III. 356-358.]\n\nA matter on which the Parliament had been intent for some time was the\npurgation and regulation of the University of Oxford. If Parliamentary\npurgation had been found necessary for Cambridge three years before\n(_ant\u00e8_, pp. 92-96), how much more was this process needed in\nOxford, always the more Prelatic University of the two, and recently, as\nthe King's head-quarters through the Civil War, more deep-dyed in Prelacy\nthan ever! Where but in Oxford, amid courtiers and cavaliers, had ex-\nbishops, Anglican doctors, and other dangerous persons, found house-room\nfor the last few years? Whence but from the colleges at Oxford had come\nall the Prelatic sermons, pamphlets, and squibs against the Parliament,\nthe Covenant, and Presbytery, including the official Royalist newspaper,\nthe _Mercurius Aulicus_, edited by Mr. John Birkenhead and a society\nof his brother-wits? Accordingly, since the surrender of Oxford in June\n1646, punishment for the University had been in preparation. For various\nreasons, however, it had been administered first in a didactic form.\nPreachers of the right Presbyterian type had been sent down to Oxford by\nauthority in Aug. 1646; and these had been followed by such a rush of\nvolunteer zealots of all varieties that the loyal Oxford historian,\nAnthony Wood, shuddered to his life's end at the recollection. \"Hell was\nbroke loose,\" he says, \"upon the poor remnant\" of the scholars, so that\nmost of them \"did either leave the University or abscond in their\nrespective houses till they could know their doom.\" That doom came at\nlength in the form of an Ordinance of the two Houses for the Visitation\nof the University (May 1, 1647). It empowered twenty-four persons, not\nmembers of Parliament, among whom were Sir Nathaniel Brent, William\nPrynne, and thirteen other lawyers, the rest being divines, to visit\nOxford, inquire into abuses and delinquencies, impose the Covenant on\nHeads of Houses, Fellows, &c., and report the results to a standing\nCommittee of both Houses, consisting of twenty-six Peers and fifty-two of\nthe Commons. Under this Ordinance the Visitors issued a citation to the\nHeads of Houses and others to meet them in the Convocation House at\nOxford on the 4th of June. That was the day of the Army Rendezvous and of\nthe King's abduction; beyond which point we do not go at present. Suffice\nit to say that there was to be a most strenuous resistance by the\nOxonians, headed by their Vice-Chancellor Dr. Fell. [Footnote: Wool's\nFasti Oxon. II 100-1 and 106-7; Lords Journals, May 1; Neal, III. 395\n_et seq._]\n\n\nTHIRD STAGE OF THE CAPTIVITY: THE KING WITH THE ARMY, JUNE-NOV. 1647.\n\nEffects of Joyce's Abduction of the King--Movements of the Army: their\nDenunciation of Eleven of the Presbyterian Leaders: Parliamentary Alarms\nand Concessions--Presbyterian Phrenzy of the London Populace: Parliament\nmobbed, and Presbyterian Votes carried by Mob-law: Flight of the two\nSpeakers and their Adherents: Restoration of the Eleven--March of the\nArmy upon London: Military Occupation of the City: The Mob quelled,\nParliament reinstated, and the Eleven expelled--Generous Treatment of the\nKing by the Army: His Conferences with Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton--The\nArmy's _Heads of Proposals,_ and Comparison of the same with the\n_Nineteen Propositions_ of the Parliament--King at Hampton Court, still\ndemurring privately over the _Heads of Proposals,_ but playing them off\npublicly against the _Nineteen Propositions:_ Army at Putney--Cromwell's\nMotion for a Recast of the _Nineteen Propositions_ and Re-application to\nthe King on that Basis: Consequences of the Compromise: Intrigues at\nHampton Court: Influence of the Scottish Commissioners there: King\nimmoveable--Impatience of the Army at Putney: Cromwell under Suspicion:\nNew Activity of the Agitatorships: Growth of Levelling Doctrines among\nthe Soldiers: _Agreement of the People--_ Cromwell breaks utterly with\nthe King: Meetings of the Army Officers at Putney: Proposed Concordat\nbetween the Army and Parliament: The King's Escape to the Isle of Wight,\n\nThe effects of Joyce's abduction of the King from Holmby may be summed up\nby saying that for the next five months the Army and the Independents\nwere in the ascendant, and the Presbyterians depressed. There were to be\nvibrations of the balance, however, even during this period.\n\nWhat the Presbyterians dreaded was an immediate march of the Army upon\nLondon, to occupy the city and coerce Parliament. With no wish to resort\nto such a policy so long as it could be avoided, the Army-leaders, for a\ntime, kept moving their head-quarters from spot to spot in the counties\nnorth and west of London, now approaching the city and again receding,\nand paying but slight respect to the injunctions of the Parliament not to\nbring the Army within a distance of forty miles. On the 10th of June\nthere was a Rendezvous 21,000 strong at Triplow Heath, near Royston;\nthence, on the 12th, they came to St. Alban's, only twenty miles from\nLondon, spreading such alarm in the City by this movement that guards\nwere posted, shops shut, &c.; and they remained at St. Alban's till the\n24th, when they withdrew to Berkhampstead. Through this fortnight\nnegotiations had been going on between the Army-leaders and Parliamentary\nCommissioners who had been sent down expressly; letters had also passed\nbetween the Army-leaders and the City; and certain general\n\"Representations\" and \"Remonstrances\" had been sent forth by the Army,\npenned by Ireton and Lambert, but signed by Rushworth in the name of\nFairfax and the whole Council of War. In these it was distinctly repeated\nthat the Army had no desire to overturn or oppose Presbyterian Church-\ngovernment as it had been established, and only claimed Liberty of\nConscience under that government; but there were also clear expressions\nof the opinion that a dissolution of the existing Parliament and the\nelection of a new one on a more popular system ought to be in\ncontemplation. Nay, till the time should come for a dissolution, one\nthing was declared essential. In order that the existing Parliament might\nbe brought somewhat into accord with public necessities and interests,\nand so made endurable, it must be purged of its peccant elements. Not\nonly must Royalist Delinquents who still lurked in it be ejected, but\nalso those conspicuous Presbyterian enemies of the Army who had\noccasioned all the recent troubles! That there might be no mistake,\neleven such members of the House of Commons were named--to wit, Holles,\nStapleton, Sir William Lewis, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir William Waller,\nJohn Glynn, Esq., Anthony Nichols, Esq. (original members), and Sir John\nMaynard, Major-general Massey, Colonel Walter Long, and Colonel Edward\nHarley (Recruiters). This Army denunciation of eleven chiefs of the\nCommons, dated from St. Alban's June 14, had greatly perplexed the House;\nbut in the course of their debates on it they recovered spirit, and in a\nvote of June 25 they stood out for Parliamentary privilege. As there had\nbeen votes of the two Houses about bringing the King to Richmond for a\ntreaty, and other more secret signs of Presbyterian activity, the Army\nthen again applied the screw. They advanced to Uxbridge, some of the\nregiments showing themselves even closer to the City (June 26). This had\nthe intended effect. The eleven consented to withdraw from their places\nin the Commons, for a time at least (June 26); votes favourable to the\nArmy were passed by both Houses (June 26-29); and, though these were\nmingled with others not quite so satisfactory, the Army had no pretext\nfor a severer pressure. They withdrew, therefore, to Wycombe in Bucks.\nHere, at a Council of War (July 1), a Commission of ten officers\n(Cromwell, Ireton, Fleetwood, Lambert, Rainsborough, Sir Hardress Waller,\nRich, Robert Hammond, Desborough, and Harrison) was appointed to treat\nfarther with new Commissioners of the Parliament (the Earl of Nottingham,\nLord Wharton, Vane, Skippon, &c.). Then surely all seemed in a fair way.\n[Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 591-662; Rushworth, VI. 545-597; Godwin, II.\n323-354; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 226-232.]\n\nWhile Parliament, however, was thus yielding to the Army, the dense\nPresbyterianism of the City and the district round was more reckless and\nindignant. Whatever Parliament might do, the great city of London would\nbe true to its colours! Accordingly, in addition to various Petitions\nalready presented to the two Houses from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and\nCommon Council, all of an anti-Army character, a new one in the same\nsense, but purporting to be simply \"for payment of the soldiery and a\nspeedy settlement of the Nation,\" was presented July 2. A public and\nresponsible body like the Common Council could express itself only in\nsuch general terms; but the Presbyterian \"young men and apprentices of\nthe City,\" the number of whom was legion, and whose ranks and\ncombinations could easily be put in motion by the higher powers, were\nable to speak out boldly. On the 14th of July a Petition, said to be\nsigned by 10,000 such, was presented to both Houses, praying for strict\nobservance of the Covenant, the defence of his Majesty's person and just\npower and greatness, the disbandment of the Army, the thorough settlement\nof Presbyterian Government, the suppression of Conventicles, and defiance\nto the crotchet of Toleration. This audacious document having been\nreceived even with politeness by the Lords, and only with cautious\nreserve by the Commons, the City was stirred through all its Presbyterian\ndepths, made no doubt it could control Parliament, and grew more and more\nviolent to that end. Crowds came daily to Palace Yard and Westminster\nHall, signifying their anger at the seclusion of the Presbyterian Eleven,\nand at all the other concessions made to the Army and the Independents.\nWhat roused the City most, however, was the acquiescence of Parliament in\na demand of the Army that the Militia of London should be restored to the\nstate in which it had been before the 27th of April last. On that day the\nCommon Council, in whose trust the business was, had placed the direction\nof the Militia in a Committee wholly Presbyterian, excluding Alderman\nPennington and other known Independents; and what was desired by the Army\nwas that Parliament, resuming the power, should bring back the\nIndependents into the Committee. An Ordinance to that effect had no\nsooner passed the two Houses,--carried in the Commons by a majority of 77\nto 46 (July 22), and accepted by the Lords without a division (July 23),\n--than the City broke out in sheer rebellion. By this time there had been\nformed in the City and its purlieus a vast popular association, called \"A\nSolemn Engagement of the Citizens, Officers, and Soldiers of the Trained\nBands and Auxiliaries, Young Men and Apprentices of the Cities of London\nand Westminster, Sea-Commanders, Seamen, and Watermen, &c. &c.,\" all\npledged by oath to an upholding of the Covenant and the furthering of a\nPersonal Treaty between King and Parliament, without interference from\nthe Army. A copy of this Engagement, said by Presbyterian authorities to\nhave been signed by nearly 100,000 hands, with an accompanying Petition\nin the same sense, which had been addressed by the Engagers to the Lord\nMayor, Aldermen, and Common Council, was brought before both Houses on\nthe 24th of July. They declared it insolent and dangerous, and adjudged\nall who should persevere in it guilty of high treason. That day was\nSaturday, and the next day's Sabbath stood between the Houses and the\nwrath they were provoking. But on Monday the 26th they were called to a\nmighty reckoning. A Petition came in upon them from the Lord Mayor,\nAldermen, and Common Council, praying for a revocation of the Militia\nOrdinance of the 23rd, and enclosing Petitions to the same effect which\nthe Common Council had received from \"divers well-affected Citizens\" and\nfrom the \"Young Men, Citizens and others, Apprentices.\" That was not all.\nAnother Petition came in, from \"the Citizens, Young Men, and Apprentices\"\nthemselves, complaining of the \"pretended Declaration\" of the 24th\nagainst their Engagement, and of the seclusion of the Eleven. Even that\nwas not all. While the Petitions were under consideration, the Young Men,\nCitizens, and Apprentices, with Seamen, Watermen, Trained-Bands, and\nothers, their fellow-Engagers, were round the Houses in thousands in\nPalace Yard, and swarming in the lobbies, and throwing stones in upon the\nLords through the windows, and kicking at the doors of the Commons, and\nbursting in with their hats on, all to enforce their demands. The riot\nlasted eight hours. Speaker Lenthall, trying to quit the House, was\nforced back, and was glad to end the uproar by putting such questions to\nthe vote as the intruders dictated. The unpopular Ordinance of the 23rd\nand the Declaration of the 24th having thus been revoked under mob-\ncompulsion, the Houses were allowed to adjourn. They met next day,\nTuesday the 27th, but only to adjourn farther to Friday the 30th.\n[Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 664-723; Lords and Commons Journals;\nWhitlocke, II. 182-185.]\n\nWhen the Houses did re-assemble on that day, their appearance was most\nwoe-begone. Neither Manchester, the Speaker of the Lords, was to be\nfound, nor Lenthall, the Speaker of the Commons; there were but eight\nLords in the one House; and the benches in the other were unusually thin.\nNevertheless they proceeded in all due form. Each House elected a new\nSpeaker--the Peers Lord Willoughby of Parham for the day, and the Commons\nHenry Pelham, Esq., M.P. for Grantham, in permanence; each took notice of\nits absentees, and commanded their immediate re-attendance--the Commons\nalso restoring the Eleven, Ly special enumeration, to their places; and\neach went on for six or seven days, transacting business or trying to\ntransact it. A good deal of the business related to military preparations\nto make good the position the City had taken. Sir William Waller and\nGeneral Massey, two of the Eleven, were added to a Committee for\nconsultation with the City Committee of the Militia; this City Committee\nwas empowered to choose a commander-in-chief and other commanders of the\nLondon forces; and, when the Committee named Massey for the command-in-\nchief, and Waller for the command of the Horse, the Houses gave their\ncordial assent. In short, the two Houses, as they met during this\nextraordinary week from July 30 to Aug. 5, consisted mainly of a forlorn\nresidue of the most fanatical Presbyterians in each, regarding the riots\nof the 26th as a popular interposition for right principles, and\nanxiously considering whether, with such a zealous London round them, and\nwith Massey, Waller, Poyntz, and perhaps Browne, for their generals, they\nmight not be able to face and rout the Army of Fairfax. There may,\nhowever, have been some who remained with the residuary Houses on lazier\nor more subtle principles. The restored Eleven, with Sir Robert Pye, Sir\nRobert Harley, and a few other typical Presbyterians, certainly led the\nbusiness of the Commons in this extraordinary week; but among those that\nremained in that House how are we to account for Selden? [Footnote: Lords\nand Common Journals, July 30-Aug. 5, 1647.]\n\nThe City-tumults, intended as such a brave stroke for Presbytery, had\nbeen, in fact, a suicidal blunder. Manchester and Lenthall, the missing\nSpeakers, though themselves Presbyterians, had withdrawn in disgust from\nthe dictation of a London mob of mixed Presbyterian young men and\nRoyalist intriguers, and had been joined by about fourteen Peers, some of\nthem also eminently Presbyterian, and a hundred Commoners, mostly\nIndependents. Deliberating what was to be done, these seceders had\nresolved to place themselves under the protection of Fairfax, make common\ncause with him and the Army, and act as a kind of Parliamentary Council\nto him until they could resume their places in a Parliament free from\nmob-law. Meanwhile Fairfax, acting for himself, was on the march towards\nLondon. On the day of the tumults in London his headquarters had been as\nfar off as Bedford; but, starting thence on the 30th of July, he had\nreached Colnbrook on Sunday Aug. 1. Next day he came on to Hounslow; and\nhere it was that, at an imposing Review of his Army, horse, foot, and\nartillery, over 20,000 strong, the seceding Peers and Commoners came in,\nand were received by the soldiers with acclamations, and cries of\n\"_Lords and Commons, and a Free Parliament_!\" Only ten miles now\nintervened between the Army and the Common Council of the City of London\nconsulting with their Militia commanders at Guildhall, and somewhat less\nthan that distance between the Army and the presumptuous fragment of the\ntwo Houses at Westminster. Both these bodies, but especially the\ncitizens, had begun to come to their senses. The tramp, tramp, of\nFairfax's approaching Army had cooled their courage. At Guildhall,\nindeed, as Whitlocke tells us, whenever a scout brought in the good news\nthat the Army had halted, the people would still cry \"_One and all_;\" but\nthe cry would be changed into \"_Treat, Treat_\" a moment afterwards, when\nthey heard that the march had been resumed. At Hounslow, therefore,\nFairfax received the most submissive messages and deputations, with\nentreaties to spare the City. His reply, in effect, was that the City\nneed fear no unnecessary harshness from the Army, but that the late\n\"prodigious violence\" had brought things into such a crisis that the Army\nmust and would set them right. Nothing more was to be said: the rest was\naction. On the morning of Wednesday, Aug. 4, a brigade of the Army under\nRainsborough, which had been despatched across the Thames to approach\nLondon on the south side, was in peaceable possession of the borough of\nSouthwark, and had two cannon planted against the fort on London Bridge\ntill the citizens thought good to yield it up. That day and the next\nother defences on the Thames, eastwards and westwards, were seized or\nsurrendered. On Friday the 6th, Fairfax with his main Army, all with\nlaurel-leaves in their hats, and conducting the Lords and Commoners in\ntheir coaches, marched in from Hammersmith by Kensington to Hyde Park,\nwhere the Lord Mayor and Aldermen joined them, and so to Charing Cross,\nwhere the Common Council made their obeisances, and thence to Palace\nYard, Westminster. There the two Speakers were ceremoniously reinstated,\nthe Houses properly reconstituted, and Fairfax and the Army thanked.\nFinally, on Saturday the 7th, the grand affair was wound up by another\ndeliberate march of the Army through the main streets of the City itself,\nall the more impressive to the beholders from the perfect order kept, and\nthe abstinence from every act, word, or gesture, that could give offence.\nThe Tower was made over to Fairfax on the 9th; and his head-quarters for\nsome time continued to be in London or its immediate neighbourhood.\n[Footnote: Parl. Hist. III. 723-756; Whitlocke, II, 187-193; Godwin, II.\n371-387.]\n\nBy the Army's march through the City events were brought back so far into\nthe channel of regular Parliamentary debate, but with Independency\nnaturally more powerful than ever. All acts done by the two Houses during\nthe week's Interregnum of riot were voted null; and there were measures\nof retaliation against those who had been most prominent in that\nInterregnum. Six of the culpable Eleven--viz. Holles, Stapleton, Sir\nWilliam Waller, Clotworthy, Lewis, and Long--having fled abroad together,\nhad been chased at sea and overtaken, but let escape; and Stapleton had\ndied at Calais immediately after his landing. Massey had gone to Holland,\nwith Poyntz; but Glynn and Maynard, remaining behind, were expelled the\nHouse, impeached, and sent to the Tower (Sept. 7). Seven out of the nine\nPeers who had formed the Lords' House through the wrong-headed week were\nsimilarly impeached and committed--viz. the Earls of Suffolk, Lincoln,\nand Middlesex, and Lords Willoughby, Hunsdon, Berkeley, and Maynard. The\nLord Mayor and four Aldermen were disabled, impeached, and imprisoned\n(Sept. 24); several officers of the City Trained Bands were called to\naccount; and one result of inquiries respecting culprits of a lower grade\nwas an order by the Commons (Sept. 28 and Oct. 1) for the arrest and\nindictment for high treason of twelve persons, most of them young men and\napprentices, ascertained to have been ringleaders in the dreadful outrage\non the two Houses on the 26th of July. As there was a \"John Milton,\njunior\" among these young rioters, one would like to have known whether\nthey were found and how they fared. In truth, however, nothing very\nterrible was intended by such indictments and arrests. As the Army's\ntreatment of the conquered City had been studiously magnanimous, so what\nwas chiefly desired by the leaders now in power was that, by the removal\nfrom public sight of persons like the Seven in the one House, the Eleven\nin the other, and their City abettors, there might be a Parliament and\nCorporation reasonably in sympathy with the Army. As respected the\nParliament, this object had been attained. From the reinstatement of the\ntwo Houses by Fairfax, Aug. 6, on through the rest of that month and the\nmonths of September and October, what we see at Westminster is a small\nUpper House of from half-a-dozen to a dozen Peers, most of them\nmoderately Presbyterian, but several of them avowed Independents, co-\noperating with a Commons' House from which the Presbyterians had\nwithdrawn in large numbers, so that the average voting-attendance ranged\nfrom 90 to 190, and the divisions were mainly on new questions arising\namong the Independents themselves. [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals\nof dates given, and generally from Aug. 6 to the beginning of November.--\nThe Peers who formed the Lords' House through this period were the Earl\nof Manchester (Speaker), the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke (whose\nerror in remaining in the House through the week of intimidation had been\ncondoned), Kent, Salisbury, Mulgrave, Nottingham, and Denbigh, Viscount\nSaye and Sele, and Lords Wharton, Grey of Wark, Howard of Escrick, and\nDelawarr, with occasionally Lords Montague, North, and Herbert of\nCherbury. In the Commons I find one division (Sept. 25) when only 41\nvoted, and another (Nov. 3) when the number rose to 264. At a call of the\nHouse, Oct. 9, note was taken of about 240 absentees; and of these 59,\nwhose excuses were not considered sufficient, were fined 20_l._ each. A\ngood few of these were Independents.]\n\nIt was on these two Houses that the duty devolved of hammering out, if\npossible, a new Constitution for England that should satisfy the Army and\nyet be accepted by the King.\n\nIt had been a halcyon time with his Majesty since he had come into the\nkeeping of the Army. He was still a captive, but his captivity was little\nmore than nominal. Subject to the condition that he should accompany the\nArmy's movements, and not range beyond their grasp, he had been allowed\nto vary his residence at his pleasure. From his own house or hunting-\nlodge at Newmarket, whither he had gone from Childersley (June 7), he had\nmade visits in his coach or on horseback to various noblemen's houses\nnear; thence he had gone to his smaller hunting-seat at Royston; thence\n(June 26) to the Earl of Salisbury's mansion at Hatfield; thence (July 1)\nto Windsor; thence (July 3) to Lord Craven's at Caversham, near Beading;\nthence (July 15) to Maidenhead; thence (July 20) to the Earl of Bedford's\nat Woburn; thence to Latimers in Bucks, a mansion of the Earl of\nDevonshire; and so by other stages, always moving as the Army moved,\ntill, on the 14th of August, he was at Oatlands, and on the 24th at his\npalace of Hampton Court. At all these places the freest concourse to him\nhad been permitted, not only of Parliamentarian noblemen and gentlemen,\nand Cambridge scholars desiring to pay their respects, but even of noted\nRoyalists and old Councillors, such as the Duke of Richmond. His three\nyoung children--the Duke of York, the Princess Elizabeth, and the Duke of\nGloucester--had been brought to see him, in charge of their guardian the\nEarl of Northumberland, and had spent a day or two with him at Caversham,\nto the unbounded delight of the country-people thereabouts. But, what was\nthe most agreeable change of all for Charles, he had been permitted,\nsince his first coming to the Army, to have his own Episcopal chaplains,\nDr. Hammond, Dr. Sheldon, and others, in constant attendance upon him.\nThese civilities and courtesies had been partly yielded to him by the\npersonal generosity of the Army chiefs, Fairfax, Cromwell, and Ireton,\nacting on their own responsibility, partly procured for him by their\nmediation with the Parliament. There had been grumblings in the Houses,\nindeed, at the too great indulgence shown to his Majesty in his choice of\nchaplains and other company. [Footnote: Herbert's Memoirs (ed. 1813), pp.\n37-49; Godwin, II. 349-361.]\n\nWhat one dwells on as most interesting in the changed circumstances of\nhis Majesty is that, amid all the concourse of people round him, it was\nFairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and the other Army chiefs, that could now come\nclosest to him for purposes of real conference. They were now, indeed,\nfrequently with him, conversing with him, studying him face to face,\nconsidering within themselves whether it would be possible after all to\ncome to an arrangement with that man. In their interviews with him they\nwere most studious of external respect, though Cromwell and Ireton, it\nseems, never offered to follow Fairfax in the extreme ceremony of kissing\nthe royal hand. The King, on his side, showed them every attention, and\nwould be \"sometimes very pleasant in his discourse with them.\" What was\nto come of it all? [Footnote: Herbert, 36, 37; Clar. 614.]\n\nThe meetings of the Army-chiefs with Charles were not purposeless. Since\nhe had been in their keeping they had been carefully drawing up, and\nputting into exact expression, certain _Heads of Proposals_, to be\nsubmitted both to him and to Parliament as a basis for Peace, better in\nits own nature, and certainly more to the mind of the Army, than those\n_Nineteen Propositions_ of July 1646 which had hitherto been the\nvexed subject of debate. What these _Heads of Proposals_ were, or\ncame to be in their complete shape, we know from a final redaction of\nthem put forth on the 1st of August when the Army was at Colnbrook on its\nmarch upon refractory London. The document is signed by Rushworth, \"by\nthe appointment of his Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the Council of\nWar,\" but the penning is Ireton's, and probably much of the matter too.\nIt is a document of consummate political skill and most lawyerlike\nprecision. It consists of sixteen Heads, some of them numerically\nsubdivided, each Head propounding the Army's desires on one of the great\nquestions in dispute between the nation and the King. Biennial\nParliaments in a strictly guaranteed series for the future, each to sit\nfor not less than 120 days and not more than 240, and the Commons House\nin each to have increased powers and to be elected by constituencies so\nreformed as to secure a fair and equable representation of population and\nproperty all over England: this is the substance of the first Head.\nEntire control by Parliament of the Militia for ten years, with a voice\nin subsequent arrangements, and farther, for security on this matter, the\nexclusion from places of public trust for the next five years of persons\nwho had borne arms against the Parliament, unless in so far as Parliament\nmight see fit to make individual exceptions: such is the provision under\nthe second Head. Of the remaining Articles, one or two refer to Ireland,\nand others to law-reforms in England. Articles XI.-XIII. treat of the\nReligious Question, and are remarkably liberal. They say nothing about\nEpiscopacy or Presbytery as such, but stipulate for the abolition of \"all\ncoercive power, authority and jurisdiction of Bishops and all other\necclesiastical officers whatsoever extending to any civil penalties upon\nany,\" and also for the repeal of all Acts enforcing the Book of Common\nPrayer, or attendance at church, or prohibiting meetings for worship\napart from the regular Church; and they expressly stipulate for non-\nenforcement of the Covenant on any. In other words, the Army, as a whole,\nneither advised an Established Church, nor objected to one, nor would\nindicate a preference for Presbytery or Episcopacy in the rule of such a\nChurch, but stood out, in any case and all cases, for Liberty of\nReligious Dissent. How far they went on this negative principle may be\njudged from the fact that they do not haggle on even the Roman Catholic\nexception, but hint that, so far as it might be necessary to discover\nPapists and Jesuits and prevent them from disturbing the State, other\nmeans than enforced church-attendance might be devised for that end.\nArticle XIV. proposes the restoration of the King, Queen, and their\nissue, to full \"safety, honour, and freedom,\" when the preceding Articles\nshall have been settled, and with no limitation of the regal power except\nas therein provided. The remaining two Articles appear therefore\nsupernumerary. One refers to Compositions by Delinquents, and urges a\ngenerous relaxation of the rates on such, so as not to ruin people for\npast faults. So also the last Article recommends a general Act of\nOblivion of past offences, and a restoration of all Royalists to their\nfull civil rights and privileges, after composition, or, in cases of good\ndesert, without composition, with only the exception provided in the\nsecond Article.\n\nThese _Heads of Proposals_ of the Army strike one as not only\ninspired by a far wiser and deeper political philosophy than the\n_Nineteen Propositions_ of the Parliament, but really also as\nmagnanimously considerate of the King in comparison. They are so generous\nthat we can account for them only by supposing that the Army-chiefs were\nreally prepared for a fresh trial of government by King, Lords, and\nCommons, with the security against renewed despotism furnished by the\nArticle about the Militia, combined with the Article for a succession of\nBiennial Parliaments. Two things are to be observed, however. One is that\nthe _Heads of Proposals_ were tendered for the English kingdom\nalone, \"leaving the terms of Peace for the kingdom of Scotland to stand\nas in the late [Nineteen] Propositions of both kingdoms, until that\nkingdom shall agree to any alteration.\" But farther, even as respected\nEngland, there was no promise by the Army that the King could avoid the\nestablishment of Presbytery. Things had gone so far in that direction,\nand the majority seemed so determined in it, that the Army neither could\nnor did desire to resist a Presbyterian establishment, were it persevered\nin by Parliament. Only they were resolved that the creed, discipline, or\nworship of that establishment, or of any other, should not be compulsory\neither on the King or on any of his subjects. [Footnote: See the _Heads\nof Proposals_ complete in Parl. Hist. III. 738-745, and Rushworth,\nVII. 731-736 (the paging in this vol. beginning p. 731). Sufficient\nattention has not been paid by historians, except perhaps Godwin (II.\n373-378), to this great document. Even Godwin resorts to the\nextraordinary hypothesis the Proposals were not in good faith, but only a\nMachiavellian device of Cromwell and Ireton for detaching Charles from\nthe Presbyterians and bringing him over to the Army, who could then laugh\nat him and the Proposals too. Godwin remarks in particular that, as\nIreton, who penned the Proposals, was \"the most inflexible Republican\nthat ever existed,\" his self-repression in drawing up such a document,\naccepting restored Royalty, and casting away the chance of a Republic,\nmust have been colossal. In Royalist historians of the seventeenth\ncentury this kind of reasoning was natural, but one is surprised to find\nit affecting a mind so able and candid as Godwin's. There is no reason to\ndoubt that, when the _Heads of Proposals_ were settled, they expressed\nthe real and deliberate conclusions of the Army chiefs as to those terms\nthe honest acceptance of which by Charles would satisfy them. Nay, the\npublication of them was a service to Charles, by instructing the nation\ngenerally on a better means of dealing with him than the Nineteen\nPropositions.  See Denzil Holles's amazed opinion of them as \"a new\nplatform of government, an Utopia of their own.\" (Memoirs, p. 176 _et\nseq._). As for Ireton's suppression of his Republicanism, Ireton's\nRepublicanism, like other people's, probably _grew_.]\n\nThe Army Proposals, or the main substance of them, had been the subject\nof conversations between Charles and the Army-chiefs, and even of a\nformal conference between him and them, on or about July 24, when he was\nat Woburn. He had fumed and stormed at the Proposals, telling the\ndeputation he would have Episcopacy established by law, the Army could\nnot do without him, its chiefs would be ruined if they had not his\nsupport, and so on. The secret of this behaviour seems to have been that\nCharles was at that moment building great hopes on the recent\ndemonstrations of the City of London in favour of a Personal Treaty with\nhim in the Presbyterian interest, and was even aware of the attempted\nrevolution then about to break forth in the form of the London tumults.\nIt says much for the forbearance of the Army-leaders that they did not\nwithdraw the Proposals after this first rejection of them by the King. On\nthe contrary, they were resolved that the King should still have the\noption of agreeing with them; they modified them in some points to suit\nhim; and they were willing that the whole world should know what they\nwere. Hence the formal redaction of them into the Paper of Aug. 1, at\nColnbrook. Copies of the Paper were then and there delivered to the\nParliamentary Commissioners with the Army; and it was with that Paper\ncarried before it that the Army continued its march into London.\nAccordingly, on the first day of the meeting of the reconstituted Houses\n(Aug. 6), the Army's _Heads of Proposals_ were officially tabled in\nboth (in the Commons by Sir Henry Vane), in order that the Houses might,\nif they saw fit, adopt them in future dealings with the King, instead of\nthe _Nineteen Propositions_. [Footnote: Major Huntingdon's Paper\naccusing Cromwell, Parl. Hist. III. 970; Sir John Berkley's _Memoirs of\nNegotiations_ (1699), reprinted in Harleian' Miscellany, IX 466-488;\nGodwin (quoting Bamfield), II. 378-380; Parl. Hist. III. 737; Commons\nJournals, Aug. 6. There is evidence that, between the submission of the\nProposals to the King at Woburn on or about July 24 and their complete\nredaction for publication Aug. 1; additions had been made to accommodate\nthe King. Such additions may have been the two supernumerary Articles\nproviding for lenity to compounders and a general Act of Oblivion.]\n\nSeptember and October were the months of the complicated negotiation thus\narising. The King was then at Hampton Court, whither he had removed Aug.\n24, and where he was surrounded by such state and luxury that it seemed\nas if the old days of Royalty had returned. Not only had he his chaplains\nabout him, and favourite household servants brought together again from\ndifferent parts of England; not only could he ride over when he liked to\nsee his children at the Earl of Northumberland's seat of Sion House; but,\nas if an amnesty had already been passed, Royalists of the most marked\nantecedents, some of them from their places of exile abroad, were\npermitted to gather round him, permanently or for a day or two at a time,\nso as to form a Court of no mean appearance. Such were (in addition to\nthe Duke of Richmond) the Marquis of Hertford, the Earls of Southampton\nand Dorset, Lord Capel from Jersey, Sir John Berkley and Mr. Legge and\nMr. Ashburnham from France, and, not least, the Marquis of Ormond, now at\nlast, by his surrender of Dublin to Parliament, free from his long duty\nin Ireland. Save that Colonel Whalley and his regiment of horse kept\nguard at Hampton Court, \"captivity\" was hardly now a word to be applied\nto Charles's condition. Whalley's horse, it is true, were but the outpost\nat Hampton Court of the greater force near at hand. On the 27th of\nAugust, or three days after the King had removed to Hampton Court, the\nArmy's head-quarters had been shifted to Putney, and they continued to be\nat Putney all the while the King was at Hampton Court. From Hampton Court\nto Westminster is twelve miles, and Putney lies exactly half way between;\nand the complex problem then trying to work itself out may be represented\nto the memory by the names and relative positions of these three places.\nAt Westminster was the regular Parliament, moving for that policy which\ncould command the majority in a body of mixed Presbyterians and\nIndependents of various shades, with Army officers among them; at Putney\nmidway was the Army, containing its military Parliament, of which the\ngenerals and colonels were the Upper House, while the under-officers,\nwith the regimental agitators, were the Commons; and at Hampton Court, in\nconstant communication with both powers, and entertaining proposals from\nboth, was Charles with his revived little Court. Scotland in the distance\nmust not be forgotten. Her emissaries and representatives were on the\nscene too, running from Parliament to Hampton Court and from Hampton\nCourt to Parliament, as busy as needles, but rather avoiding Putney.\n[Footnote: Rushworth, VII. 789 _et seq._; Herbert, 47-51.]\n\nA very considerable element, indeed, in the now complex condition of\naffairs was the interference from Scotland. As the Presbyterian Rising in\nLondon had occasioned great joy in Scotland, so the collapse of that\nattempt had been a sore disappointment. Baillie's comments, written from\nEdinburgh, where he chanced to be at the time, are very instructive. The\nimpression in Edinburgh was that there had been great cowardice among the\nLondon Presbyterians, and stupid mismanagement of a splendid opportunity.\nHad the Parliament put on a bolder front, had the City stood to their\n\"brave Engagement,\" had Massey and Waller shown \"any kind of masculous\nactivity,\" and above all had not Mr. Stephen Marshall and seventeen of\nthe London ministers with him separated themselves at the critical moment\nfrom the body of their brethren, and put forth a childish Petition\ndisavowing all sympathy with the tumults, what a different ending there\nmight have been! As it was, \"a company of silly rascals\" (Fairfax's Army\nto wit) had \"made themselves masters of the King and Parliament and City,\nand by them of all England.\" So wrote Baillie privately, and the public\norgans of Scottish opinion had spoken out to the same effect. There had\nbeen Letters and Remonstrances from the Scottish Committee of Estates to\nthe reconstituted English Parliament, severely criticising the general\nstate of affairs in England, and complaining especially of the monstrous\ninsolence of the Army in possessing themselves of the King, and the\nexpulsion at their instance of the eleven Presbyterian leaders from the\nCommons. Were not these acts, though done in England, outrages on\nScotland as well, and against the obligations of the Covenant? The\nEngland with which Scotland had consented to league herself by the\nCovenant was a very different England from that which seemed now to be\ncoming into fashion--an England in which constituted authority seemed to\nbe at an end, and an Army ruled all! And what an Army! An Army of\nSectaries, driving on for a principle of Liberty of Conscience which\nwould lead to a \"Babylonish confusion,\" and impregnated also (as could be\nproved by extracts from their favourite pamphlets) with ideas actually\nanti-monarchical and revolutionary! So, in successive letters, from Aug.\n13 onwards, the Scottish Government remonstrated from Edinburgh,\nintermingling political criticisms with special complaints, which they\nhad a better right to make, of insults done by officers and soldiers of\nFairfax's Army to the Scottish envoys in England, and especially to the\nEarl of Lauderdale. Nor was the Scottish Kirk more backward. The regular\nannual Assembly of the Kirk had met at Edinburgh Aug. 4; and in a long\ndocument put forth by that body Aug. 20, in the form of \"A Declaration\nand Brotherly Exhortation to their Brethren of England,\" the anarchy of\nEngland on the religious question is largely bewailed. \"Nevertheless,\"\nthey say, after recounting the steps of the happy progress made by\nEngland to conformity with Scotland in one and the same Presbyterian\nChurch-rule, \"we are also very sensible of the great and imminent dangers\ninto which this common cause of Religion is now brought by the growing\nand spreading of most dangerous errors in England, to the obstructing and\nhindering of the begun Reformation: as namely (besides many others)\nSocinianism, Arminianism, Anabaptism, Antinomianism, Brownism,\nErastianism, Independency, and that which is called, by abuse of the\nword, Liberty of Conscience, being indeed liberty of error, scandal,\nschism, heresy, dishonouring God, opposing the truth, hindering\nreformation, and seducing others; whereunto we add those Nullifidians, or\nmen of no religion, commonly called Seekers.\" [Footnote: Baillie, III. 9-\n22; Acts of Scottish General Assembly of 1647; Rushworth, VII. 768-771;\nand correspondence of Scottish Commissioners in Lords Journals of Aug.\nand Sept. 1647. For the escapade of  Stephen Marshall and his friends,\nreferred to by Baillie, see Neal, III. 375-6. While these few of the city\nministers disavowed the tumults, the Westminster Divines as a body merely\nmediated in a neutral style to avoid bloodshed (Commons Journals, Aug.\n2).]\n\nGreat as was the influence of the Army on the Parliament it had\nreinstated, the extreme Tolerationism of the Army Proposals would have\nmade their chance hopeless with that body even if left to itself. But\nwith such blasts coming from Scotland, and repeated close at hand by the\nkey-bugles of Lauderdale and the other Scottish Commissioners in London,\nthe Parliament did not dare even to consider the Proposals. To have done\nso would have been at once to sever the two nations, enrage the Scots,\nand drive them to no one could tell what revenge. To fall back on the\nNineteen Propositions was, therefore, the only possible policy.\nAccordingly, on the 7th of September, the Nineteen Propositions, with but\none or two slight alterations, were again ceremoniously tendered to\nCharles on the part of the English Parliament and the Scottish\nCommissioners conjointly. They desired his answer within six days at the\nutmost. \"Six or sixteen, it was equal to him,\" he said to the Earl of\nPembroke, who presented them; and in fact his Majesty's Answer, dated\nHampton Court, was returned Sept. 9. It was that he retained all his\nformer objections to those now familiar Propositions, and that, having\nseen certain \"Proposals of the Army,\" to which \"he conceived his two\nHouses not to be strangers,\" he was of opinion that _they_ would be\n\"a fitter foundation for a lasting Peace.\" In other words, though Charles\nhad rejected the Army Proposals when first offered to him, he now played\nthem against the Nineteen Propositions, ironically asking the Parliament\nnot to persevere in terms of negotiation that might be regarded as\nobsolete, but to agree to a Treaty with him on the much better terms\nwhich had been suggested by their own Army, but which apparently they\nwanted to keep out of sight. This for England; and, for what concerned\nScotland, he would willingly have a separate Treaty with the Scottish\nCommissioners, if they chose, on those parts of the Nineteen Propositions\nwhich were of interest to the Scottish nation. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII.\n796, 802-3, and 810-11; and Lords Journals, Sept. 8 and Sept. 14.]\n\nParliament was in a dilemma. Was Charles to be taken at his word? Were\nthe Nineteen Propositions to be flung overboard, and the Army Proposals\npublicly brought forward instead? The Presbyterian dread of Toleration,\nif not Presbyterianism itself, was still too strong in the Parliament,\nand the prospect of a rupture with the Scots was still too awful with\nmany, to admit of such a course. What was actually done, after twelve\ndays of hesitation and consultation, appears from three entries in the\nCommons Journals of Sept. 21, Sept. 22, and Sept. 23, respectively. Sept.\n21: \"_Resolved_, That the King, in this Answer of the 9th Sept., given at\nHampton Court, hath denied to give his consent to the Propositions: \"such\nis the first entry. The second, on the following day, runs thus:\" The\nquestion being put, That the House be forthwith resolved into a Grand\nCommittee, to take into consideration the whole matter concerning the\nKing, according to the former order, the House was divided. The _Yeas_\nwent forth: (Lieut.-General Cromwell, Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, tellers\nfor the _Yea_) with the _Yea_ 84; (Sir Peter Wentworth, Colonel\nRainsborough, tellers for the _No_) with the _No_ 34; so that the\nquestion passed with the affirmative.\" On the following day, accordingly,\nwe find \"The question was propounded, That the House will once again make\napplication to the King for those things which the Houses shall judge\nnecessary for the welfare and safety of the kingdom; and, the question\nbeing put, Whether this question shall be now put, the House was divided:\n(Sir Arthur Haselrig, Sir John Evelyn of Wilts, tellers for the _Yea_)\nwith the _Yea_ 70; (Sir Peter Wentworth, Colonel Marten, tellers for the\n_No_) with the _No_ 23: so that the question passed with the\naffirmative.\" As far as one can construe what lies under these entries,\nthe state of the case was this:--By the King's new rejection of the\nNineteen Propositions (the Army-chiefs aware of the rejection beforehand\nand much approving [Footnote: Berkley's Memoirs, Harl. Misc. IX. 478. \"We\n[Berkley, Ashburnham, &c.] gave our friends in the Army a sight of this\n[the King's] Answer the day before it was sent, with which they seemed\ninfinitely satisfied.\"]), the Presbyterians were checkmated. Unless they\nwould vote the King dethroned, they had no move left. The power of moving\nthen lay with the Independents. Now the more strenuously Republican of\nthese, including Colonel Rainsborough and Henry Marten, were for not\nusing the power, either because they desired to break with Charles\nentirely, or because they wanted to shut up him and Parliament together\nto the Army Proposals absolutely. Cromwell, however, though faithful to\nthe Army Proposals as the plan ideally best, was not prepared to take the\nresponsibility of bringing on the crash at once. Might there not be a\ntemporizing method? Might not the two Houses be asked to cease thinking\nof the Nineteen Propositions as a perfected series to which they were\nbound in all its parts and items, and to go over the whole business\nafresh, selecting the most essential questions of the Nineteen\nPropositions and expressing present conclusions on these in new\nPropositions to be offered to the King? Haselrig, Evelyn of Wilts, and\nothers of the Independent leaders, agreeing with this view, and a good\nfew of the Presbyterians perhaps accepting it gladly in their dilemma,\nCromwell divided the Commons upon it, and obtained his decisive majority\nof Sept. 22, confirmed by the as decisive majority of the next day.\n[Footnote: Commons Journals of days named.]\n\nThe Lords having concurred, Sept. 30, in this motion for a new\napplication to the King, and the Scottish Commissioners having been duly\ninformed, the two Houses went on busily, framing the new Propositions,\nand, where any differences arose, adjusting them at conferences with each\nother. By the 28th of October a good many important propositions had been\nagreed to; but, on the whole, one does not see that the terms for Charles\nwere to be much easier by this route than they had been by the other. In\none matter, however, the Commons _had_ proposed a change. On the\n13th of October, a committee having reported on that one of the intended\nPropositions which concerned Church-government, and the resolution before\nthe House being that the King be asked to give his consent to the Acts\nfor settling the Presbyterian Government, Cromwell had forced the House\nto three divisions. First he tried to limit the term of such settlement\nto three years, and lost in a small House by a minority of 35 to 38; then\nhe insisted that _some_ limit of time should be mentioned, and won\nby 44 to 30; then he proposed that seven years should be the term, and\nlost by 33 to 41, Finally it was agreed that the Presbyterian Settlement\nto which the King's consent should be asked should be till the end of the\nParliament next after that then sitting. But on the same day and the\nfollowing the question of Toleration also came up, and with these\nresults: Toleration to be granted of separate worship for Nonconformists\nof tender consciences, but not for Roman Catholics, nor any toleration of\nthe use of the Book of Common Prayer, nor of preaching contrary to the\nmain principles of the Christian Religion, nor yet of absence on the\nLord's day from worship and hearing of the word of God somewhere. This\nwas all the amount of Toleration that Cromwell and the Independents even\nin October 1647, with an Army at Putney all aflame for Toleration, could\nextract from the reluctant Commons at Westminster. The Lords appear to\nhave hesitated about even so much as this; for it was not till the 2nd of\nNovember that the two Houses came to an understanding on the subject, and\neven on the 9th of that month the Lords wanted some additional security\nin the form of a \"Proposition for suppressing innovations in Religion.\"\n[Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals of dates named; and Rushworth, VII.\n843-4 and 853-4.]\n\nHere, to bring the history of the English Church-question to a period for\nthe present, we may notice one or two contemporary incidents.----On\nSaturday, Oct. 2, the Commons had resumed their examination of the\nWestminster Assembly's _Confession of Faith_, at the point where\nthey had left off that work in the preceding May, viz. at Chap. IV. \"Of\nCreation,\" (_ant\u00e8_, p. 545). They passed that chapter and also the\nfirst paragraph of Chap. V., \"Of Providence,\" that day, and resolved to\ncontinue the business next Wednesday and punctually every following\nWednesday till it should be despatched. But Wednesday after Wednesday\ncame; other business was too pressing; and so the matter hung. This was\nthe more inconvenient because on the 22nd of October the Assembly\npresented to the two Houses their _Larger Catechism_ completed. It\nwas ordered that 600 copies should be printed for consideration, and that\nmatter too lay over. In the midst of such delays in Parliament it was\nsomething on the credit side that the SECOND PROVINCIAL PRESBYTERIAN\nSYNOD OF LONDON duly met in Sion College on the 8th of November, with Dr.\nSeaman for Moderator. It was, indeed, time now for English\nPresbyterianism to be walking alone. Gillespie, one of the two Scottish\nDivines left last in the Westminster Assembly, had returned to Scotland\nin the preceding August; and on the 9th of November it was announced in\nthe Lords that Mr. Rutherford too was going. In bidding farewell to his\nbrethren of the Assembly he took care to have it duly recorded in their\nbooks that the Scottish Commissioners, all or some, had been present to\nthat point and had constantly taken part in the proceedings. The Assembly\nwas still to linger on, he meant to say, but its best days were over.\n[Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals of the dates given; and Neal, III.\n354 and 358-9.]\n\nThere was no greater mystery all this while than the conduct of Cromwell\nand Ireton. Since the King had come to Hampton Court he had been in\ncontinual intercourse with them, either in direct conferences, or by\nmessages through Mr. Ashburnham and others. The intercourse had been kept\nup even after Cromwell's motion of Sept. 22 for re-approaching the King\non the whole question in a Parliamentary way, and while Cromwell was\nconstantly attending the House and taking part in the proceedings\nconsequent on his motion. [Footnote: \"Sir, I pray excuse my not-\nattendance upon you. I feared to miss the House a day, where it's very\nnecessary for me to be.\" So wrote Cromwell to Fairfax Oct. 13, the very\nday of his three divisions of the House on the duration of Presbytery,\nand of the compromise there on Toleration (Carlyle's Cromwell, f. 239).]\nWhat did it all mean? We have little difficulty now in seeing what it\nmeant. Cromwell, even while urging on the re-application to the King in a\nParliamentary way, had not given up hope that the King might be\nconstrained into an extra-Parliamentary pact on some basis like that of\nthe Army Proposals. Might not Charles be wise now in the extremity to\nwhich he saw himself reduced, and accept the prospect, which the Army\nscheme held out, of a restoration of his Royalty, under inevitable\nconstitutional restrictions, but those less galling in many respects, and\nespecially in the religious respect, than the restrictions demanded by\nParliament? Such, we can see now, were the reasonings of Cromwell and\nIreton, and to such an end were their labours directed. But the world at\nthe time was suspicious and saw much more. What the English Presbyterians\nand the Scots saw was Cromwell wheedling his Majesty into the possession\nof himself and his Sectaries, so as to be able to overthrow Parliament\nand Presbytery immediately, and then reserve his Majesty for more\nleisurely ruin. What the Royalists round the King saw was more. A blue\nriband, the Earldom of Essex, the Captaincy-general of all the forces,\nthe permanent premiership in England under the restored Royalty, and the\nLieutenancy of Ireland for his son-in-law Ireton--how could the Brewer\nresist such temptations? Mean rumours of this kind ran about, or were\nmischievously circulated, till they affected the Army itself and roused\nsuspicions of Cromwell's integrity even among his own Ironsides. It was\nnot only that Colonel Rainsborough, who had opposed Cromwell's motion for\nre-opening negotiations with Charles, had since then stood out against\nhis policy of conciliation, and had been joined by other officers, such\nas Colonel Ewer. Despite this opposition in the Council of the chief\nofficers at Putney, Cromwell and Ireton still ruled in that body. But\namong the inferior officers and the Agitatorships a spirit had arisen\noutgoing the control of the chiefs, critical of their proceedings, and\nimpatient for a swifter and rougher settlement of the whole political\nquestion than seemed agreeable to Cromwell. [Footnote: Berkley's Memoirs\n(Harl. Misc.) 476, 478; Holles, 184; Baxter, Book I. p.60; Clar. 620;\nGodwin, II. 400 _et seq._ See also Major Huntington's Paper of\nAccusations against Cromwell and Ireton in Aug. 1648 (Parl. Hist. III.\n966-974). Duly interpreted, it is very instructive.]\n\nAt Putney the Army, having little to do, had resolved itself into a great\ndaily debating-society, holding meetings of its own Agitatorships and\nreceiving deputations from the similar but civilian Agitatorships that\nhad sprung up in London. Hence a rapid increase among the common soldiers\nof the political school of THE LEVELLERS. Of this school John Lilburne,\nstill in his prison in the Tower, but with the freedom of pen and ink\nthere, was now conspicuously one of the chiefs. \"That the House of\nCommons should think of that great Murderer of England (meaning the\nKing), for by the impartial Law of God there is no exemption of Kings,\nPrinces, Dukes, Earls, more than cobblers, tinkers, or chimney-sweepers;\"\n\"That the Lords are but painted puppets and Dagons, no natural issue of\nLaws, but the mushrooms of prerogative, the wens of just government,\nputting the body of the People to pain,\"--such were opinions and phrases\ncollected from Lilburne's and other pamphlets by the Scottish Government\nas early as Aug. 13, and then publicly presented in the name of Scotland\nfor the rebuke of the English Parliament and the horror of the whole\nBritish world. In such phrases we have the essence of the doctrine of the\nLevellers, as distinct from the more tentative Democracy of many\ncontemporary minds. The _Army Proposals_ of Aug. 1 were not for a\ntotal subversion of the English Constitution of King, Lords, and Commons,\nbut only for a great limitation of the Royal Power, a reduction also of\nthe power of the House of Lords, a corresponding increase of the power of\nthe Commons or Representative House, and a broader basing of that House\nin a popular suffrage. But, now that the King had rejected the Proposals,\nthe Levelling Doctrine burst up from its secret beds, and rushed more\nvisibly through the whole Army. There began to be comments among the\nAgitators on the dilatoriness of Cromwell, and especially on his\ncoquettings with the King. \"I have honoured you, and my good thoughts of\nyou are not yet wholly gone, though I confess they are much weakened,\"\nLilburne had written to Cromwell Aug. 13, kindly offering him a chance of\nredeeming his character, but otherwise threatening to pull him down from\nall his \"present conceived greatness\" before he was three months older.\nCromwell not having mended his ways, Lilburne had been endeavouring to\nfulfil his threat; and by the end of October there was a wide-spread\nmutiny through the regiments at Putney. The Army, having its own\nprinters, had by that time made its designs known in two documents. One,\nentitled _The Case of the Army_, was signed by the agents of five\nregiments, Cromwell's and Ireton's own included (Oct. 18); the other,\nentitled _An Agreement of the People_ (Nov. 1), emanated from the\nsame regiments and eleven others. Both documents pledged the regiments\nnot to disband until the Army had secured its rights; and among these\nrights were the speedy dissolution of the existing Parliament, and the\nreconstitution of the Government of England in a single Representative\nHouse, elected by a reformed system of suffrage, and meeting biennially.\nThis House was to be supreme in all matters, except five specified\nfundamentals which were to be regarded as settled _ab initio_ beyond\ndisturbance or even reconsideration by any corporate authority whatever.\nOne of them was absolute freedom to all \"in the matter of Religion and\nthe ways of God's worship\"; but this was not to prevent the State from\nsetting up any \"public way of instructing the Nation, so it be not\ncompulsive.\" In fact, here was the accurate essence of the _Army\nProposals_ over again, only distilled to a higher strength and more\nfiercely flavoured. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII. 769, 770, 845-6, and 859,\n860; Godwin, II. 423-428, and 436-450. One of the numerous incredible and\ncontradictory hypotheses about Cromwell is that it was he who, while in\ntreaty with the King for a restoration of his Royalty, was all the while,\nby his secret grip of the Army-Agitatorships, hounding them on in their\nultra democratic tendencies. The Levelling Principle itself would be a\nuseful force in his hands, and he could well consent to being abused by\nthe Agitators while they were really working for his ends!!]\n\nCromwell's preserved Letters of this period are few, but one of them\ncontains a reference to the misconstructions to which he was then\nsubject. \"Though, it may be, for the present,\" he says, \"a cloud may lie\nover our actions to those who are not acquainted with the grounds of\nthem, yet we doubt not but God will clear our integrity, and innocency\nfrom any other ends we aim at but His glory and the Public Good.\"\n[Footnote: Letter to Colonel Jones, Governor of Dublin, dated Sept 14,\n1647; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 237-8.] At length, however, he had to let it\nbe seen that he had broken off from Charles utterly. Who does not know\nthe picturesque popular myth at this point of Cromwell's biography?\nCromwell and Ireton says the myth, sat one night in the Blue Boar Tavern,\nHolborn, disguised as common troopers and calling for cans of beer, till\nthe sentinel they had placed outside came in and told them the man with\nthe saddle had arrived; whereupon, going out, they collared the man, got\npossession of the saddle he carried, and, ripping up the skirt of it,\nfound the King's letter to the Queen in which he quite agreed with her\nopinion of the two Army-villains he was then obliged to cajole, and\nassured her they should have their deserts at last. [Footnote: The story\nprofesses to have come from Cromwell's own lips in conversation in 1649\nwith Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, afterwards Earl of Orrery; but its\nmythical character is obvious.].\n\nIt needed no such interception of a letter in the yard of a tavern to\nconvince Cromwell at last that Charles could not be trusted even in a\nnegotiation for his own benefit. All the while that he had been treating\nwith Cromwell and Ireton, in the sense of the Army Proposals, with a\nReligious Toleration included, he had been treating with the Scots, both\nby messages through the Earl of Lauderdale and by letters in his own hand\nto the Earl of Lanark in Edinburgh, in a sense directly the opposite:\n_i.e._ on the terms of a paction with the Scots for compulsory\nPresbytery and suppression of the Sects in England, in return for the\narmed assistance of the Scottish nation towards a restoration of his\nkingship in all other respects. Late in October, Lanark and Loudoun had\ncome from Scotland to help Lauderdale in finishing this negotiation; and\nthe three Lords together, in conferences at Hampton Court, had assured\nCharles that, \"if he would give satisfaction in the point of Religion, he\nwas master of Scotland on what terms as to other things he would demand.\"\nHe had not quite given them all the satisfaction they wanted; but the\nthree Lords still remained loyally about him, with plans for his escape\nto Berwick. Nothing of all this appeared, of course, in the public\ncommunications of the Scottish Commissioners with the English Parliament.\nThe purport, however, had been entrusted to Ormond, Capel, and others of\nthe Royalists who were chief in the King's counsels; and Cromwell had his\nmeans of guessing. [Footnote: For the interesting and instructive\ncorrespondence of Charles with Lanark from June 1647 onwards, with\ndetails of the negotiations after Lanark and Loudoun joined Lauderdale at\nHampton Court, see Burnet's Hamiltons, 401-412. See also Clar. 622-3;\nRushworth, VII, 850; and Lords Journals, Nov. 6.]\n\nThe mutinous disposition of so many Regiments, and its manifestation in\nsuch tracts as _The Case of the Army_ and the _Agreement of the\nPeople_, had greatly alarmed Parliament. The investigation of the\nmatter had been substantially left, however, in the hands of Fairfax and\nthe Council of War at Putney. That Council, with Fairfax and Cromwell\npresent in it, had appointed a special Committee of Inquiry, consisting\nof twenty officers with Ireton at their head; and in a series of meetings\nof this Committee and of the collective Council itself, extending from\nOct. 22 to Nov. 8, things were brought to a kind of adjustment. There was\nto be a general Rendezvous of the Army for ending of disorder; and\nmeanwhile certain new Proposals were sketched out, to be presented to\nParliament as a summary of what might now be considered the opinions of\nthe chief representatives of the Army, reviewing their former Proposals\nof Aug. 1 in the light of all that had since occurred. So far as the\nProposals _were_ sketched out, one observes in them a curious\ncombination of compromises. There is decidedly greater severity in them\nto the King than in the original Army Proposals. On the other hand, there\nis nothing about the abolition of Kingship or of the House of Lords, no\nconcession on these points to the ultra-democratic tendency of the\nLevellers. The question of King or No King had been raised, it is said,\nin the Council meetings by the Agitators, but had been quashed by the\nchief officers. Again, rather strangely, the question of Liberty of\nConscience and the terms of the establishment of Presbytery is entirely\nwaived, unless we regard the provision that Delinquents should be obliged\nto take the Covenant before being admitted to compound as a sign that on\nthis question too there was a recession from former liberality. On the\nwhole, the new Army Proposals look like a jumble of incongruities, and\nrather disappoint one after the clear political comprehensiveness of the\noriginal Proposals which Ireton had drafted, or even the rude\nsimplification of the same put forth by the democratic Agitators. The\nreason probably was that the Army-chiefs desired at the moment to patch\nup a concordat, suppressing all unnecessary appearance of difference\nbetween the Parliament and the Army, and bringing both as amicably as\npossible into the one direct track of the new set of Parliamentary\nPropositions to the King. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII. 849-866; Godwin, II,\n450-454.]\n\nOn the 10th of November, all the Propositions being ready, a very\nemphatic Preamble to them was agreed upon by the two Houses. It was\nintended that they should be presented to the King formally at Hampton\nCourt within the next few days. Before that could be done, however, his\nMajesty had vanished.\n\nThe vicinity of Putney, with exasperated Levellers and Agitators all\nabout, had become really unsafe for Charles; and, after some meditation\nand hesitation, he had himself arranged a plan of escape. It was put in\nexecution on Thursday the 11th of November. On the evening of that day\nhis Majesty, accompanied by Mr. Ashburnham, Mr. William Legge, and Sir\nJohn Berkley, contrived to slip out of Hampton Court Palace, by the back\ngarden, unobserved. It was supper-time before he was missed by Whalley\nand the guard; the night was excessively dark and stormy; and, though it\nwas ascertained that he and his companions had mounted horses near the\nPalace, the route they had taken could not be guessed. For the next two\nor three days, therefore, London was all anxiety. Meanwhile the\nfugitives, guided by the King himself through the New Forest, had reached\nthe south coast, near Southampton, and in sight of the Isle of Wight. The\nKing's reasons for taking this direction appear to have been the vaguest;\nnor is it certainly known that the Isle of Wight had been in his mind\nwhen he left Hampton Court. No ship, however, having been provided for a\nmore distant voyage, and the King being in any case irresolute about yet\nleaving England altogether, the island did now, if not before, occur to\nhim as suitable for his purpose. One inducement may have been that the\nGovernor, young Colonel Robert Hammond, was a person whom the King had\nreason to believe as well disposed to him as any Parliamentarian officer.\nHammond, indeed, was the nephew of the King's favourite chaplain, Dr.\nHenry Hammond; and, though he was one of Cromwell's admiring disciples,\nand had married a daughter of Hampden, his uncle's reasonings, or other\ninfluences, had begun of late to weaken his ardour. It had been with\nundisguised pleasure that, but a week or two before, he had left his post\nin the Army and gone to this quiet and distant governorship, where he\nmight live in retirement and without active duty. What, then, was his\nhorror when, on the morning of Saturday, Nov. 13, as he was riding along\nthe road near his residence of Carisbrooke Castle, in the centre of the\nisland, Sir John Berkley and Mr. Ashburnham presented themselves, and\ntold him that the King had fled in their company from Hampton Court and\ndesired to be his guest! \"He grew so pale,\" says Berkley, \"and fell into\nsuch a trembling, that I did really believe he would have fallen from his\nhorse; which trembling continued with him at least an hour after, in\nwhich he broke out into passionate and distracted expressions, sometimes\nsaying 'O gentlemen, you have undone me.'\" He collected himself at\nlength, however, and accepted the duty which fate had sent him.  Crossing\nover, with Berkley and Ashburnham, to the earl of Southampton's house of\nTitchfield on the mainland, where Charles had meanwhile been waiting with\nLegge, he paid his homage gravely enough; and, after some conversation,\nin which he promised to do all for his Majesty that might be consistent\nwith his obedience to Parliament, he returned to the island, with the\nKing in his charge, and Berkley, Ashburnham, and Legge in attendance.\nHis letter, narrating what had happened, and asking instructions, was\nread in the two houses of Parliament on Monday, Nov. 15. [Footnote:\nBerkley's Memoir, Harl. Miscell. IX. 479-483; Rushworth, VII. 871-874;\nClar. 624-7; Parl. Hist. III. 785-791. As usual, in the later Royalist\naccounts, it is Cromwell that had contrived the whole affair of the\nKing's escape both matter and form. Hammond's appointment to the\nGovernorship of the island (Sept. 9) was Cromwell's doing, in\nanticipation of what might be needed; then he had stirred up the\nAgitators at Putney to threaten the King's life at Hampton Court; then he\nhad warned the King, through Whalley, of the designs of the Agitators, so\nas to frighten him into flight; then, through Ashburnham or otherwise, he\nhad suggested the Isle of Wight as the very place for the King to go to,\nand so had caught him in the prepared trap.]\n\n\nFOURTH STAGE OF THE CAPTIVITY: IN THE ISLE OF WIGHT: NOV. 1647-NOV. 1648.\n\nCarisbrooke Castle, and the King's Letters thence. Parliament's New\nMethod of the _Four Bills_. Indignation of the Scots; their\nComplaints of Breach of the Covenant--Army Rendezvous at Ware:\nSuppression of a Mutiny of Levellers by Cromwell, and Establishment of\nthe Concordat with Parliament--Parliamentary Commissioners in the Isle of\nWight: Scottish Commissioners also there: the King's Rejection of the\nFour Bills--Firmness of Parliament: their Resolutions of No Further\nAddresses to the King: Severance of the Scottish Alliance--_The\nEngagement_, or Secret Treaty between Charles and the Scots in the\nIsle of Wight--Stricter guard of the King in Carisbrooke Castle: His\nHabits in his Imprisonment--First Rumours of _The Scottish\nEngagement_: Royalist Programme of a SECOND CIVIL WAR--Beginnings of\nTHE SECOND CIVIL WAR: Royalist Risings: Cromwell in Wales: Fairfax in the\nSouth-east: Siege of Colchester--Revolt of the Fleet: Commotion among the\nRoyalist Exiles abroad: Holland's attempted Rising in Surrey--Invasion of\nEngland by Hamilton's Scottish Army: Arrival of the Prince of Wales off\nthe Southeast Coast: Blockade of the Thames--Consternation of the\nLondoners: Faintheartedness of Parliament: New Hopes of the\nPresbyterians: their Ordinance against Heresies and Blasphemies: their\nLeanings to the King: Independents in a struggling minority: Charge of\nTreason against Cromwell in his absence--The Three Days' Battle of\nPreston and utter Defeat of the Scots by Cromwell: Surrender of\nColchester to Fairfax: Return of the Prince of Wales to Holland: Virtual\nEnd of THE SECOND CIVIL WAR--Parliamentary Treaty with the King at\nNewport: Unsatisfactory Results--Protests against the Treaty by the\nIndependents--Disgust of the Army with the Treaty: Revocation of their\nConcordat with Parliament, and Resolution to seize the Political Mastery:\nFormation of a Republican Party--Petitions for Justice on the King:\nThe _Grand Army Remonstrance_--Cromwell in Scotland: Restoration of\nthe Argyle Government there: Cromwell at Pontefract: His Letter to\nHammond--The King removed from the Isle of Wight to Hurst Castle--The\nArmy again in possession of London.\n\nCarisbrooke Castle, now mostly a ruin, but in Charles's time the chief\nfortified place in the Isle of Wight, stands almost in the centre of the\nisland, close to the village of Carisbrooke, and near the town of\nNewport, which, although really an inland town, communicates with the sea\nby a navigable river. Here, with the verdant island all round him, and\nfine views both of land and sea, Charles was to live for a whole year.\nThough it was November when he came into the island, a lady, as he passed\nthrough Newport on his way to Carisbrooke, could present him with a\ndamask-rose just picked from her garden; and he was to see all the circle\nof seasons in that mild South-English climate, till November came round\nagain. [Footnote: Herbert, 55, 56.]\n\nIn a letter which Charles had left at Hampton Court, to be communicated\nto the two Houses, he had avowed that, though security from threatened\nviolence was the immediate reason for his disappearance for a time into a\nplace of retirement, yet another reason was his desire to extricate\nhimself from a negotiation in which he felt that the \"chief interests\"\nconcerned were not all represented. In the same spirit of eclecticism,\nwith a word for each of the \"chief interests,\" and a special show of\nsolicitude for the Army, is a Letter sent by the King to the two Houses\nonly four days after he had been in the Isle of Wight (Nov. 17). It gives\nhis Majesty's view of what would be the right kind of negotiation, and\nconveys his definite offers. He cannot consent to the abolition of\nEpiscopacy, but he will assent to the experiment of Presbytery for three\nyears, if accompanied by a Toleration, but not for Papists, Atheists, and\nBlasphemers; he will surrender the Militia for his own life, on condition\nthat it shall afterwards revert to the Crown; he will undertake for the\nArrears of the Army; and on other matters he will be ready to do his\nutmost in a conclusive Personal Treaty in London. [Footnote: Rushworth,\nVII. 871-2 and 880-833; Parl. Hist. III. 786-7 and 799-802; and King\nCharles's Works (1651), 117-125.]\n\nThe two Houses retained their own ideas of the negotiation necessary;\nand, while giving orders for the despatch of a sufficient guard to the\nIsle of Wight, to be under Hammond's command, and also for the King's\nhousehold they were re-adjusting _their_ battery of negotiation for\nthe changed circumstances of its object.\n\nAt first the notion was to pursue the King to the Isle of Wight with the\nwhole series of Propositions which the Houses had so carefully drawn out\nfor presentation to him at Hampton Court. Here, however, they encountered\nthe most obstinate opposition from the Scottish Commissioners. The mood\nof these gentlemen (Loudoun, Lanark, Lauderdale, Sir Charles Erskine,\nHugh Kennedy, and Robert Barclay), sufficiently irritable before the\nKing's flight from Hampton Court, was now that of the Thistle in full\nbloom. The King, they declared, had done right in fleeing from the hard\nusage of the English. Could his Majesty be expected to endure longer the\ninsults, terrors, indignities, to which he had been of late subjected,\nending actually in danger to his life from the ruffians of an ill-managed\nArmy? Moreover, was not Charles also the sovereign of Scotland! Could the\nScottish nation be expected to bear the contempt shown it in these\n\"tossings\" to and fro of their King, aggravated by the studied neglect of\nall the previous Remonstrances of the Scottish Commissioners and Estates\non this very subject? No! let those Propositions which the English\nParliament had been preparing be thrown aside, and let the King be\ninvited to come to London, in safety and honour, for a Personal Treaty\nwith Parliament, in which all might be \"voluntary and free\"!--Partly to\nplease the angry Scottish Commissioners, partly to shake them off if they\nwould not be pleased, the two Houses did make an alteration in their\nprocedure. Instead of the entire prepared series of Propositions, or\nrather as antecedent to them, it was resolved to send to the King \"Four\nBills,\" embodying the Propositions \"absolutely necessary for present\nsecurity.\" Bill 1 was for the power of Parliament over the Militia for\ntwenty years, or longer if necessary; Bill 2 was for confirmation of all\nacts of the Parliament in the late war; Bill 3 was for the cancelling of\nall Peerages conferred by the King since the beginning of the war, and\nthe creation of new Peers only with consent of the two Houses; and Bill 4\nwas for giving the two Houses the right of adjournment at their own\npleasure.--This change of procedure was first proposed in the Lords Nov.\n25 (fifteen Peers present); there were divisions on it in the Commons\nNov. 26 and 27, in the last of which it was carried by 115 to 106 (an\nunusually full House) to concur generally with the Peers in the matter;\nand then, after debates and conferences on details, the Bills, as above\nindicated, passed the Commons finally Dec. 11, and the Lords finally Dec.\n14. It was also then arranged that the Earl of Denbigh and Lord Montague,\nfor the Lords, and Mr. John Bulkeley, Mr. John Lisle, Mr. John Kemp, and\nMr. Robert Goodwin, for the Commons, should be the Commissioners for\ncarrying the Four Bills, and the Propositions too, so far as not\nsuperseded by the Bills, to the King in the Isle of Wight. They were to\nrequire his Majesty's consent to the Four Bills within ten days at the\nutmost; but the remaining Propositions were to be delivered to his\nMajesty only as containing matters on which the Houses would send another\nCommission to treat with him after he had assented to the Four Bills.\n[Footnote: Parl. Hist. II. 799-804 and 823-826; Lords and Commons\nJournals of days named; also (for a special Letter of the Scottish\nCommissioners) Lords Journals, Nov. 18. For this Letter Charles thanked\nLanark, saying, \"Seriously, it is as full to my sense as if I had penned\nit myself.\" Burnet's Hamiltons, 416.]\n\nIf the two Houses had resorted at first to this changed method of\nprocedure with any idea of pleasing the Scots, they had found reason to\nabandon that idea. The very day the Four Bills were finally passed (Dec.\n14), the Scottish Commissioners, knowing well enough privately what they\nwere, applied formally to the Committee of the Two Kingdoms for a copy of\nthem. This being reported to the Commons, a discussion ensued, and Mr.\nSelden (particularly active about this time, and at any rate always eager\nfor a brush with the Scots) was appointed chairman of a Committee to\nprepare an Answer. The Answer, adopted by the Commons Dec. 16, was taken\nup by Mr. Selden to the Lords the same day, and by them adopted also. It\nwas to the effect that, as it was against the custom of the English\nkingdom to communicate Bills ready for the King's assent to \"any other\nwhomsoever\" until his Majesty's reply had been received, the Four Bills\ncould not be communicated to the Scottish Commissioners, but that, as for\nthe rest, it was intended to send these Bills to the King on Monday next,\ntogether with those Propositions of which the Scottish Commissioners were\nalready cognisant, and that, if the Scottish Commissioners desired to add\nany Propositions concerning Scotland, they had better make haste. As if\nto increase the irony of this Answer, there was frankly included in it a\ncopy of the Instructions to the English envoys as to their procedure both\nwith the Bills concealed from the Scots and the Propositions known to\nthem. Matter and manner both, the Answer drove the Scottish Commissioners\nmad. There may be yet read in the Lords Journals of Dec. 18 the Reply, in\nnineteen printed folio columns, which they thundered in upon the two\nHouses. We do not see such documents now-a-days, and even then it was a\nmarvel. The whole soul of Scotland, past and present, seemed to launch\nitself upon the Londoners in this tremendous lecture, issued from\nWorcester House \"by command of the Commissioners for the Parliament of\nScotland,\" and signed by John Chiesley, their clerk. After a hint of the\nindebtedness of England to the Scots for some years past, there was a\nrecapitulation of all the recent acts of contumely sustained by Scotland\nat the hands of the English, followed by a summary of the reasons for\npreferring the Scottish plan of a free Personal Treaty with the King to\nthe English plan of prosecuting him with peremptory and ready-made\nPropositions. But, as the English Parliament _had_ communicated to\nthe Scottish Commissioners their new set of Propositions (though not the\nFour Bills), there was a criticism of these Propositions, from the\nScottish point of view, collectively and _seriatim_. The largest\ncriticism was on the Religious question. Nearly one half of the entire\ndocument was occupied with this subject. Was not the Religious question\nthe main one, the _unum necessarium,_ deserving the first place in\nany national negotiation? Yet was it not made secondary in the\nPropositions, brought in anywhere in the middle of them, as if to show\nthat the two Houses did not really care much about it, and would not be\nso stiff in it as in matters of civil import? Tenacious in one's own\nconcerns, and \"liberal in the matters of God\"! Again, not a word in the\nPropositions, or hardly a word, respecting the Solemn League and Covenant\nitself, a vow that had been sworn to with uplifted hands by nearly the\nwhole generation of living Englishmen! Oh! what an omission was that! Was\nthe Covenant to be voted out of date, and buried in the ashes of\noblivion? But, apart from the Covenant, how did the Propositions treat\nthe cause of Presbyterial government in England and of conformity of\nChurch-rule in the two kingdoms? Most miserably! No pressing of\nPresbytery to full purity and completeness, but rather a cynical\nacquiescence in the imperfect Presbytery that had already been set up,\nand a glee in not being committed even to that beyond three years!\nFinally, even this Presbytery was turned into a present mockery by an\naccompanying concession to the cry for Liberty of Conscience! The\nCommissioners had never desired that \"pious and peaceable men should be\ntroubled because in everything they cannot conform themselves to\nPresbyterial government;\" but they did \"from their very souls abhor such\na general and vast Toleration\" as one of the Propositions seemed to\nprovide. Unless they were mistaken, it was a Toleration to \"all the\nsectaries of the time,\" whether they were \"Anabaptists, Antinomians,\nArminians, Familists, Erastians, Brownists, Separatists, Libertines, or\nIndependents;\" yea it extended to \"those Nullifidians the Seekers, to the\nnew sect of Shakers, and divers others;\" and, though it professed not to\ninclude \"Antitrinitarians, Arians, and Antiscripturists,\" where was the\nsecurity that these might not at least print and publish their\nblasphemies and errors? \"Our minds are astonished, and our bowels are\nmoved, &c.!\"--There is a story of an irascible and fluent man who, after\na torrent of abusive words addressed to a cool-tempered friend with whom\nhe had a difference, was brought to a stop by the calm request of his\nfriend that he would be so good as to repeat his observations. Something\nof the kind happened now. The reply of the two Houses to the portentous\nPaper of the Scottish Commissioners was that its length prevented\nimmediate attention to it; but that they were sensible of the\n\"aspersions\" it cast upon them, and begged that such might be \"forborne\nfor the future.\" This drew from the Commissioners a shorter letter (Dec.\n20), in which they disavowed any intention of disrespect, and assigned\nthe gravity of the crisis as a reason why their expressions had been\n\"more pathetique than ordinarily.\" Nevertheless from that moment the\nconnexion between the English Parliament and the Scottish Commissioners\nwas totally severed. [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals of Dec. 15-\n21.]\n\nWhat had become of the third party concerned, the English Army?--The\ngeneral Rendezvous resolved on by the Council of War at Putney, in\nconsequence of the Concordat between the Army and Parliament\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 573), had been cleverly changed into a tripartite\nRendezvous, or distribution of the regiments into three brigades, to be\nreviewed on different days and at different places. The first of these\nReviews was held near Ware in Herts, Nov. 15, the very day on which the\nKing's arrival in the Isle of Wight was known. At the head of each of\nseven regiments then present according to order there was read a\nRemonstrance by Fairfax, pointing out the evils of relaxed discipline,\ncondemning the recent excesses of the Agitators and their attempts to\nmake the men disaffected to their officers, declaring the resolution of\nhimself and the chief officers to maintain all the Army's just rights,\nbut protesting that he could not continue to head an Army which was\nmutinous, and requiring therefore that the officers and men of each\nregiment should subscribe an engagement of future obedience, As nothing\nwas said in the document about either King or House of Lords, but mention\nonly made of a guarantee of future Parliaments and a Reformed\nRepresentative House, no offence was given to the Democratic instincts of\nthe regiments, and they at once acquiesced in what was but a fit\nsoldierly compact. There were, however, two regiments on the field that\nhad come without orders--Colonel Harrison's horse-regiment and Colonel\nRobert Lilburne's foot-regiment. They had come in a wild state of\nexcitement, with copies of the _Agreement of the People_ stuck in\ntheir hats. John Lilburne, recently released from the Tower, had come\ndown to Ware to see the result. It was decisive, but not in the way John\nhad expected. Harrison's regiment, on being reasoned with by Fairfax and\nthe other officers, at length good-humouredly gave way, tore the mutinous\nemblem from their hats, and broke into cheers. Lilburne's, which had\ndriven away most of its officers, remained sulky and vociferous, till\nCromwell, riding up to them, ordered them also to remove that thing from\ntheir hats, and, on their refusing, had fourteen of them dragged from the\nranks, three of these tried on the spot and condemned to death, and one\nof the three shot. After this turn given to the first Review, the others\npassed off pleasantly enough, and all that was farther needed was the\nminor punishment of one or two of the mutineers among the common\nsoldiers, with temporary restraint or rebuke for Colonel Rainsborough,\nColonel Ewer, Major Scott, Major Cobbet, and Lieutenant Bray, the\nofficers who had been most implicated in the revolt.--So, at the expense\nof but one life, had a dangerous Mutiny been quelled, and the ultra-\nDemocrats of the Army taught the lesson of the Concordat. That lesson was\nthat, in the opinion of Cromwell and Ireton as well as of Fairfax, it was\nbest for England that the Army should still serve the constituted\nauthority of Parliament, and not raise any political banner of its own.\nNo sooner had this lesson been taught, however, than Cromwell and Ireton\nhad hastened to obliterate all traces of the occasion there had been for\nteaching it. Their intention had not been to struggle with the Democratic\nspirit itself, but only with its mutinous manifestation; and they knew,\nin fact, that the political tenets of the poor fellow whom it had been\nnecessary to shoot remained, and would remain, not the less the tenets of\ntwo-thirds of the Army. Accordingly, through November and December the\ngreat aim of Cromwell and Ireton, in the new Army head-quarters at\nWindsor, had been to soothe ruffled spirits and restore harmony.\nRainsborough, Ewer, Scott, and the other ultra-Democratic officers had\nbeen restored to their places, with even studied respect; and strong\nrecommendations had gone to Parliament that Rainsborough, who, before the\nMutiny, had been named for the post of Vice-Admiral of the Fleet (in\nrecollection of his original profession), should be confirmed in that\nhigh appointment. At Windsor there had been Army-dinners and great\nprayer-meetings of officers and men, in which Cromwell and Ireton took a\nconspicuous part, winning all back by their zeal and graciousness into a\nhappy frame of concord, which the Parliamentary Commissioners with the\nArmy described as \"a sweet and comfortable agreement, the whole matter of\nthe kingdom being left with Parliament.\" And so, while the two Houses\nwere arranging to send their Four Bills and the Propositions to the Isle\nof Wight, the Army only looked on approvingly. [Footnote: Parl. Hist.\nIII. 791-799 and 805-822; Godwin, II. 462-8; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 254;\nRushworth, VII. 951.]\n\nOn Friday, Dec. 24, the Earl of Denbigh and the other Commissioners of\nthe two Houses arrived in the Isle of Wight and delivered the Four Bills\nand the Propositions to his Majesty. Next day (Christmas Day) Loudoun,\nLanark, Lauderdale, and the other Scottish Commissioners, arrived, and\ndelivered to his Majesty, in the name of the Kingdom of Scotland, a\nProtest against the English Bills and Propositions. For the day or two\nfollowing, these Scottish Commissioners were more with his Majesty than\nthe English Commissioners; but on the 28th the English Commissioners\nreceived from him in writing his Answer to the two Houses. It was utterly\nunfavourable, declining to assent to the Bills or anything else except\nafter a complete and deliberate Treaty, and assigning the Protest of the\nScottish Commissioners as a sufficient reason for this had there been no\nother. With this Answer the English Commissioners returned to London, and\nit was read in both Houses on the 3lst. The effects were extraordinary.\nOn the 3rd of January, 1647-8, it was resolved in the Commons, by a\nmajority of 141 to 92, that no farther applications or addresses should\nbe made to the King by that House, that no addresses or applications to\nhim by any person whatsoever should be made without leave of the Houses\nunder the penalties of High Treason, that no messages from the King\nshould be received, and that no one should presume to bring or carry\nsuch. On the 15th the Lords agreed in these Resolutions, only Manchester\nand Warwick dissenting out of sixteen Peers present. Negotiation was thus\ndeclared to be at an end; and the Army, delighted with the news, burst\ninto applauses of Parliament, and vowed to live or die with it in the\ncommon cause.\n\nOne consequence of what had occurred was the dissolution of the peculiar\nbody which, under the name of \"The Committee of the two Kingdoms,\" had\nhitherto exercised so much power, and been in fact a common executive for\nthe Parliaments of England and Scotland (_ant\u00e8_, p. 41). As Scotland\nhad broken off from England, this body had become an absurdity; and so,\non the same days on which the two Houses adopted the No-Address\nResolution, they resolved \"That the powers formerly granted by both\nHouses to the Committee of both Kingdoms, relating to the kingdoms of\nEngland and Ireland, be now granted and vested in the members of both\nHouses only that are of that Committee.\" In other words, Lords Loudoun\nand Lauderdale and the other Scottish Commissioners were no longer wanted\nin England, and might go home. These gentlemen, being themselves of the\nsame opinion, sent a letter to the Lords, Jan. 17, intimating that they\nwere about to take their leave. With great civility the Lords sent\nManchester and Warwick \"to wish them a good journey,\" assure them that\nany arrears of business between England and Scotland would be attended\nto, and express a desire for \"the continuance of the brotherly union and\ngood correspondency between the two nations.\" Actually, a few days\nafterwards, the Commissioners left London; and on the 29th the Houses\nappointed six Commissioners of their own to follow them to Edinburgh, and\nallay, if possible, any ill feeling that might be caused there by their\nrepresentation of recent occurrences.\n\nHad the two Houses known all, their politeness would have been less! It\nhad not been only to give in a protest in the name of Scotland against\nthe English Bills and Propositions that Lanark, Loudoun, and Lauderdale\nhad made their Christmas journey to Carisbrooke in the wake of the\nEnglish Commissioners. The King had been in correspondence with them for\nsome time before on the subject begun with them at Hampton Court; and,\nwhen they came to Carisbrooke, they had brought with them not only the\nProtest against the English Bills, but also a secret document of a more\nmomentous nature, prepared for the King's signature. Actually on the 26th\nof December, or two days before the English Commissioners were dismissed\nwith the unfavourable Answer to the English Parliament, this document had\nbeen signed in Carisbrooke Castle by the King on the one part, and by\nLoudoun, Lauderdale, and Lanark on the other. Not daring to bring it out\nof the island with them, the Commissioners, Clarendon says, had it wrapt\nup in lead and buried in a garden whence they could recover it\nafterwards. And little wonder! It was A SECRET TREATY BETWEEN CHARLES AND\nTHE SCOTTISH COMMISSIONERS, in which his Majesty bound himself, on the\nword of a King, to confirm the Covenant for such as had taken it or might\ntake it (without forcing it on the unwilling), also to confirm\nPresbyterian Church-government and the Westminster Directory of Worship\nin England for three years (with a reservation of the Liturgy, &c., for\nhimself and his household), and moreover to see to the suppression of the\nIndependents and all other sects and heresies; while the Scots, in\nreturn, were to send an Army into England for the purpose of restoring\nhim, on these conditions, to his full Royalty in that kingdom! Thus at\nlast Charles had made a conclusive Treaty with one section of his\nadversaries; and, as Queen Henrietta Maria had always advised, it was\nwith the Scots, all but absolutely on their own terms of the abolition of\nEpiscopacy and the establishment of strict Presbytery in England!!\n[Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals; Parl. Hist. III. 827-837; Burnet's\nHamiltons (for correspondence between the King and Lanark) 412-423;\nStevenson's Hist. of the Church of Scotland, ed. 1840, p. 586 (for\nLoudoun's account of the substance of the Treaty); Clarendon, 634-637.\nClarendon's account of the Treaty is full; and, though he condemns it as\n\"monstrous,\" he gives the apology that had reconciled the King to it in\nhis despair. It was that Lanark, Loudoun, and Lauderdale had themselves\nargued that the Treaty would turn out mere waste paper. After the\nScottish Army should be in England, and the Royalists in England roused,\n\"there would be nobody to exact all those particulars, but everybody\nwould submit to what his Majesty should think fit to be done!\"]\n\nUntil the decisive rupture with Parliament on the Four Bills, Charles had\nbeen permitted to range about the Isle of Wight very much at his\npleasure, and the concourse of visitors to him had been as free as at\nHampton Court. From the moment of the rupture, however, all was changed.\nAware that an escape abroad was now meditated by Charles, and warned by\nsome stir about Carisbrooke itself for the King's rescue, Colonel Hammond\nhad at once taken precautions, but implored Parliament at the same time\neither to remove the King to some other place or else to discharge\nhimself from an office the burden of which he found insupportable. With\nthis last request Parliament did not comply, and Hammond had to continue\nin his painful trust, obeying the instructions sent him. His Majesty was\nnot to be allowed any longer to ride about the island, or to receive\nunauthorized visitors; he was to be restrained to Carisbrooke Castle and\nthe line round it; Ashburnham, Legge, and other suspicious persons in his\nservice, including his chaplains Hammond and Sheldon, were to be\ndismissed; and his remaining household were to be under very strict\nregulation. These instructions having been carried into effect, Charles's\nlife in the Isle of Wight from January 1647-8 onwards was one of straiter\ncaptivity and seclusion than he had experienced even at Holmby. He had\nthe liberty only of the Castle and its precincts; which, however, were\nsufficiently large and convenient for the exercise of walking, with \"good\nair and a delightful prospect both to the sea and land.\" For his solace\nand recreation in his favourite game, the barbican of the Castle, a\nspacious parading ground beyond the walls but within the line, was\nconverted by Hammond into \"a bowling-green scarce to be equalled,\" at one\nside of which there was built \"a pretty summer-house for retirement.\"\nThis at vacant hours became the King's chief resort both forenoon and\nafternoon, there being \"no gallery, nor rooms of state nor garden,\"\nwithin the Castle walls. Occasionally, notwithstanding the strict guard,\nsome poor stray creature troubled with scrofula, who had come to the Isle\nof Wight for the Royal touch, would contrive to beguile the sentries and\nobtain admission to the barbican. As at Holmby, however, the King had his\nset times in-doors for his devotions and for reading and writing; and his\nfavourite books, catalogued and placed in the charge of Mr. Herbert, were\nagain in request. Though he still declined the services of any\nPresbyterian clergyman, he rather liked the society of young Mr.\nTroughton, the governor's chaplain, and had arguments with him daily on\ntheological points. Once, when a half-crazed minister, nicknamed Doomsday\nSedgwick, came all the way from London to present him with a book he had\nwritten, suitable for his comfort and entitled \"Leaves from the Tree of\nLife for the healing of the Nations,\" he ordered him to be admitted,\nreceived the book, glanced at some pages of it, and then returned it to\nthe author with the observation that surely he must need some sleep after\nhaving written a book like that. And so day by day the routine flowed on,\nand always at night the wax-lamp was kept burning in the silver basin\nclose to his Majesty's bed. [Footnote: Lords Journals, Dec. 31, 1647, and\nof subsequent dates; Herbert's Memoirs of the Last Years of Charles, 57-\n67 and 95-98; Wood's Ath. III. 894-6. Doomsday Sedgwick was not Obadiah\nSedgwick of the Assembly, but William Sedgwick of Ely.]\n\nThe Treaty with the Scots could not remain long secret. No sooner had the\nScottish Commissioners who had framed it returned to Edinburgh than they\nwere obliged to let the substance of it become known. This was done in\nthe Committee of Estates on the 15th of February, when Loudoun and\nLauderdale formally reported the result of their visit to the Isle of\nWight. Then ensued a most perplexed agitation in Scotland on the whole\nsubject. THE ENGAGEMENT, as the Secret Treaty was called, was universally\ndiscussed, and with great diversity of opinion. In the Committee of\nEstates, the Hamiltons, who had been the real authors of the Engagement,\ncarried all their own way. Nay in the Parliament, or full Convention of\nthe Estates, which met on the 2nd of March, the majority went\npassionately with the Hamiltons. Four-fifths of the nobles went with\nthem; more than half the lairds; and nearly half the burgesses, including\nmost of the representatives of the larger Scottish towns. These were the\nHAMILTONIANS or ENGAGERS. Not the less in Parliament itself was there a\nstrong opposition party, headed by Argyle, Eglinton, Lothian, Cassilis,\nand some half-dozen other nobles, aided by Johnstone of Warriston; and,\nas this party rested on the nearly unanimous support of the Scottish\nclergy, it had a powerful organ of expression, apart from Parliament, in\nthe Commission of the Kirk. It was argued, on their side, that the\nCommissioners to the Isle of Wight had exceeded their powers, that the\nconditions made with Charles were too slippery, that he had in reality\nevaded the Covenant, and that, though Scotland might have a just cause\nfor war against the English Sectaries, no good could come of a war,\nnominally against them, in which Presbyterians would be allied with\nMalignants, Prelatists, and perhaps even Papists. Declarations embodying\nthese views were published by the Commission; the pulpits rang with\ndenunciations of the Engagement; petitions against it from Provincial\nSynods and Presbyteries of the Kirk were poured in upon Parliament; had\nthe entire population been polled, the PROTESTERS or ANTI-ENGAGERS would\nhave been found in the majority. Even Loudoun detached himself from the\nHamiltons, and publicly, in the High Church of Edinburgh, submitted to\necclesiastical rebuke, professing repentance of his handiwork.\nNevertheless the Hamiltons persevered; two-thirds of the Parliament\nadhered to them; and by the end of April 1648 it was understood, not in\nEngland only, but also on the Continent, that an Army of 40,000 Scots was\nto be raised somehow, in spite of Argyle and the Scottish clergy, for an\ninvasion of England in the King's behalf. The Army was to be commanded in\nchief by the Duke of Hamilton himself, with the Earl of Callander for his\nLieutenant-general. [Footnote: Baillie, III. 24-46; Stevenson, 582-595;\nBurnet's Hamiltons, 424-435.] Thus out of the Scottish Engagement with\nthe King in the Isle of Wight there grew what is called THE SECOND CIVIL\nWAR, It was a much briefer affair than the first. That had spread over\nfour years; but the real substance of this was to be crushed into as many\nmonths (May-Aug. 1648). The military story of these months shall concern\nus here only in so far as it is interwoven with the political narrative.\n\nThe Engagement with the Scots had been communicated to Queen Henrietta\nMaria at St. Germains, and gradually, with more or less precision, to all\nthose dispersed Royalists, at home or abroad, who might be expected to\ntake leading parts in co-operation with the promised Scottish invasion.\nThe programme, so far as it could be settled, was something after this\nfashion:--(1) Risings were to be promoted in all parts of England and\nWales, to coalesce at last, if possible, into a great general rising in\nwhich London should be involved. All the conditions seemed favourable for\nsuch an attempt. Not only in every county were there eager and revengeful\nremains of the old Episcopal Royalism, but the tendency even of the\nPresbyterians throughout England had been of late decidedly Royalist. The\nPresbyterians had never been anti-monarchical in theory; and large\nnumbers of them had begun of late to pity the King, and to question\nwhether the excessively hard terms imposed upon him by Parliament were\naltogether necessary. Even if he were to be restored to larger powers in\nsome things than might be quite desirable, would not that be better than\ncontinuing in the present state of uproar and confusion, with a\nDemocratic Army fastened vampire-like on the land, preying on its\nresources, and poisoning its principles? For people in this state of mind\nthe promised invasion of the Scots in Charles's behalf was the very\npretext needed. Much of the Presbyterianism of England, including the\nCity of London, might be whirled, along with the readier Old Royalism,\ninto a rising for the King. To promote and manage risings in particular\ndistricts, however, there must be leaders authorized from St. Germains.\nSuch leaders were found among eminent Royalists either already in England\nor able to transfer themselves thither without delay. In the North, where\nimmediate co-operation with the Scots would be necessary, Sir Marmaduke\nLangdale and Sir Philip Musgrave were to be the chief agents; and for the\nWest, the Midlands, and the South, there were the Earl of Norwich\n(formerly Lord Goring), the Earl of Peterborough, Lord Byron, Lord Capel,\nand others. The young Duke of Buckingham, and his brother Lord Francis\nVilliers, who had not been concerned in the first Civil War, being then\nbut boys and on their travels abroad, had recently returned to their\ngreat estates in England, and were anxious to figure as became the name\nthey bore. Strangely enough, in the midst of all these, as the\ncommissioned generalissimo of the King's forces in England when they\nshould be in the field, was to be the Earl of Holland. His veerings in\nthe first war had not been to his credit; but his long seclusion had done\nhim good; he had always been in favour with the Queen; and his\nParliamentary and Presbyterian connexions were an advantage. (2) There\nwas to be a gathering of all the Royalist exiles to accompany or follow\nthe Prince of Wales in a landing on the British shores. As early as Feb.\n8, when only the vaguest rumour of the Scottish Engagement can have been\nin circulation on the Continent, the report from the Hague had been that\nit would be \"no wonder to see 10,000 merry souls, then lying there, and\ncursing the Parliament in every cup they drank, venturing over to make\none cast more for the King.\" Certain it is that in the following months\nthere was a stir in all the nests of English refugees in France and\nHolland, and in the Channel Islands. Not only Prince Rupert, Percy,\nWilmot, Jermyn, Colepepper, Ormond, and others round the Queen and the\nPrince in Paris, but the Earl of Bristol, Lord Cottington, Secretary\nNicholas, and others, in Rouen or Caen, and Hopton and Hyde in Jersey,\nwere all in motion. Money was the great want; they were all so wretchedly\npoor; but that difficulty might be overcome so far as to make an\nexpedition to England at least possible. Mazarin might lend help; or, if\nhe did not, the Prince of Orange, the husband of Charles's eldest\ndaughter, and now Stadtholder of Holland, might be expected to do all he\ncould for his father-in-law consistently with the limited powers of his\nStadtholdership. A Dutch port might be more convenient than a French one\nfor the embarkation of the refugees collectively or in detachments. Most\nwould be bound for England; but the true sphere of some, as for example\nOrmond, would be in Ireland. For the Prince of Wales himself what was\nspecially destined by the Queen was a voyage to Scotland. It was by being\namong the Scots personally till their Army could be got ready, and either\nremaining in Scotland afterwards or accompanying the Army into England,\nthat his Royal Highness would be of most use. On this point the Queen was\nemphatic. [Footnote: Clarendon, Book XI., where the pre-arrangement of\nthe new Civil War from head-quarters, and the parts assigned to different\npersons, are set forth more lucidly, and with better information, than\nanywhere else. Dates are deficient, but the sketching is masterly. See\nalso Rushworth for Feb., March, and April, 1648.]\n\nSuch being the programme, what was the performance? It did not quite come\nup to the programme, but it was sufficiently formidable.\n\nThe first rising was in Wales. There a certain drunken Colonel Poyer,\ngovernor of Pembroke Castle, with a Colonel Powell and a Colonel\nLaughern, also in Parliamentary employment, revolted as early as the end\nof February. Ostensibly it was in resentment of an order of Parliament\nfor disbanding supernumeraries; but, before the end of April, the affair\nbecame a Royalist outbreak of all Pembrokeshire, Carmarthenshire, and\nCardiganshire, spreading through the rest of South Wales. To suppress\nthis rising Cromwell was to go from London, May 1, with two regiments of\nhorse and three of foot; which, with the forces already in the region,\nwould make an army of about 8,000 men. Before he went, risings of less\nimportance had been heard of in Cornwall and Dorsetshire, and there had\nbeen one tremendous tumult in London itself, to the cry of \"For God and\nKing Charles!\" (Sunday, April 9.) It had been suppressed only by street-\ncharges of the regiments quartered at Whitehall and Charing Cross.\nSignificant incidents of the same month were the revolt to the Irish\nRebels of Lord Inchiquin, hitherto one of the most zealous\nParliamentarians in Ireland, and the escape from London of the young Duke\nof York. By the contrivance of a Colonel Bamfield the Duke was whisked\naway from St. James's Palace (April 21), and conveyed, in girl's clothes,\nto Holland. He was not quite fifteen years of age; but his father had\ninstructed him to escape when he could, and the fact that he had been\ndesignated for the command of the Navy was likely to be useful.\n\nAll this before Cromwell had gone into Wales; but hardly had he gone when\nthere came the news that Berwick had been seized for the King by Sir\nMarmaduke Langdale (April 30), and Carlisle by Sir Philip Musgrave and\nSir Thomas Glenham (May 6). Langdale and Musgrave had been staying in\nEdinburgh, and the seizure of these two towns was by arrangement with the\nDuke of Hamilton and in preparation for his invasion. Langdale, indeed,\nannounced himself as commissioned General for the King in the five\nnorthern counties, and the business of watching against his advance lay\nwith Lambert, the Parliamentarian General in those parts, assisted by Sir\nArthur Haselrig, now Governor of Newcastle.\n\nMeanwhile the preservation of the peace in and near London was in the\nhands of Fairfax, Ireton, and Skippon--Fairfax now no longer mere Sir\nThomas, but Lord Fairfax of the Scottish Peerage, as successor to his\nfather Lord Ferdinando, who had died March 13. These three were soon as\nhard at work in their south-eastern region as Cromwell in Wales and\nLambert in the north. For the county of Surrey having followed the\ncounties of Norfolk and Suffolk in sending in a petition for the\ndisbanding of the Army and the restoration of the King \"to the splendour\nof his ancestors\" (May 16), a new riot in London \"For God and King\nCharles\" was the consequence, and in a short time there was more or less\nof Royalist commotion north and south of London, through Norfolk,\nSuffolk, Cambridge, Herts, Essex, Surrey, and Kent. The insurrection in\nKent was of independent origin, and was the most extensive and hence It\nhad been begun by the Kentish people themselves, roused by Roger\nL'Estrange and a young Mr. Hales; but the Earl of Norwich had come into\nKent to take the lead. Canterbury, Dover, Sandwich, and the castles of\nDeal and Walmer, had been won for the King; there were communications\nbetween the insurgents and the Londoners, and in the end of May some\n10,000 or 12,000 men of Kent, with runaway citizens and apprentices from\nLondon in their ranks, were marching towards the City with drums and\nbanners. To meet these Fairfax and Ireton, with seven regiments, went out\nto Blackheath, May 29; and, the insurgents then drawing back, the two\nwere at Gravesend May 31, and at Maidstone June 1. A few days of their\nhard blows, struck right in the heart of Kent, sufficed for that county;\nand the Earl of Norwich, with the Kentish fugitives, crossed the Thames\ninto Essex. Insurgents from other parts, including Lord Capel, Lord\nLoughborough, and Sir Charles Lucas, having at the same time gathered\ninto that county, there was a junction of forces, with the intention of a\nroundabout march upon London, by Suffolk, Norfolk, and Cambridge, The\nswift approach of Fairfax out of conquered Kent (June 11) compelled them\nto change their plan. They threw themselves into Colchester (June 12),\nadding some 4,000 or 5,000 armed men to the population of that doomed\ntown. Doomed! for Fairfax, having failed to take it on the first assault,\nresolved to reduce it by starvation, and so, the insurgents on their side\nresolving to hold out to the last, inasmuch as the detention of Fairfax\nin Essex till the Scots should be in England was the best hope, both for\nthemselves and for the general cause, the SIEGE OF COLCHESTER (June l2--\nAug. 28) turned out one of the most horrible events of the war.\n\nAn important episode of the Kentish Insurrection was the Revolt of the\nFleet. The main station of the Fleet being in the Downs, just off the\nKentish coast, Royalist emissaries had been busy among the sailors, and\nwith such effect that, when Vice-Admiral Rainsborough, who had been\nashore Defending Deal Castle against the insurgents, tried to go on board\nhis own ship, he was laid hold of and sent back. This was about the 27th\nof May; and, though the Parliament immediately re-appointed the\nPresbyterian Earl of Warwick to his old post of Lord High Admiral, and\nsent him down to pacify the Fleet (May 29), the effort failed. The cry of\nthe sailors was, \"We will go to our own Admiral,\" meaning the young Duke\nof York in Holland. Actually, some ten warships, having ejected all their\nParliamentarian officers, did put to sea, and, after cruising about the\ncoasts of Kent, Essex, Suffolk, and Norfolk, till the insurrection in\nthose parts was quashed, did cross to Helvoetsluys in Holland, early in\nJune, in search of the young Duke. It was a splendid accident for the\nworld of Royalist exiles on the Continent, for it supplied them with the\nwooden bridge they needed for transit into the mother-country.\nAccordingly, though the royal boy-admiral came at once from the Hague to\nHelvoetsluys, went on board the Fleet, and was for a week or two the pet\nof the sailors, the higher powers at Paris hastened to turn the accident\nto the largest account. Mazarin refusing all help, some money was raised\notherwise, so as to enable the Prince of Wales, with Prince Rupert,\nHopton, Colepepper and others, to embark at Calais for Helvoetsluys. He\narrived there early in July, was received with acclamations by the Fleet,\nand immediately relieved his younger brother in the command. The Prince\nand Princess of Orange coming from the Hague to welcome him, there was a\njoyful family-meeting, with much consultation, but a good deal of\ndifference, among all concerned, as to the ways and means.\n\nAbout the time of the Revolt of the Fleet, Parliament had received other\nbad news. Pontefract had been seized for the King, June 2, and other\nimportant places in Yorkshire were taken or attempted soon after. Through\nthe rest of June there were risings or threats of rising in the Midlands,\nso that in the beginning of July things looked very ill. There had been\nsuccesses, it was true, against the insurgents in Wales, and Cromwell was\nhopefully besieging Pembroke; Lambert was doing well with his small\nforces against Langdale in the north; Colchester was beginning to be\ndistressed in the grip of Fairfax; but still, with the whole of England\nin Royalist or semi-Royalist palpitation, and the City of London actually\nheaving with suppressed revolt, what could be expected when Hamilton and\nhis army of Scottish Presbyterians did cross the border? There had been\ndelays in the levy of this army, owing to the continued resistance of the\nArgyle party, the clergy, and the western shires; and it had only been by\nthe most tyrannic exercise of power that it had been got together. At\nlast, however, it _had_ been got together; and now England was full\nof the rumour of its coming. Lo! at the rumour the Earl of Holland, the\ndesignated generalissimo of the English army of co-operation, could not\nchoose but start from his lethargy! With the young Duke of Buckingham,\nyoung Lord Francis Villiers, the Earl of Peterborough, and the Dutch\nColonel Dalbier, in his company, and a following of 500 horse, he started\nup at Kingston-on-Thames on the 6th of July; addressed a formal\nDeclaration of his motives to Parliament and the City of London, as well\nas a letter of encouragement to the besieged at Colchester; and called on\nall Surrey, Sussex and Middlesex, to join him. That bravado, however,\nlasted but two days. On the 8th of July, a Parliamentary force under Sir\nMichael Livesey attacked Holland's horse and routed them utterly. Lord\nFrancis Villiers and Dalbier were slain; the Duke of Buckingham and the\nEarl of Peterborough escaped to London, and thence abroad; but Holland\nhimself, pursued into Hunts, was taken prisoner.\n\nOn the very day of the defeat of Holland in Surrey (Saturday, July 8) the\nScots did come into England. They came from Annan on the Solway Firth,\nmarching to Carlisle. They were not the expected 40,000, but the advanced\nportion of an army which, when it had all come in, may have numbered\nabout 20,000. The Duke himself led the van with his Lifeguards in great\nstate, preceded by trumpeters \"all in scarlet cloaks full of silver\nlace;\" Generals Thomas Middleton and William Baillie came next with horse\nand foot; and the Earl of Callander brought up the rear. Joined by Sir\nMarmaduke Langdale and his English, they marched on, or rather sauntered\non, to Penrith (July 15), and thence to Kendal (Aug. 1?), the wary\nLambert retreating before them, but watching their every motion,\nskirmishing when he could, and waiting anxiously for the arrival of\nCromwell, who, having at length taken Pembroke and so far settled Wales\n(July 11), was hurrying to the new scene of action in the north. Off\nKendal, a body of about 3,000 Scots, brought over from Ireland by Major-\ngeneral Sir George Monro, attached itself to Hamilton, with an\nunderstanding that Hamilton's orders to it were to be directly from\nhimself to Monro. There was then a debate whether it would be best to\nadvance straight south into Lancashire, or to strike east into Yorkshire.\nIt was decided for Lancashire. On into Lancashire, therefore, they moved,\nthe poor people in the track behind them grieving dreadfully over their\nravages, but dignified papers of the Scottish Parliament preceding them\nto explain the invasion. Scotland had made an Engagement to rescue the\nKing, free England from the tyranny of an Army of Sectaries, establish\nPresbytery, and put down \"that impious Toleration settled by the two\nHouses contrary to the Covenant!\"\n\nWhile the Scots were thus advancing into the north-west of England, the\nPrince of Wales had brought his Fleet from Holland, and (the Queen's idea\nthat he should go to Scotland having been postponed) was hovering about\nthe south-east coast. By fresh accessions the fleet had been increased to\nnineteen sail; it had been provisioned by the Prince of Orange; and there\nwere 2,000 soldiers on board. On the 25th of July the Prince was off\nYarmouth, where a landing of the soldiers was attempted with a view to\nrelieve Colchester. That failing, he removed to the mouth of the Thames,\nto obstruct the commerce of the Londoners, and make prizes of their\nships. Precisely at the time when the Westmorland and Lancashire people\nwere grieving over the ravages of the invading Scots, the Londoners were\nin consternation over the capture by the Prince of an Indiaman and\nseveral other richly-laden vessels. For the ransom of these by their\nowners the Prince demanded huge sums of money, intimating at the same\ntime (Aug 8) that the block of the Thames would be kept up until the\nLondoners declared for the King, or Parliament agreed to a cessation of\narms on certain loyal conditions. [Footnote: In the summary given\nin the text of the incidents of the Civil War from March to August 1648,\nI have tried to reduce into chronological connexion the information given\ndisconnectedly in Rushworth, VII.  1010-1220, and at large in Clarendon,\nBook XI. There have been references, for dates and facts, to the\nParliamentary History and Journals, Burnet's Hamiltons, Godwin's\nCommonwealth, and Carlyle's Cromwell.]\n\nThrough these four or five months of Royalist risings coalescing at last\nin a Civil War as extensive as the first had been, and much more\nentangled (April-Aug. 1648), what had been the conduct of Parliament? It\nhad been very odd indeed.\n\nNothing could have been bolder than the attitude of the two Houses, and\nespecially of the Commons, for a month or so after their famous No-\nAddress Resolutions of Jan. 1-15. Thus, on the 11th of February, the\nCommons adopted, by a majority of 80 to 50, a Declaration, which had been\nprepared in Committee, and chiefly by Nathaniel Fiennes and Henry Marten,\nsetting forth their Reasons for breaking off communication with the King.\nThey published the document without consulting the other House. It was\nthe severest criticism of the King personally that had yet been put forth\nby either House of Parliament, severe even to atrocity. His whole reign\nwas reviewed remorselessly from its beginning, and characterized as \"a\ncontinued track of breach of trust to the three kingdoms,\" and there was\neven the horrible insinuation that he had connived with the Duke of\nBuckingham in poisoning his own father. After this tremendous document--\nso tremendous that two Answers to it were published, one from the King\nhimself, and the other written anonymously by Hyde in Jersey--who could\nhave expected that the Commons would again make friendly overtures to his\nMajesty? Yet such was the fact. The tergiversation, however, was gradual.\nThrough the rest of February, the whole of March and most of April, the\nCommons were still in their austere fit, utterly ignoring the King, and\nprosecuting punctiliously such pieces of business as the Reply to the\nrecent Declarations and Protests of the Scots, and the Revision of the\nWestminster Assembly's _Confession of Faith and Larger Catechism_.\n[Footnote: The Revision of the _Confession of Faith_ by the two\nHouses was completed June 20, 1648, when, with the exception of certain\nportions about Church-government held in reserve, it was passed and\nordered to be printed: not, however, with the title \"Confession of\nFaith,\" but as \"Articles of Christian Religion approved and passed by\nboth Houses of Parliament after advice had with the Assembly of Divines\nby authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster.\" The Revision, though\ndetailed, was much a matter of form, paragraph after paragraph passing\nwithout discussion. On at least one point, however, there was a division\nin the Commons (Feb. 18, 1647-8). It related to Chap. XXIV. of the\nConfession, entitled _Of Marriage and Divorce_. The question was\nwhether the House should agree to the last clause of the 4th paragraph of\nthat Chapter--\"The man may not marry any of his wife's kindred nearer in\nblood than he may of his own, nor the woman of her husband's kindred\nnearer in blood than of her own.\" For the _Yea_ there voted 40 (Sir\nRobert Pye and Sir Anthony Irby, tellers); for the _No_ 71 (Sir\nWilliam Armyn and Mr. Knightley, tellers); in other words, the House by a\nmajority of 31 doubted the ecclesiastical doctrine of forbidden degrees\nof _affinity_ in marriage.] The attendance during these months\nranged from about 70 to 190, and the Independents, or friends of the\nArmy, seemed still to command the majority. On the 24th of April,\nhowever, on a call of the House, occasioned by the prospect of the\nScottish invasion and the signs of Royalist movement in England, no fewer\nthan 306 members appeared in their places, Many of these seem to have\nbeen Presbyterian members, long absent, but now whistled back by their\nleaders for a fresh effort in behalf of Royalty in connexion with\nPresbytery. At all events, from this call of the House on April 24 the\ntide is turned, and we find vote after vote showing renewed Presbyterian\nascendency with an inclination to the King. Thus, on the 28th of April,\nit was carried by 165 votes to 99, that the House should declare that it\nwould not alter the fundamental government of the kingdom, by King,\nLords, and Commons; also, by 108 to 105, that \"the matter of the\nPropositions sent to the King at Hampton Court by consent of both\nkingdoms\" should be the ground of a new debate for the settlement of the\nkingdom; also, by 146 to 101, that the No-Address Resolutions of January\nshould not hinder any member from propounding in the debate anything that\nmight tend to an improvement of the said Propositions. Here certainly was\na change of policy; and, if there could be any doubt that it was effected\nby a sudden influx of Presbyterians, that doubt would be removed by a\nstupendous event which followed, appertaining wholly to the Religious\nquestion. On the 1st of May (the very day on which Cromwell was ordered\noff to South Wales by Fairfax and the Council of War) there was brought\nup in the Commons an \"_Ordinance for the Suppression of Blasphemies and\nHeresies_,\" which the Presbyterians had been long urging and labouring\nat in committees, but which the Independents and Tolerationists had\nhitherto managed to keep back. Without a division it passed the House\nthat day; next day it passed the Lords; and, accordingly, under date May\n2, 1648, this is what stands in the Lords Journals as thenceforward to be\nthe Law of England:--\n\n\"For the preventing of the growth and spreading of Heresy and Blasphemy:\nBe it ordained ... That all such persons as shall, from and after the\ndate of this present Ordinance, willingly, by preaching, teaching,\nprinting, or writing, maintain and publish that there is no God, or that\nGod is not present in all places, doth not know and foreknow all things,\nor that He is not Almighty, that He is not perfectly Holy, or that He is\nnot Eternal, or that the Father is not God, the Son is not God, or that\nthe Holy Ghost is not God, or that They Three are not One Eternal God; or\nthat shall in like manner maintain and publish that Christ is not God\nequal with the Father, or shall deny the Manhood of Christ, or that the\nGodhead and Manhood of Christ are several natures, or that the Humanity\nof Christ is pure and unspotted of all sin; or that shall maintain and\npublish, as aforesaid, that Christ did not die, nor rise from the dead,\nnor is ascended into Heaven bodily, or that shall deny His death is\nmeritorious in the behalf of Believers; or that shall maintain and\npublish, as aforesaid, that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God; or that\nthe Holy Scripture, _videlicet_ [here comes in the entire list of\nthe Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments], is not the Word of\nGod; or that the bodies of men shall not rise again after they are dead;\nor that there is no Day of Judgment after death:--All such maintaining\nand publishing of such Error or Errors, with obstinacy therein, shall, by\nvirtue hereof, be adjudged Felony: And all such persons [here is\nexplained the process by which they are to be accused and brought to\ntrial].. and in case the indictment be found and the party upon his trial\nshall not abjure the said Error, and defence and maintenance of the same,\nhe SHALL SUFFER THE PAINS OF DEATH, AS IN CASE OF FELONY, WITHOUT BENEFIT\nOF CLERGY...\"\n\n\"Be it further ordained, by the authority aforesaid, That all and every\nperson or persons that shall publish or maintain, as aforesaid, any of\nthe several Errors hereafter ensuing, _videlicet_ [here a long\nenumeration of _minor_ forms of Religious Error, such as \"that man\nby nature hath free will to turn to God,\" that God may be worshipped by\npictures and images, that there is a Purgatory, \"that man is bound to\nbelieve no more than by his reason he can comprehend,\" \"that the\nbaptizing of infants is unlawful,\" that the observation of the Lord's Day\nis not obligatory, or \"that the Church-government by Presbytery is Anti-\nChristian or unlawful\"], shall be [ordered to renounce their Error or\nErrors in public congregation, and, in case of refusal,] COMMITTED TO\nPRISON....\"\n\nImagine _that_ going forth, just as the Second Civil War had begun,\nas the will and ordinance of Parliament! One wonders that the Concordat\nbetween Parliament and the Army, arranged by Cromwell and the other Army-\nchiefs in the preceding November, was not snapped on the instant. One\nwonders that the Army did not wheel in mass round Westminster, haul the\nlegislating idiots from their seats, and then undertake in their own name\nboth the war and the general business of the nation. The behaviour of the\nArmy, however, was more patient and wise. Parliament could be reckoned\nwith afterwards; meanwhile let it pass what measures it liked, so long as\nit did not absolutely throw up its trust and abandon all to the King!\nTill Parliament should do that, the fighting which the Army had to do at\nany rate might as well be done in the name of the Parliament!\n\nReally there seemed a chance that even the last extremity of faint-\nheartedness would be reached, and that Parliament _would_ throw up\nits national trust. Here, for example, were some of its proceedings in\nJune and July, of which Cromwell must have heard, with rather strange\nfeelings, in the midst of his hard work in Wales, Lambert in his watch\nagainst the Scots in the north, and Fairfax and Ireton in their siege of\nColchester. June 3, 7, and 8, the two Houses, of their own accord, or on\nearnest Petitions from the City, agreed to drop all the impeachments and\nother proceedings voted in the preceding year at the instance of the Army\nagainst members of their own body, and against City officials implicated\nin the Presbyterian tumults in London, and in particular to invite the\nSeven peccant Peers and the survivors of the Eleven peccant Commoners to\nreturn to their places. June 30 and July 3 the proposal to re-open a\nTreaty with the King was after much intermediate debating, brought to a\nbearing by a formal agreement of the two Houses to rescind their No-\nAddress Resolutions of January, and by a vote of the Commons that the\nPropositions to be submitted to the King for his assent before farther\ntreaty should be these three--Presbytery for three years, the Militia\nwith Parliament for ten years, and the Recall by the King of all\nProclamations and Declarations against the Parliament. Even this, so much\nmore favourable to the King than former offers, the Lords thought too\nharsh; and they refused (July 5) to make the Treaty conditional on the\nKing's prior assent to the three Propositions. Nor was this the only\nproof that the bravery of the Lords had evaporated even more completely\nthan that of the Commons. On July 14, when it was known that Hamilton's\nArmy of Scots was actually in England, the Commons did vote that the\ninvaders were public enemies, and that all Englishmen who should abet\nthem should be accounted traitors; but the Lords (July 18) refused to\nconcur in that vote. Were the soldiers of Parliament, then, to be\nfighting against invaders whom one of the Houses did not regard as public\nenemies?--In short, the fact had come to be that, in the beginning of\nAugust, the forces of Fairfax, Lambert, and Cromwell, were conducting a\nwar in the name of Parliament which Parliament and the City of London\nwere taking every means to stop. A Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen,\nand Common Council of the City, presented to the Lords Aug. 8 (the last\nof scores of Petitions in the same sense that had for a month or two been\npoured in), expressed the general Presbyterian feeling. \"The government\nof the Church still unsettled; blasphemy, heresy, schism, and profaneness\nincreased; the relief of bleeding Ireland obstructed; the war, to their\ngreat astonishment, renewed; the people of England thereby miserably\nimpoverished and oppressed; the blood of our fellow-subjects spilt like\nwater upon the ground; our Brethren of Scotland now entered into this\nkingdom in a hostile manner, his Highness the Prince of Wales commanding\nat sea a considerable part of the Navy, and other ships under his power,\nhaving already made stay of many English ships with merchandise and\nprovisions to a very great value:\"--these were the complaints; and the\nPetitioners humbly conceived there was no visible remedy but the \"speedy\nfreeing of his Majesty\" from restraint, and \"a Personal Treaty\" with him\nfor \"restoring him to his just rights.\" The City was to have its will.\nThe Commons (July 28) had abandoned, by a majority of 71 to 64, their\nintention to require assent to the three Propositions in preparation for\na Treaty, and had agreed to a general and open Treaty, such as the Lords\ndesired; communications on the subject had been made to the King; and,\nthough his Majesty would have preferred to treat in London, he consented\n(Aug. 10) that the place should be Newport in the Isle of Wight.--Note\nalso two contemporary incidents of deep significance. On the 2nd of\nAugust Major Robert Huntingdon, Cromwell's former Major, presented to the\nLords, in the form of a Paper of \"Sundry Reasons inducing him to lay down\nhis Commission,\" what was really a series of charges of High Treason\nagainst Cromwell; the Paper was that day duly entered in the Lords\nJournals for future occasion; and it was with the utmost difficulty, and\nmuch contrivance of the Speaker, that the same Paper was kept out of the\nCommons. Such was the first incident; the other is thus given by\nRushworth under date Aug. 14: \"Colonel Denzil Holles came this day to the\nHouse and sat.\" This means that the chief of the Eleven, the Arch-\nPresbyterian of the House, the man who hated Cromwell worse than poison,\nhad come back at this juncture to re-assume the Presbyterian leadership.\nAfter that Major Huntingdon's charges against Cromwell were not likely to\nbe kept long out of the Commons by any contrivance of the Speaker.\n[Footnote: The facts in this account of the conduct of Parliament from\nFeb. to Aug. 1648 are from the Parliamentary History, the Lords and\nCommons Journals, and Rushworth. The dates given will indicate the exact\nplaces in these authorities.]\n\nIf ever a General fought for his country with the rope round his neck,\nthat General was Cromwell, as he now fought for England. No one knew this\nbetter than himself, when, with his hardy troops hurried north from their\nsevere service in Wales, he joined Lambert among the Yorkshire hills\n(Aug. 10 or thereabouts), to deal with the army of Hamilton and Langdale.\nLet him fail in this enterprise, let him succeed but doubtfully in it,\nand, in the relapse into Royalism which would then be universal, the\nfirst uproar of execration would be against _him_, and London would\neither never see him again or see him dragged to death. Fail!-succeed but\ndoubtfully! When the wicked plot against the just and gnash upon him with\ntheir teeth, doth not the Lord laugh at them and see that their day is\ncoming? It was in this faith that Cromwell, descending westward from the\nYorkshire hills after his junction with Lambert, hurled himself, with his\nlittle army of not more than 9,000 in all, right athwart the track of\nHamilton and his 24,000 of mixed Scots and English advancing through\nLancashire. The result was THE THREE DAYS' BATTLE OF PRESTON (Aug. 17-\n19), in which the Scots and their English allies were totally ruined.\nAbout 3,000 were slain; 10,000 were taken prisoners; of the host of\nfugitives only a portion succeeded in attaching themselves to Monro, who\nhad been lying considerably to the rear of the main battle and now picked\nup its fragments for a retreat northwards; the rest were dispersed\nmiserably hither and thither, so that for weeks afterwards poor Scots\nwere found begging about English farmhouses, either pretending to be dumb\nlest their speech should betray them, or trying vainly to pass for\nYorkshiremen. Hamilton, with a fraction of the fugitives, made his way\ninto Staffordshire, but had to surrender himself a prisoner Aug. 25.\n\nThe collapse of the King's cause, begun in Lancashire Aug. 17-19, was to\nbe absolute within the next fortnight. On the 28th of August the Prince\nof Wales withdrew from his useless hovering about the south-east coast\nand sailed back with his fleet to Holland; whence most of the ships were\nrecovered in due time, the officers remaining in exile, but the crews\nonly too glad to return to their allegiance to Parliament. On the same\nday the town of Colchester, after a siege of more than six weeks, during\nwhich the most hideous extremities of famine had been endured by the poor\ntownsmen, surrendered at mercy to Fairfax. Above 3,000 soldiers, with\ntheir officers, thus became prisoners. Two of the chief officers, Sir\nCharles Lucas and Sir George Lisle, selected for special reasons, were\nshot immediately after the surrender by order of the Council of War; the\nothers, including the Earl of Norwich and Lord Capel, were reserved for\nthe disposal of Parliament. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII. 1225-1248; Parl.\nHist. III. 992-1002; Lords and Commons Journals; Carlyle's Cromwell, I.\n279-299.]\n\n Thus, in the end of August 1648, the SECOND CIVIL WAR, with the\nexception of a few relics, was trampled out. Events then resolved\nthemselves into two distinct courses, running parallel for a time, but\none of which proved itself so much the more powerful that at last it\ndisdained the pretence of parallelism with the other and overflooded the\nwhole level.\n\nIn the first place, there was the progress of that TREATY OF NEWPORT to\nwhich the two Houses had pledged themselves while the war was going on.\nDelays had occurred in arranging particulars with the King, and it was\nnot till Sept. 1 that the Commissioners of the two Houses were appointed.\nThey were, for the Lords, the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke,\nSalisbury, and Middlesex, and Viscount Saye and Sele, and, for the\nCommons, Viscount Wenman (of the Irish Peerage), Denzil Holles, Glynn,\nVane the younger, William Pierrepoint, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, Sir John\nPotts, John Crewe, Samuel Browne, and John Bulkley. Their instructions\nwere to proceed to the Isle of Wight, and there, all together or any\neight of them (of whom two must be lords), to treat with the King for\nforty days on the Propositions formerly presented to him at Hampton\nCourt, taking these Propositions in a fixed order and doing their best to\nget his Majesty to agree to them, but receiving any counter-proposals he\nmight make, and transmitting these to the two Houses. All demands on the\nKing and all answers or proposals from him were to be in writing; but the\ndebates might be oral between the Commissioners and his Majesty. Not to\npartake in these debates, but to be present at them by permission, and to\nform a kind of Council with whom the King might retire to consult on\ndifficult points, were to be a largish body of Royalist lords, divines,\nlawyers, and others, to whom, at his special request, leave had been\ngiven to repair to the island and to be in attendance on him throughout\nthe Treaty. Among these were the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of\nHertford, the Earls of Lindsey and Southampton, Bishops Juxon, Duppa, and\nDr. Saunderson, Sir Orlando Bridgman, Sir Thomas Gardiner, and Mr.\nGeoffrey Palmer. Finally, the King was to be on his parole not to attempt\nan escape during the Treaty, nor for twenty days afterwards. More than\none attempt of the kind had been made during the four months of the Civil\nWar. The wonder is that, while the Prince of Wales was off the English\ncoast with his fleet, a rescue of the King had not somehow been effected.\n[Footnote:  Parl. Hist III. 1001-4; Commons Journals, Sept. 1.]\n\nNot till Friday Sept. 15 did the Parliamentary Commissioners arrive in\nthe Isle of Wight. They were accompanied by Messrs. Marshall, Nye, Vines,\nSeaman, and Caryl, from the Assembly of Divines. The Treaty began on\nMonday the 18th, in a house in the town of Newport selected as the most\nsuitable for the purpose. At the head of a table, under a canopy of\nstate, sat the King; the lords, divines, and lawyers, permitted to be\npresent as listeners in his behalf, stood grouped behind his chair; the\nParliamentary Commissioners sat at the sides of the table, with a space\nbetween them and his Majesty. It was hoped at first by the Commissioners\nthat the Treaty would be a short one. That the King would accept the\nPropositions one by one, without criticism or demur, as fast as they\ncould be tabled, was the desire, above all, of Holles, Glynn, and the\nother Presbyterian Commissioners. To their surprise, even to their\nhorror, Charles had never been more captious or guarded in his highest\nkingliness than he was now found in the depths of his doubled ruin. Over\nthe Proposition first presented--that for annulling all declarations and\nacts against Parliament--he was so dilatory that not till Sept. 25 was it\ncompletely passed, and then only with the proviso that his assent to it\nshould have no force until the whole Treaty should be concluded. On the\nChurch question, also brought forward the first day, he was more\nhopelessly unimpressible. The Proposition on this question being complex,\nhe framed his first Answer so as to include only some of the points and\nevade the others. He consented to the establishment of Presbytery for\nthree years, but not to the perpetual alienation of the Bishops' lands;\nand as to the abolition of Episcopacy and the obligation of the Covenant\nhe said not a word. Then, these points being pressed, he argued and re-\nargued, day after day, conceding only that Episcopacy should be limited,\nand the like, till the Commissioners, despairing of any full agreement on\nthat Proposition, left it, and passed to others (Oct. 9). On some of\nthese others, including that on the Militia, he chose to acquiesce at\nonce; but a second block occurred on the Proposition relating to\nDelinquents (Oct. 13-17). All this while, the King was the sole speaker\non his side, retiring now and then to consult with his advisers, and of\ncourse framing his written Papers with their advice, but always resuming\nthe oral debate himself, and showing an ability both in actual reasoning\nand in the conduct of the business generally which surprised some of the\nCommissioners. The necessity of continual reference to the two Houses\nincreased the delay. There had been various debates in both on the\nprogress of the Treaty as reported by the Commissioners, and on the 12th\nof October the Commons had voted the King's answer on the Church question\nunsatisfactory. The King, in consequence, revised his Answer on this\nquestion, and offered, among other things, to consent to the abolition of\nArchbishops and all other grades of the hierarchy, if the single office\nof Bishops were preserved. This revised Answer the Commons voted\nunsatisfactory, Oct. 26, the Lords agreeing substantially next day; and\non the 30th of October the Commons passed a similar vote respecting the\nAnswer on Delinquents. At this point, therefore, the Treaty may be\nconsidered to have come to a stop. At the same time there came to a stop\na written controversy on the Church question, which had been going on\ncollaterally between his Majesty and the Divines of the Assembly\nattending the Commissioners. The controversy was a repetition of that\nbetween the King and Henderson at Newcastle. It had begun Oct. 2, and it\nwas wound up by his Majesty in a long last Paper Nov. 1.\n\nIt was mainly on the Episcopacy question that the Treaty was wrecked; or\nrather it was on this question that the King had chosen that there should\nbe the appearance of wreck. For, in truth, the Treaty on his side, like\nhis former Treaties, had been all along a pretence. Though his doom was\nstaring him in the face, he could not see it, but had again been\nmustering up wild hopes of some great turn of the wheel in his favour if\nhe could but procrastinate enough. Had not the Marquis of Ormond, for\nexample, effected a landing in Wexford, with a view to a junction with\nthe Irish Roman Catholic Confederates? Might not something come out of\nthat? Or might there not be some help yet from the Prince of Wales in\nHolland, or from the Queen's and Jermyn's plottings at Paris, or from the\nScots after all? To take advantage of any or all of these contingencies,\na temporary refuge on the Continent might be necessary; and so, when the\ntime of his parole should be over, a means of escape must be devised!\nSuch having been Charles's mood when he began the Treaty, one does not\nwonder at finding that he had been behaving with his usual duplicity\nwhile it was in progress. \"To deal freely with you,\" he had secretly\nwritten to one correspondent on the day when he had accepted the\nProposition on the Militia question, \"the great concession I made this\nday was merely in order to my escape, of which if I had not hope, I would\nnot have done it.\" Again to the Marquis of Ormond in Ireland, \"Though you\nwill hear that this Treaty is near, or at least most likely to be,\nconcluded, yet believe it not; but pursue the way you are in with all\npossible vigour: deliver also that my command to all your friends, but\nnot in public way.\" With such a man, now as ever, a Treaty was absurd.\n\nParliament did not break off the Treaty, even when its failure had become\napparent, but allowed it to straggle on. The term of forty days first\nfixed had been prolonged to Nov. 4, and on that day most of the\nCommissioners left Newport on their return to London. Six of them,\nhowever, remained behind, on the chance that his Majesty might yet see\nhis way to more complete concessions on the Church question. On this mere\nchance the Treaty was prolonged to Nov. 18, and again to Nov. 25; and, as\nhis Majesty had begged Parliament that he might have the assistance of\nsuch new advice on the Church question as could be given by Usher, ex-\nBishops Brownrigg, Prideaux, and Warner, and Drs. Ferne and Morley, leave\nhad been granted to these divines to proceed to Newport. Nothing to the\npurpose came of their advice; for in the King's final letters from\nNewport to the two Houses, dated Nov. 18 and Nov. 21, he is as firm as\never on the necessity and Apostolical origin of the order of Bishops,\nquotes 1 Timothy v. 22 and Titus i. 5 in that behalf, and protests that\nhe can go no farther than his previous offer of a reduction of Episcopacy\nto its barest Apostolical simplicity. On Friday the 24th of November\nthese letters were voted unsatisfactory by both Houses, but it was\nresolved (not without a division in the Commons) to allow the King two\ndays more. The Treaty was to be considered at an end on the night of\nMonday the 27th, and on the next day, with or without satisfaction, the\nCommissioners still on duty were to take their leave. By the King's\nparole he would be bound not to attempt an escape from the island till\ntwenty days after that. Colonel Hammond, observing signs that the King\nmeant to assume that the terms of his original parole had ceased to be\nbinding, had prudently insisted on its public renewal. [Footnote: For the\naccount of the treaty of Newport my authorities have been--Parl. Hist\nIII. 1013-1133, with references at the chief dates to Rushworth and the\nLords and Commons Journals; Works of King Charles I. (1651), pp. 191-286\nof third paging; Godwin, II. 608-618.]\n\nMeanwhile, in utter disgust at this protracted play of negotiation\nbetween Parliament and the King in the Isle of Wight, there had been\nforming itself that other agency which was to interpose irresistibly, and\nhurry all to a real catastrophe.\n\nThe reader knows the nature of the paction between the Parliament and the\nArmy-chiefs which we have taken the liberty of calling by the name of\n_The Concordat (ant\u00e8_, pp. 573-4, 583-4). It was the agreement of\nthe Army-chiefs, in Nov. 1647, to suppress for the time the democratic\nmanifestations of the Army and its pretensions to political dictation,\nleaving the conduct of affairs wholly to Parliament. This Concordat, as\nwe saw, though it saved the country from the peril of an immediate\ndemocratic revolution, was theoretically a clumsy one. The political\nviews of the Army were singularly clear and direct. A strictly\nconstitutional government of King, Lords, and Commons, with a large\nincrease of the power of the Commons, guaranteed Biennial Parliaments,\nand a thoroughly Reformed System of Representation--such had been the\nideal of the Army-chiefs in their _Heads of Proposals_ of August\n1647; the Levellers had gone a good deal farther in their _Agreement of\nthe People_ in Nov. 1647, and had proposed the abolition of hereditary\nprivileges, and the concentration of supreme power in a single\nRepresentative House; but in both documents alike Liberty of Conscience\nand Worship was laid down as axiomatic, with a demand that it should be\nso recognised in the future law of England, for the benefit of\nEpiscopalian and Papist no less than of Presbyterian, Independent, and\nSectary. How could an Army burning with these notions bind itself to be\nthe silent servant of a Parliament whose behaviour hitherto, on the\nreligious question generally, and on the political question very often,\nhad been so muddled and fatuous? Better surely for the Army to raise its\nown political flag and coerce Parliament into the right way! That this\nhad not been done had been owing partly to the unwillingness of Cromwell,\nIreton, and the other chiefs to take the responsibility all at once of\nheading a movement in which the Levelling Principle would be let loose,\nbut partly also because hopes had been conceived that the balance in\nParliament had been turned in favour of the Independents. For several\nmonths, accordingly, the Army had not repented of the Concordat.\nEspecially in January 1647-8, when the two Houses broke off their\nabortive Treaty with the King on the Four Bills, and passed their No-\nAddress Resolutions, their boldness won renewed confidence from the Army.\nBut, in the succeeding months, when the rumour of the Scottish Engagement\nwith the King began to rouse Royalists and Presbyterians alike for a new\nwar, and the absent Presbyterians of the Commons came back to their\nplaces to turn the votes, and these votes tended to a renewed Treaty with\nthe King on the basis of a strict Presbytery, the disbandment of the\nArmy, and the suppression of Sects,--then what could the Army do but\nspurn the Concordat? Like their own previous dealings with the King\nhimself in the hope of winning him over, had not this Concordat been,\nafter all, but a piece of carnal and crooked policy? To hold certain\nbeliefs in the heart, and yet to consent to be the dumb instrument of\nthose whose views were wholly different, or only half the same, could not\nbe right in a reasoning body of free men, merely because they were called\nan Army! What had become of Cromwell's principles, avowed so frequently\nthat the whole Army had them by heart--the principle \"That every single\nman is judge of just and right as to the good or ill of a kingdom,\" and\nthe principle \"That the interest of honest men is the interest of the\nkingdom\"? Nay, had not the Levellers had more of the real root of the\nmatter in them than it had been convenient to allow, and had not the poor\nfellow who had been shot as a mutineer at the Rendezvous at Ware been in\nsome sense a martyr? Now, at all events, would it not be necessary that\nat least _something_ of the spirit of the Levellers, _some_ of\nthose proposals of theirs which had been lately suppressed as harsh and\npremature, should be revived with new credit, and adopted into the\ngeneral creed of the Army?\n\nThat such self-reproaches for past mistakes, and such questionings as to\nthe course of future duty, had become universal in the Army before the\noutbreak of the Second Civil War, is proved by very abundant evidence,\nbut nowhere more strikingly than in the record of the famous Prayer-\nmeeting of the Officers, with Cromwell among them, held at Windsor Castle\nin March or April 1648. Adjutant-general Allen, the writer of this\nrecord, had a vivid recollection of this meeting eleven years afterwards,\nand could then look back upon it as an undoubted turning-point in the\nhistory of the Army and of the nation. At that time, he says, the Army\nwas \"in a low, weak, divided, perplexed condition in all respects\" and\nthere were even some who, in the prospect of the Scottish invasion and a\nnew war at such vast odds, argued that the Army ought to resist no\nlonger, but break up, and change the policy of collective action into one\nof individual passive endurance. Others, however, still thought that more\nremained to be done in the way of active duty, and it was at their\ninstance that the meeting was called. It lasted three days, and with most\nremarkable results. The first day was spent in prayer for light as to the\ncauses of God's renewed anger and their own perplexities. On the second\nday Cromwell proposed, as the best method of inquiry among themselves,\nthat they should all simultaneously engage in silent retrospection, both\nupon their own past \"ways particularly as private Christians,\" and also\nupon their \"public actions as an Army.\" If they should each and all be\nled, in such retrospection, to fasten on some one precise point of time\nas that at which the Lord had withdrawn His former countenance and things\nhad begun to go wrong, might there not be a lesson in that unanimity? And\nlo! on the third day it was so. They had all, in their silent review of\nthe past, fastened on one and the same point, as that at which their\ndeparture from the straight path of truth and simplicity had begun. It\nwas a point beyond their Concordat with the Parliament, and lay among\nthose prior negotiations of the Army-chiefs with the King personally out\nof which the Concordat had seemed a natural escape. It lay, says Allen,\nin \"those cursed carnal conferences our conceited wisdom, our fears, and\nwant of faith, had prompted us, the year before, to entertain with the\nKing and his Party.\" And with this unanimous agreement on the question\nwhere the steps of error had begun there came a unanimous consent as to\nthe right course of future duty. \"We were led and helped,\" says Allen,\n\"to a clear agreement amongst ourselves, not any dissenting, That it was\nthe duty of our day, with the forces we had, to go out and fight against\nthose potent enemies which that year in all places appeared against\nus...; and we were also enabled then, after serious seeking His face, to\ncome to a very clear and joint resolution, on many grounds at large there\ndebated amongst us, That it was our duty, if ever the Lord brought us\nback again in peace, to call Charles Stuart, that man of blood, to an\naccount for that blood he had shed and mischief he had done to his utmost\nagainst the Lord's Cause and People in these poor Nations.\" [Footnote:\nSee Allen's striking narrative (written in 1659) quoted at length in\nCarlyle's Cromwell, I. 263-266.]\n\nThis momentous resolution of the Army Officers, formed at Windsor most\nprobably in April 1648, or just before Cromwell went off to suppress the\nRoyalist rising in Wales, had lain dormant, but not wholly secret, in the\nbosom of the Army through all the four months of the renewed Civil War\n(May-Aug.). Not till the war was over, however, was the resolution\nformally announced. Even then it was done gradually. The first hints came\nfrom those Independents in the Commons who were in the confidence of the\nArmychiefs. In the debates preceding the Treaty of Newport some of these\nIndependents had spoken with significant boldness, Mr. Thomas Scott for\none declaring that \"a peace with so perfidious and implacable a prince\"\nwas an impossibility; and, in fact, the Treaty was carried by the\nPresbyterians against the implied protest of the Independents. Then, just\nas the Treaty was beginning, there was presented to the House (Sept. 11)\nan extraordinary document purporting to be \"The humble Petition of\nThousands of well-affected Persons inhabiting the City of London,\nWestminster, the Borough of Southwark, Hamlets, and places adjacent.\"\nThis Petition, said to have been penned by Henry Marten, was not merely a\ndenunciation of the Treaty; it was a detailed democratic challenge. It\nproclaimed the House of Commons to be \"the Supreme Authority of England,\"\nand declared that it was for this principle, and nothing short of this,\nthat England had fought and struggled for six years; and, after a severe\nlecture to the House for its pusillanimity in never yet having risen to\nthe full height of this principle, it enumerated twenty-seven things\nwhich were expected from it when it should do so. Among these were the\nrepudiation of any sham of a power either in the King or in the Lords to\nresist the will of the Commons, the passing of a Bill for Annual\nParliaments, the execution of justice on criminals of whatever rank, the\n\"exemption of matters of Religion and God's worship from the compulsive\nor restrictive power of any authority upon earth,\" and the consequent\nrepeal of the recent absurd Ordinance \"appointing punishments concerning\nopinions on things supernatural, styling some Blasphemies, others\nHeresies.\" Such a Petition, signed by about 40,000 persons, in or near\nLondon, hitherto pre-eminently the Presbyterian city, was a signal for\nsimilar Petitions from other parts. On the 30th of September there came a\nPetition in the same sense from \"many thousands\" of the well-affected in\nOxfordshire, and on the 10th of October there were Petitions from\nNewcastle, York, and Hull, and from Somerset. [Footnote: Parl. Hist, III.\n1005-11; Whitlocke, II. 413, 419.]\n\nThese civilian Petitions having prepared the way, the Army itself spoke\nout at last. Since Sept. 16 the headquarters of the Army had been at St.\nAlban's; and it was thence that on the 18th of October letters from\nFairfax announced to the House of Commons that Petitions from the\nOfficers and Soldiers of different regiments had been presented to him,\nor were in preparation, some of which were of a political nature. One, in\nparticular, from General Ireton's regiment, called for \"impartial and\nspeedy justice\" upon public criminals, and demanded \"that the same fault\nmay have the same punishment in the person of King or Lord as in the\npoorest Commoner.\" Such petitions to Fairfax appear to have dropped in\nupon him from regiment after regiment at St. Alban's during the next\nfortnight. One Petition, however, heard of in London Oct. 30, was from\nColonel Ingoldsby's regiment, then in garrison at Oxford. It also\ndemanded \"immediate care that justice should be done upon the principal\ninvaders of our liberties, namely the King and his party;\" it demanded,\nmoreover, that \"sufficient caution and strait bonds should be given to\nfuture Kings for the preventing the enslaving of the people;\" and it went\non to say that, as the Petitioners were almost past hope of these things\nfrom Parliament, and regarded the Treaty then in progress as a delusion,\nthey could only pray his Excellency to \"re-establish a General Council of\nthe Army\" to consider of some effectual remedies. This, in fact, was the\npractical conclusion on which the whole Army was bent, and to which all\nthe regimental Petitions pointed. If Fairfax had yet any hesitations\nabout complying, they must have been ended by what occurred in Parliament\nimmediately afterwards. Not only were the two Houses still looking for\nsome last chance from the Treaty of Newport, and extending the time of\nthe Treaty again and again in the vain chose of this last chance; but in\nanother matter, which lay wholly in their own power, their \"half-\nheartedness\" became apparent. At the very time when the Independents of\nLondon and other places, and the several regiments of Fairfax's Army,\nwere calling for exemplary justice on the chief Delinquents in the late\nwar, what were the punishments with which the Presbyterian majority in\nthe Parliament proposed to let off those of the Delinquents who were then\nin custody? For the Duke of Hamilton (Earl of Cambridge in the English\nPeerage, and so liable to the pains of English treason) a fine of\n100,000_l._, with imprisonment till it should be paid; and for the\nEarls of Holland and Norwich, Lord Capel, Lord Loughborough, and four\nothers, simple banishment! Resolutions to this effect passed the Commons\nNov. 10, and were sent up for the approval of the Lords. The Army, though\nprepared for almost anything from the \"half-heartedness\" of the\nParliament, heard of this last exhibition of it with positive\n\"amazement.\" What else, it was asked, now remained than that the Army\nitself as a whole should step forward, call its masters to a reckoning,\nand either compel them to be the instruments of a better policy, or take\naffairs into its own hands? Fairfax, with all his prudence, could not\ndecline the responsibility: and accordingly a General Council of the\nOfficers of the Army was held at St. Alban's under his presidency. It had\nsat about a week when (Nov. 16) a GRAND ARMY REMONSTRANCE, to be\npresented to the House of Commons, was unanimously adopted. [Footnote:\nRushworth, VII. 1297-8, 1811-12, and 1830; Commons Journals, Nov. 10\n1618, Whitlocke, II. 436.]\n\nThis GRAND ARMY REMONSTRANCE of Nov. 1648 is another of those documents\nfrom the pen of Ireton which deserve to be rescued from the contemporary\nlumber with which they are associated, and to be carefully studied on\naccount of their supreme interest in English History. The document is of\nmost elaborate composition, and of a length about equal to fifty pages of\nthis volume; for, in fact, though formally addressed to the House of\nCommons, it was intended as a kind of Pamphlet to the English nation,\nsetting forth the Army's views in a reasoned shape, and the programme of\naction on which they had resolved:--There is first an exposition of the\nrule _Salus Populi lex suprema_, a rule admitted to be capable of\nabuse and misapplication, but declared nevertheless to have a real\nmeaning. Then there is a review of the relations between the Parliament\nand the Army from the time of what we have called the Concordat. Fain, it\nis added, would the Army have seen that Concordat perpetual; most\nreluctant were they to break it. But what had happened? Had not\nParliament itself lapsed from those honest No-Address Resolutions of ten\nmonths ago which expressed the true sense of the Concordat? Had they not,\nwithin a few months after passing those Resolutions, utterly forgotten\nthem, and run after that wretched rag of delusive hope called \"A Personal\nTreaty with the King\"? Nay, though events had again proved that the fears\nthat had partly swayed them in this direction were groundless--though the\nLord had again laid bare His arm, and that small Army which they had\nceased to trust and had well-nigh deserted and cast off, had been enabled\nto shiver all the banded strength of a second English Insurrection, aided\nby an invasion from Scotland--even after this rebuke from God, were they\nnot still pursuing the same phantom of an Accommodation? Here the\nRemonstrants argue the whole subject most earnestly. Having laid down the\nprinciple that in every State the care of all matters of public concern\nmust be in a Supreme Representative Council or Parliament, freely elected\nby the whole people, they maintain that any Kingship or other such office\ninstituted in any State must be regarded as a creation of such Supreme\nCouncil for special ends and within special limits, and that any one\nholding such office who shall have been proved to have perseveringly\nabused his trust, or sought to convert it into a personal possession, may\njustly be called to account. They appeal to the entire recollection of\nCharles's reign whether he had not been such a false King, a cause of woe\nand war from first to last, a functionary guilty of the highest treason.\nBut, if the past could be considered alone, and there were reasonable\nchance for the present and the future, they would not be relentless. \"If\nthere were good evidence of a proportionable remorse in him, and that his\ncoming in again were with a new or changed heart,\" then, they say, \"his\nperson might be capable of pity, mercy, and pardon, and an accommodation\nwith him, with a full and free yielding on his part to all the aforesaid\npoints of public and religious interest in contest, might, in charitable\nconstruction, be just, and possibly safe and beneficial.\" But no such\nground for charity, leniency, or tenderness had been afforded by Charles.\nEven now, while actually treating with the Parliament after his complete\nsecond ruin, was he not the same man as ever, dissembling, prevaricating,\nsecretly expecting something from Ormond and the Irish Rebels? If such a\nman were restored to power, under whatever bonds, promises, guarantees,\nthe consequences were but too obvious. All the credit, all the huzzas, of\nthe new situation would be his; he would figure for a while as the Father\nof his People, the Restorer of would be forgotten, or would be remembered\nonly as implicated in the confusion that had ceased; and in a short time\nthere would be parties, factions, divisions, and the beginnings of a new\nspider-web of Court-government and Absolutism. \"Have you not found him at\nthis play all along? And do not all men acknowledge him most exquisite at\nit?\" So the Remonstrance proceeds, page after page, in long, complex,\nwave-like sentences, every sentence vital, and the whole impressing one\nwith the grave seriousness of spirit, and also the political\nthoughtfulness, with which it was drawn up.--Towards the end come the\nspecific demands which the Army made on the Commons, and which they were\nresolved to enforce. These are divided into two sets:--I. _Immediate\nDemands_. These are five. First of all, it is demanded \"That the\ncapital and grand author of our troubles, the Person of the King, by\nwhose commissions, commands, or procurement, and in whose behalf and for\nwhose interest only, of will and power, all our wars and troubles have\nbeen, with all the miseries attending them, may be specially brought to\njustice for the treason, blood, and mischief he is therein guilty of.\"\nNext it is demanded that a limited time be set wherein the Prince of\nWales and the Duke of York may return to England and render themselves:\nwith the proviso that, if they do not so return, they are to be declared\nincapable for ever of any government or trust in the kingdom, and are to\nbe treated without mercy as enemies and traitors if ever afterwards they\nare found in England; and also that, if they do return within the limited\ntime, their cases are to be severally considered, and their past\ndelinquencies (the Prince's being greatest, and \"in appearance next unto\nhis father's\") either remitted or remembered for penalty as may be found\nfit; but that in any case all the estates and revenue of the Crown be\nsequestered for a good number of years, and applied to public uses, with\nreserve of a reasonable provision for the Royal Family and for old Crown-\nservants. Then it is demanded that a competent number of the King's chief\ninstruments in the two Civil Wars may be brought, with him, in capital\npunishment. With this satisfaction to justice the Remonstrants would be\ncontent; and they recommend that there should be moderate and clement\ntreatment of other Delinquents willing to submit, but with perpetual\nbanishment and the confiscation of estates for those of them who should\nremain obdurate. Finally, the special claims of the Army are brought\nforward, and it is demanded that there shall be full payment of their\ndamages and arrearages.--II. _Prospective Demands_. These point to\nthe future Political Constitution of England. Under this head the Army\ndemand (1) a termination of the existing Parliament within a reasonable\ntime; (2) a guaranteed succession of subsequent Parliaments, annual or\nbiennial, to be elected on such a system of suffrage and of\nredistribution of constituencies as should make them really\nrepresentative of the whole people; (3) the temporary disfranchisement\nand disqualification of the King's adherents; and (4) a strict provision\nthat Parliament, as the representative body of the people, should\nhenceforth be supreme in all things, except such as would requestion the\npolicy of the Civil War itself, and such as might trench on the\nfoundations of common Right, Liberty, and Safety. In this last provision\nit is definitely stipulated as a necessary item that, should Kingship be\nkept up in England, it should be as an elective office merely, every\nsuccessive holder of which should be chosen expressly by Parliament, and\nshould have no veto or negative voice on laws passed by the Parliament.\n[Footnote: See the entire Remonstrance (well worth reading) in Parl.\nHist. III. 1077]\n\nThis vast document, signed officially by John Rushworth, \"by the\nappointment of his Excellency the Lord General and his General Council of\nOfficers,\" was brought to the Commons, with a brief note from Fairfax\nhimself, on Monday, Nov. 20. It was presented in all form by a deputation\nof officers, consisting of Colonel Ewer, Lieutenant-colonels Kelsay,\nAxtell, and Cooke, and three Captains. The House was thunderstruck, and\nfor some hours there was a high and fierce debate. Some of the\nIndependents among the members spoke manfully in favour of the\nRemonstrance; others were for temporizing; but the more resolute\nPresbyterians, among whom Prynne was conspicuous, resented the\nRemonstrance as an insolence \"subversive of the law of the land and the\nfundamental constitutions of the kingdom,\" and protested that \"it became\nnot the House of Commons, who are a part of the Supreme Council of the\nNation, to be prescribed to, or regulated and baffled by, a Council of\nSectaries in Arms.\" Nothing of all this appears in the Journals of the\nHouse, but only this entry: \"Ordered, That the debate upon the\nRemonstrance of the General and his General Council of Officers be\nresumed on Monday next.\" That \"Monday next\" was the 27th of November, the\nvery day on which the Houses had agreed that the negotiations with the\nKing at Newport should finally cease. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Nov.\n20, 1648; Whitlocke, same date; Parl. Hist. III. 1127-8 (where extracts\nare given from a contemporary account of the in the _Mercurius\nPragmaticus_).]\n\n Cromwell, it is to be remembered, was not at this time in the immediate\nscene of action. After his victory over Hamilton at Preston (Aug. 17-19),\nhe had remained in the north, to recover Berwick and Carlisle from the\nScots, dispose of the remnant of the Scottish invading forces under\nMonro, and take such other measures against the Scottish Government as\nthat no more should be feared from that quarter.\n\nHis task had been easy. The \"Engagement\" with the King, and the\nconsequent invasion of England by a Scottish army in the King's interest,\nhad been, as we know (_ant\u00e8_, p. 589), the acts only of the Scottish\nparty then in power, the party of Hamilton and Lanark; and they had been\nvehemently opposed and disowned by the party of Argyle and Loudoun,\nbacked by the popular sentiment and by nearly the entire body of the\nScottish clergy. When, therefore, the news of the disaster at Preston\nreached Scotland, the \"Anti-Engagers\" rose everywhere against the\nGovernment of the existing Committee of Estates, assailed it with\nreproaches and execrations, and prepared to call it to account. Lanark,\nwho had been left as the chief of the Government after the capture of his\nbrother, endeavoured for a while to hold his ground. He recalled Monro\nand the relics of the Scottish army from England, and took the field with\ntheir joint forces. Meanwhile, the zealous Covenanting peasantry of the\nwestern shires, nicknamed _Whigs_ or _Whigamores_, having obeyed the\nsummons of Argyle, Loudoun, and the Earls of Eglinton and Cassilis, and\nmarched eastward to assist their brethren round Edinburgh, the forces of\nthe Anti-Engagers had swelled into an army of more than 6,000 men, the\ncommand of which was assumed by old Leslie, Earl of Leven, with David\nLeslie under him. For some time the two armies, or portions of them,\nmoved about in East Lothian, and between Edinburgh and Stirling; there\nwere some skirmishes; and a conflict seemed imminent. In reality,\nhowever, most of the noblemen of the Committee of Estates had no heart\nfor the enterprise into which Lanark was leading them. They saw it to be\ndesperate, not only from the strength of the Whigamore rising in Scotland\nitself, but also because Cromwell was at hand in the north of England, in\ncommunication with Argyle and the other Whigamore chiefs, and ready to\ncross the borders for their help, if necessary. Accordingly, after some\nnegotiation, a Treaty was arranged (Sept. 26). By the terms of this\nTreaty, Monro was to return to Ireland with his special portion of the\ntroops; but otherwise both armies were to be disbanded, Lanark and all\nwho had been concerned with him in the Engagement retiring from all\nplaces of trust, and the government of Scotland to be confirmed in the\nhands of Argyle and the Whigamores, who had already constituted\nthemselves the new Committee of Estates _de facto_.\n\nAlthough this arrangement had been effected without Cromwell's direct\ninterference, he was actually in Scotland when it was made, having\ncrossed the Tweed on the 2lst of September with an army of horse and\nfoot. The next day he had been met by Argyle, Lord Elcho, and others, as\na Deputation from the new Committee of Estates, bearing letters signed in\nthe name of the Committee by their Chancellor Loudoun. The new Government\nof Scotland most handsomely surrendered to Cromwell the towns of Carlisle\nand Berwick, with apologies for the conduct of their predecessors in\nhaving seized them; and Cromwell, delaying some days about Berwick to see\nall duly performed there, was able to write letters thence to Fairfax and\nSpeaker Lenthall (Oct. 2), praising Argyle and Elcho, and announcing that\nthere was a very good understanding between \"the Honest Party of\nScotland\" and himself. It was involved in this understanding, however,\nthat Cromwell should visit Edinburgh, and add the weight of his personal\npresence to the re-establishment of the Argyle Government on the ruins of\nthat of the Hamiltons. On Wednesday, Oct. 4, therefore, he did enter\nEdinburgh, with his officers and guard, and with Sir Arthur Haselrig in\ntheir company. They were escorted into the city with all ceremony by the\nauthorities, and lodged by them in Moray House in the Canongate, the\nfinest mansion at hand for their reception. For four days the people of\nEdinburgh, waiting in crowds outside Moray House, had the opportunity of\nstudying the features of the great English Independent as he came out or\nwent in, passing the English sentries on guard at the gate. For the\nWhigamore nobles and those select citizens, including the magistrates and\ncity clergy, who had the privilege of calling on him, the opportunities\nwere, of course, still closer; and on the fourth day (Saturday, Oct. 7)\nthere was a sumptuous banquet in the Castle to him and his officers, at\nwhich the old Earl of Leven presided, and the Marquis of Argyle and other\nlords of the Committee of Estates were present.\n\nSo ended Cromwell's memorable first visit to Edinburgh; and, his real\nobject having been accomplished (which was to pledge, the new Government\nof Scotland, and especially Argyle, to alliance in future with the\nadvanced English party), he began his return journey southwards on the\nsame day, only leaving Lambert, with two regiments of horse and two\ntroops of dragoons, to be at the service of the Argyle Government so long\nas they might be wanted. A week later (Oct. 14) he was at Carlisle,\nseeing after the surrender of that town; and in the beginning of November\nhe was at Pontefract in Yorkshire. Here he was to be delayed a while. The\nCastle of Pontefract, a very strong place, commanded by one Morris, still\nheld out for the King, and was the refuge of much of the fugitive\nCavalierism of the surrounding district, now in a mood of actual\ndesperation. Sallies from the Castle for robbery and revenge had been\nfrequent; and, just as Cromwell was expected in the neighbourhood, a\nparty of the desperadoes, riding out in disguise, had gone as far as\nDoncaster, obtained admission to the lodging of Colonel Rainsborough\nthere, under pretence of bringing him letters from Cromwell, and left him\nstabbed dead (Sunday, Oct. 29). The business of pacifying Yorkshire,\nwhich otherwise might have been left to Bainsborough, thus devolved upon\nCromwell. He summoned Pontefract Castle to surrender Nov. 9; and, the\nsurrender having been refused, he remained at Pontefract all the rest of\nthat month, superintending the siege. [Footnote: Burnet's Hamiltons\n(edit. 1852), 465-482; Carlyle's Cromwell, I. 299-333; Rushworth, VII.\n1314-15.  The first open occurrence of the word _Whig_ in British\nHistory was, I believe, in the circumstances described in the text at\np.621.  The original _Whigs_ were the zealous Covenanting peasants,\nor true-blue Presbyterians, of Ayrshire, Lanarkshire, and other western\nScottish counties; and the nickname was derived, it is supposed, either\nfrom the sound _Whigh_ (meaning _Gee-up_) used by the peasantry\nof those parts in driving their horses, or simply from the word\n_Whey_ (in Anglo-Saxon _hw\u00e6g_), by comparison to the solemn\nPresbyterians to the sour watery part of milk separated from the curd in\nmaking cheese.]\n\nThus, through the three months in which the English Army and Independents\nwere waxing more and more indignant at the Treaty with the King at\nNewport, and determining to break it down, and to bring the King to trial\nfor his life with or without the concurrency of Parliament, Cromwell, as\nwe said, was away from the immediate scene of action. There is not the\nleast doubt, however, that he was aware generally of the proceedings of\nhis friends in the south, and that one of their encouragements was the\nknowledge that Cromwell was with them. There are, however, actual proofs.\nThus, about the middle of September, or just after the presentation to\nthe Commons of the great London Petition asking the Commons to declare\nthemselves the supreme authority of England, one finds Henry Marten, the\nframer of that Petition, on a journey to the north, for the purpose of\nconsulting with Cromwell, then on his way to Scotland. Their consultation\ncannot have boon for nothing. At all events, after Cromwell returned into\nEngland and engaged in the siege of Pontefract Castle, his letters attest\nhis interest in the proceedings of Ireton and the other Army officers at\nSt. Alban's. In one letter, dated \"near Pontefract,\" Nov. 20, he\nexpresses his own anger and that of his officers at the recent lenient\nvotes of the Commons in the case of the Duke of Hamilton and the other\neminent Delinquents. On the same day he writes in the same sense to\nFairfax, and forwards Petitions from the regiments under his command in\naid of those which Fairfax had already received from the southern\nregiments. When these letters were written Cromwell had not heard of the\nadoption at St. Alban's of the Grand Army Remonstrance drawn up by his\nson-in-law, or at least did not know that on that very day it had been\npresented to the Commons. Before the 25th of November, however, he had\nreceived this news too, and had a full foresight of what it portended.\nFor that is the date of one of the most remarkable letters he ever wrote,\nhis letter from \"Knottingley near Pontefract \"to Colonel Robert Hammond,\nGovernor of the Isle of Wight. This young Colonel, upon whom the sore\ntrial had fallen of having the King for his prisoner, was, as we have\nsaid, one of Cromwell's especial favourites, and the long letter which\nCromwell now addressed to him was in reply to one just received from\nHammond, imparting to Cromwell his doubts respecting the recent\nproceedings of the Army, and his own agony of mind in the difficult and\ncomplicated duties of his office in the Isle of Wight. Cromwell's letter,\nso occasioned, begins \"Dear Robin,\" and is conceived throughout in terms\nof the most anxious affection, struggling with a half-expressed purpose.\nHe reasons earnestly with Hammond on his doubts and scruples,\nsympathizing with them so far, but at the same time combating them, and\nsuggesting such queries as these--\"_first_, Whether _Salus Populi_ be a\nsound position? _secondly_, Whether in the way in hand [_i.e._ the\nParliamentary rule as then experienced], really and before the Lord,\nbefore whom Conscience has to stand, this be provided for?... _thirdly_,\nWhether this Army be not a lawful Power, called by God to oppose and\nfight against the King upon some stated grounds, and, being in power to\nsuch ends, may not oppose one Name of Authority, for these ends, as well\nas another Name?\" [_i.e._ may not oppose Parliament itself as well as the\nKing.] He refers to the Grand Army Remonstrance, of the publication of\nwhich he has just heard. \"We could perhaps have wished the stay of it\ntill after the Treaty,\" he says, for himself and the officers of his\nnorthern part of the Army; \"yet, seeing it is come out, we trust to\nrejoice in the will of the Lord, waiting His further pleasure.\" Again\nreturning to the main topic, Hammond's scruples, he pleads almost\nyearningly with him: \"Dear Robin, beware of men; look up to the Lord.\"\nHad Hammond really reasoned himself, with other good men, into that\nexcess of the passive-obedience principle which maintained that as much\ngood might come to England by an accommodation with the King as by\nbreaking with him utterly? \"Good by this Man,\" Cromwell exclaims,\n\"against whom the Lord has witnessed, and whom _thou_ knowest!\" Then,\nafter a few more sentences: \"This trouble I have been at,\" he concludes,\n\"because my soul loves thee, and I would not have thee swerve, or lose\nany glorious opportunity the Lord puts into thy hand.\" [Footnote:\nRushworth, VII. 1265; Lords Journals, Nov. 21 (Hammond's Letter);\nCarlyle's Cromwell, I. 333-345.]\n\nCromwell's letter to Hammond was too late for its purpose. At Fairfax's\nhead-quarters at St. Alban's it had been resolved that, until there\nshould be a satisfactory answer from the Commons to the Army's\nRemonstrance, the Army must secure the main object of that Remonstrance\nby taking the King's person into its own custody. For the management of\nthis business it was most important that the officer in command in the\nIsle of Wight should be one of unflinching Army principles. Hence, as the\namiable Hammond's scruples were well known, and had indeed been\ncommunicated by him to Fairfax as well as to Cromwell, it had been\nresolved, partly in pity to him, partly in the interest of the business\nitself, to withdraw him from the Isle of Wight at that critical moment.\nAccordingly, on the 2lst of November, Fairfax had penned a letter to\nHammond from St. Alban's, requiring his presence with all possible speed\nat head-quarters, and ordering him to leave the island meanwhile in\ncharge of Colonel Ewer, the bearer of the letter. This letter did not\nreach Hammond till Nov. 25 (the very day when Cromwell was writing to him\nfrom Yorkshire); and it was not then delivered to him by Colonel Ewer in\nperson, but by a messenger. The next day, Sunday, Nov. 26, Hammond wrote\nfrom Carisbrooke Castle to the two Houses of Parliament, informing them\nof what had happened, enclosing a copy of Fairfax's letter, and\nsignifying his intention of obeying it. This communication was brought to\nLondon with all haste by Major Henry Cromwell, Oliver's second son, then\nserving under Hammond, and was the subject of discussion in both Houses\non the 27th. Fairfax's intervention between Parliament and one of its\nservants was condemned as unwarrantable; a letter to that effect, but in\nmild terms, was written to Fairfax; and Major Cromwell was sent back with\na despatch from both Houses to Hammond, instructing him to remain at his\npost. Before this despatch reached Hammond, however, there had been a\nmeeting between him and Ewer, and some intricate negotiations, the result\nof which was that he and Ewer left the island together, Nov. 28, bound\nfor the Army's head-quarters (then removed to Windsor)--Hammond\nentrusting the charge of the island in his absence, with strict care of\nthe King's person, to Major Rolph and Captain Hawes, his subordinates at\nNewport, in conjunction with Captain Bowerman, the commandant at\nCarisbrooke Castle. Ewer having thus succeeded in withdrawing Hammond\nfrom his post, and having doubtless made other necessary arrangements\nwhile he hovered about the island, the execution of what remained was\nleft to other hands, and principally to Lieutenant-colonel Cobbet and a\nCaptain Merryman. [Footnote: Lords Journals, Nov. 27 and 30; Parl. Hist.\nIII. 1133 _et seq._; Rushworth. VII. 1338 _et seq._  In most\nmodern accounts Ewer simply comes to the Isle of Wight, displaces\nHammond, and removes the King. Not so by any means. It was a complicated\ntransaction of seven or eight days; Ewer was _in_ the trans-action,\nand perhaps the principal in it; but, except in his interview with\nHammond, he keeps in the background.]\n\n Not till the evening of Thursday, Nov. 30, does any suspicion of what\nwas intended seem to have been aroused in the mind of the King. He was\nthen still in his lodgings in Newport. The Treaty had come to an end\nthree days before; the Parliamentary Commissioners for the Treaty had\nreturned to London; most of the Royalist Lords and other Counsellors who\nhad been assisting the King in the Treaty had also gone; only the Duke of\nRichmond, the Earls of Lindsey and Southampton, and some few others,\nremained. The stir through the island attending the close of the Treaty\nand the departure of so many persons had probably covered the coming and\ngoing of Ewer, his interview with Hammond, and certain arrivals and\nshiftings of troops which he had managed. But on the Thursday evening,\nabout eight o'clock, the Duke of Richmond, the Earl of Lindsey, and a\ncertain Colonel Cook, who was with them, were summoned from their\nlodgings in the town to the King's. A warning had that moment been\nconveyed to his Majesty that there were agents of the Army at hand to\ncarry him off. Immediately Colonel Cook went to Major Rolph's room, and\ninterrogated him on the subject. The answers were cautious and\nunsatisfactory. The fact was, though Major Rolph dared not then divulge\nit, that he and his fellow-deputies, Captain Hawes and Captain Bowerman,\nknew themselves to be superseded by Lieutenant-colonel Cobbet and Captain\nMerryman, who had arrived that day with a fresh warrant from Fairfax and\nthe Army Council, empowering them to finish what Ewer had begun. Only\ninferring from Rolph's uneasiness that something was wrong, Colonel Cook\nreturned to the King and the two Lords. There was farther consultation,\nand a second call on Rolph; after which Cook volunteered to go to\nCarisbrooke Castle for farther information. It was an excessively dark\nnight, with high wind and plashing rain; and the King consented to the\nColonel's going only after observing that he was young and might take no\nharm from it. The Colonel, accordingly, groped his way through the dark\nand rain over the mile and a half of road or cross-road intervening\nbetween Newport and the Castle. His object was to see the commandant,\nCaptain Bowerman. After some considerable time, spent under the shelter\nof the gateway, he was admitted and did see Captain Bowerman, but only to\nfind him sitting sulkily with about a dozen strange officers, who were\nevidently his masters for the moment, and prevented his being in the\nleast communicative. Nothing was left for the Colonel but to grope his\nway back to Newport. It was near midnight when, with his clothes drenched\nwith wet, he reached the King's lodgings; and there, what a change!\nGuards all round the house; guards at every window; sentinels in the\npassages, and up to the very door of the King's chamber, armed with\nmatchlocks and with their matches burning! Major Rolph, glad to be out of\nthe business, had gone to bed. They managed to rouse him, and to get the\nsentinels, with their smoke, removed to a more tolerable distance from\nthe King's chamber-door. Then, for an hour or more, there was an anxious\ncolloquy in the King's chamber, the Duke of Richmond and the Earl of\nLindsey urging some desperate attempt to escape, but the King dubious and\nfull of objections. Nothing could be done; and, about one o'clock, the\nEarl and the Colonel retired, leaving the King to rest, with the Duke in\nattendance upon him. There were then several hours of hush within,\ndisturbed by sounds of moving and tramping without; but between five and\nsix in the morning there came a loud knocking at the door of the King's\ndressing-room. When it had been opened, after some delay, a number of\nofficers entered, headed by Colonel Cobbet. Making their way into the\nKing's chamber, they informed him that they had instructions to remove\nhim. On his asking whither, they answered, \"To the Castle;\" and, on his\nfarther asking whether they meant Carisbrooke Castle, they answered,\nafter some hesitation, that their orders were to remove him out of the\nisland altogether, and that the place was to be Hurst Castle on the\nadjacent Hampshire mainland. Remarking that they could not have named a\nworse place, the King rose, was allowed to summon the Earl of Lindsey and\nall the rest of his household, and had breakfast. At eight o'clock\ncoaches and horses were ready, and the King, having chosen about a dozen\nof his most confidential servants to accompany him, and taken a farewell\nof the rest of the sorrowing company, placed himself in charge of Colonel\nGobbet and the troop of horse waiting to be his escort. Having seated\nhimself in his coach, he invited Mr. Harrington, Mr. Herbert, and Mr.\nMildmay to places beside him. Colonel Gobbet, as the commander of the\nparty, was about to enter the coach also, when his Majesty put up his\nfoot by way of barrier; whereupon Cobbet, somewhat abashed, contented\nhimself with his horse. The cavalcade then set out, gazed after by all\nNewport, the Duke of Richmond allowed to accompany it for two miles. A\njourney of some eight miles farther brought them to the western end of\nthe island, a little beyond Yarmouth; whence a vessel conveyed them, over\nthe little strip of intervening sea, to Hurst Castle that same afternoon\n(Dec. 1). The so-called Castle was a strong, solitary, stone blockhouse,\nwhich had been built, in the time of Henry VIII., at the extremity of a\nlong narrow spit of sand and shingle projecting from the Hampshire coast\ntowards the Isle of Wight. It was a rather dismal place; and the King's\nheart sank as he entered it, and was confronted by a grim fellow with a\nbushy black beard, who announced himself as the captain in command. The\npossibility of private assassination flashed on the King's mind at the\nsight of such a jailor. But, Colonel Cobbet having superseded the rough\nphenomenon, the King was reassured, and things were arranged as\ncomfortably as the conditions would permit. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII.\n1344-8 (narrative of Colonel Cook); _Ib._ 1351 and Parl. Hist. III.\n1147-8 (Letter to Parliament from Major Rolph and Captains Hawes and\nBowerman); and Sir Thomas Herbert's Memoirs of Charles I. 112-124. The\nday of the King's abduction from Newport has been variously dated by\nhistorians.  It was really Friday, Dec. 1.]\n\nMeanwhile Fairfax and the Army, by whose orders, all punctually written\nand dated, this abduction of the King had been effected, were on the move\nto take advantage of it. On Monday the 27th of November, the Commons,\ninstead of taking up the consideration of the Grand Army Remonstrance as\nthey had proposed, had again adjourned the subject. On Wednesday the\n29th, accordingly, there was a fresh manifesto from Fairfax and his\nCouncil of Officers at Windsor. After complaining of the delays over the\nRemonstrance and of the continued infatuation of the Commons over the\nfarce of the Newport Treaty, they proceeded. \"For the present, as the\ncase stands, we apprehend ourselves obliged, in duty to God, this\nkingdom, and good men therein, to improve our utmost abilities, in all\nhonest ways, for the avoiding those great evils we have remonstrated, and\nfor prosecution of the good things we have propounded;\" and they\nconcluded with this announcement, \"For all these ends we are now drawing\nup with the Army to London, there to follow Providence as God shall clear\nour way.\" This document, signed by Rushworth, reached the Commons on the\n30th. They affected to ignore it, and still refused, by a majority of 125\nto 58, to proceed to the consideration of the Army's Remonstrance. Next\nday, Friday Dec. 1, the tune was somewhat changed. The advanced guards of\nthe Army were then actually at Hyde Park Corner, and the City and the two\nHouses were in terror. Saturday, Dec. 2, consummated the business.\nDespite an order bidding him back, Fairfax was then in Whitehall, his\nhead-quarters close to the two Houses, and his regiments of horse and\nfoot distributed round about. London and Westminster were, in fact, once\nmore in the Army's possession. Nevertheless both Houses met that day in\ndue form, and there was a violent debate in the Commons over the Treaty\nas affected by the new turn of affairs. The debate broke off late in the\nafternoon, when it was adjourned till Monday by a majority of 132 to 102.\nThe news of the abduction of the King to Hurst Castle had not yet reached\nLondon, and Cromwell was still believed to be at Pontefract. [Footnote:\nCommons and Lords Journals of Nov. 27 to Dec. 2, 1648: Parl. Hist. III.\n1134-1146; Rushworth, VII. 1349-59.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTROUBLES IN THE BARBICAN HOUSEHOLD: CHRISTOPHER MILTON'S COMPOSITION\nSUIT: MR. POWELL'S COMPOSITION SUIT: DEATH OF MR. POWELL: HIS WILL: DEATH\nOF MILTON'S FATHER--SONNET XIV. AND ODE TO JOHN ROUS-ITALIAN\nREMINISCENCES: LOST LETTERS FROM CARLO DATI OF FLORENCE: MILTON'S REPLY\nTO THE LAST OF THEM--PEDAGOGY IN THE BARBICAN: LIST OF MILTON'S KNOWN\nPUPILS: LADY RANELAGH--EDUCATIONAL REFORM STILL A QUESTION: HARTLIB\nAGAIN: THE INVISIBLE COLLEGE: YOUNG ROBERT BOYLE AND WILLIAM PETTY--\nREMOVAL FROM BARBICAN TO HIGH HOLBORN--MEDITATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE\nHOUSE IN HIGH HOLBORN: MILTON'S SYMPATHIES WITH THE ARMY CHIEFS AND THE\nEXPECTANT REPUBLICANS--STILL UNDER THE BAN OF THE PRESBYTERIANS:\nTESTIMONY OF THE LONDON MINISTERS AGAINST HERESIES AND BLASPHEMIES:\nMILTON IN THE BLACK LIST--ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI: TRANSLATION OF\nNINE PSALMS FROM THE HEBREW--MILTON THROUGH THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: HIS\nPERSONAL INTEREST IN IT, AND DELIGHT IN THE ARMY'S TRIUMPH: HIS SONNET TO\nFAIRFAX--BIRTH OF MILTON'S SECOND CHILD: ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI.\n\n\nThe two years and four months of English History traversed in the last\nchapter were of momentous interest to Milton at the time, were preparing\nan official career of eleven years for him at the very centre of affairs,\nand were to furnish him with matter for comment, and indeed with risk and\nresponsibility, to the end of his days. While they were actually passing,\nhowever, his life was rather private in its tenor, and we have to seek\nhim not so much in public manifestations as in his household and among\nhis books.\n\n\nPROBLEMS IN THE BARBICAN HOUSEHOLD: CHRISTOPHER MILTON'S COMPOSITION\nSUIT: MR. POWELL'S COMPOSITION SUIT: DEATH OF MR. POWELL: HIS WILL: DEATH\nOF MILTON'S FATHER\n\nWe left the household in Barbican a rather overcrowded one, consisting\nnot merely of Milton, his wife, their newly-born little girl, his father,\nand his two nephews, but also of his Royalist father-in-law Mr. Powell,\nwith Mrs. Powell, and several of their children, driven to London by the\nwreck of the family fortunes at Oxford. For some months, we now find, the\nstate of poor Mr. Powell's affairs continued to be a matter of anxiety to\nall concerned.\n\nOn the 6th of August, 1646, or as soon as possible after Mr. Powell's\narrival in London, he had applied, as we saw, to the Committee at\nGoldsmiths' Hall for liberty to compound for that portion of his\nsequestered Oxfordshire estates which was yet recoverable. Milton's\nyounger brother, Christopher, we saw, was at the same time engaged in a\nsimilar troublesome business. Ho too was suing out pardon for his\ndelinquency on condition of the customary fine on his property; and,\naccording to his own representation to the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee,\nthe sole property he had consisted of a single house in the city of\nLondon, worth 40_l._ a year.\n\nThe Goldsmiths' Hall Committee being then overburdened with similar\napplications of Delinquents from all parts of England, the cases of Mr.\nPowell and Christopher Milton had waited their turn.\n\nThe case of Christopher Milton came on first. His delinquency had been\nvery grave. He had actually served as one of the King's Commissioners for\nsequestrating the estates of Parliamentarians in three English counties.\nThere seems, therefore, to have been a disposition at head-quarters to be\nsevere with him. On the 24th of September the Committee at Goldsmiths'\nHall did fix his fine for his London property at 80_l._ (_i.e._ a tenth\nof its whole value calculated at twenty years' purchase), receiving the\nfirst moiety of 40_l._ down, and accepting \"William Keech, of Fleet\nStreet, London, goldbeater,\" as Christopher's co-surety for the payment\nof the second moiety within three months. But they do not seem to have\nbeen satisfied that the young barrister had given a correct account of\nhis whole estate; and it was intimated to him that, while the 80_l_.\nwould restore to him his London property, the House of Commons would look\nfarther into his case, and he might have more to pay on other grounds. In\nfact, his case was protracted not only through the rest of 1646, but for\nfive years longer, the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee never letting him\ncompletely off all that while, but instituting inquiries repeatedly in\nBerks and Suffolk, with a view to ascertain whether he had not concealed\nproperties in those counties in addition to the small London property for\nwhich he had compounded. [Footnote: It is rather difficult to follow\nChristopher Milton's case through the Composition Records and other\nnotices respecting it; but here is the substance of the first of them:--\n_Aug._ 7, 1646, Delinquent's Application to Compound, with statement of\nhis property, referred to Sub-Committee (Hamilton's Milton Papers, 128,\n129); _Aug. and Sept._ 1646, Various proposals of the Committee as to the\namount of his fine--at 80_l._ or \"a tenth,\" at 200_l._ or \"a third\"--\nending, ending Sept. 24, in the imposition of a fine of 80_l._ for his\nLondon property, with a hint that there might be farther demand\n(Hamilton, 62 and 129-30, and Todd. I. 162-3); _Undated, but seemingly\nafter Dec._ 1646, Note of Christopher Milton as a defaulter for the\nlatter moiety of his fine (Hamilton, 62). The case runs on through\nsubsequent years to 1652; nay, as late as Feb. 1657-8 there is trace of\nit (Hamilton, 130, Document lxvi.).]\n\nMr. Powell's case, for different reasons, was more complex. On the 2lst\nof Nov. 1646, or somewhat more than three months after he had petitioned\nthe Goldsmiths' Hall Committee for leave to compound, he sent in the\nnecessary \"Particular of Real and Personal Estate\" by which his\ncomposition was to be rated. He had been living all the while in his son-\nin-law's house in Barbican; and the delay may have arisen from those\ncircumstances of perplexity, already known to the reader (_ant\u00e8_, pp.\n473-483), which rendered it difficult for him to estimate what the amount\nof his remaining property might really be. In the \"Particular\" now sent\nin, though he still designates himself \"Richard Powell of Forest-hill,\"\nthe Forest-hill mansion and lands are totally omitted, as no longer his\nproperty in any practical sense, but transferred by legal surrender to\nhis creditor Sir Robert Pye. All that he can put on paper as his own is\nnow (1) his small Wheatley property of 40_l._ a year; (2) his \"personal\nestate in corn and household stuff,\" left at Forest-hill before the siege\nof Oxford, and estimated at 500_l._ if it could be properly recovered and\nsold; (3) his much more doubtful stock of \"timber and wood,\" also left at\nForest-hill, and worth 400_l._ on a similar supposition; and (4) debts\nowing to him to the amount of 100_l._ Against these calculated assets, of\nabout 1,800_l._ altogether, he pleads, however, a burden of 400_l._, with\narrears of interest, due to Mr. Ashworth by mortgage of the Wheatley\nproperty, and also 1,200_l._ of debts to various people, and a special\ndebt of 300_l._ \"owing upon a statute\" to his son-in-law Mr. John Milton.\nAs a reason for leniency, the fact is moreover stated that he had lost\n3,000_l._ by the Civil War. Actually, if his account is correct, he was\ninsolvent; or, if his debt to his son-in-law were regarded as cancelled,\nhe had but about 200_l._ left in the world. In criticising his account,\nhowever, the Committee would be sharp-sighted. They would remember that\nit was his interest, on the one hand, to rate his debts and losses at the\nhighest figure, and, on the other hand, to represent at the lowest figure\nall his remaining property, except those items of \"corn and household\nstuff,\" and \"timber and wood,\" which he held to have been illegally\ndisposed of by Parliamentary officials, and for the recovery of which he\nmight bring forward a claim against Parliament. How the Committee, or the\nsub-Committee to whom the case was referred Nov. 26, did proceed in their\ncalculations can only be conjectured; but the result was that they\ncharged Mr. Powell on his whole returned property, without any allowance\nwhatever for his debts. This appears from three documents in the State\nPaper Office, all of date Dec. 1646. On the 4th of that month Mr. Powell\nwent through the two formalities required by law of every Delinquent\nbefore composition. He subscribed the National Covenant in the presence\nof \"William Barton, minister of John Zachary\" (the same clergyman who had\nadministered the Covenant to Christopher Milton seven months before); and\nhe took the so-called \"Negative Oath\" in presence of another witness. On\nthe same day, before a third witness, he took another and more special\noath, to the effect that the debts mentioned in his return to the\nGoldsmiths' Hall Committee were genuine debts, \"truly and really owing by\nhim,\" and that the estimate of his losses by the Civil War there set down\nwas also just. Nevertheless, in the paper drawn up on the 8th of December\nby two of the Goldsmiths' Hall officials, containing an abstract of Mr.\nPowell's case, in which his own statements are accepted, and notice is\ntaken of a request he had made for an allowance of 400_l._ off the value\nof the Wheatley property on account of the mortgage to that amount with\nwhich it was burdened, the fine is fixed by these ominous words at the\nclose: \"Fine at 2 yeeres value, 180_l._\" The officials had been strict as\nShylock. Taking the Wheatley property at Mr. Powell's own valuation of\n40_l._ a year, without allowing his claim of a half off for the Ashworth\nmortgage, they had added 50_l._ a year as the worth of the remaining\n1,000_l._ made up by the three other capital items in his return, and\nthus appraised him as worth 90_l._ a year in all. At the customary rate\nof two years' value, his fine therefore was to be 180_l._ The debts of\nthe Delinquent might amount to more than his estimated property, as he\nsaid they did; but that was a matter between himself and the world at\nlarge, and not between him and the Commissioners for Compositions.\n[Footnote: The documents the substance of which is here given will be\nfound in the Appendix to Hamilton's Milton Papers (pp. 76-78).--The Rev.\nWilliam Barton seems to be the person of that name already known to us as\nauthor of that Metrical Version of the Psalms which the Lords favoured\nagainst Rous's (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 425 and 512). He may have been an\nacquaintance of Milton's; at all events, as minister of a church in\nAldergate Ward, he was conveniently near to Barbican.]\n\nEither the decision of the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee broke Mr. Powell\ndown unexpectedly, or he had been ailing before it came. It is possible,\nindeed, that he had been confined to Milton's house during the\nnegotiation, signing the Covenant and other necessary documents there,\nand unable to walk even the little distance between Barbican and\nGoldsmiths' Hall. Certain it is that he died there on or about the 1st of\nJanuary, 1646-7, leaving the following will, executed but a day or two\nbefore:--\n\n\"In the name of God, Amen!--I, Richard Powell, of Forresthill,\n_alias_  Forsthill, in the countie of Oxon, Esquire, being sick and\nweak of bodie, but of perfect minde and memorie, I praise God therefore,\nthis thirtieth daie of December in the yeare of our Lord God one thousand\nsix hundred fortie and six, doe make and declare this my will and\ntestament in manner and forme following:--First and principallie, I\ncomend my soule to the hands of Almighty God my Maker, trusting by the\nmeritts, death, and passion of his sonn Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, to\nhave life everlasting; and my bodie I comitt to the earth from whence it\ncame, to be decentlie interred according to the discretion of my Executor\nhereafter named.--And, for my worldlie estate which God hath blessed rue\nwithall, I will and dispose as followeth:--_Imprimis_, I give and\nbequeathe unto Richard Powell, my eldest son, my house at Forresthill,\n_alias_ Forsthill, in the countie of Oxford, with all the household\nstuffe and goods there now remaining, and compounded for by me since at\nGoldsmiths' Hall, together with the woods and timber there remaining; and\nall the landes to my said house of Forresthill belonging and heretofore\ntherewith used, together with the fines and profitts of the said landes\nand tenements, to the said Richard Powell and his heires and assignes for\never: to this intent and purpose, and it is the true meaning of this my\nlast will, that my landes and goods shalbe first employed for the\nsatisfieing of my debts and funerall expenses, and afterwards for the\nraiseing of portions for his brothers and sisters soe far as the estate\nwill reach, allowing as much out of the estate abovementioned unto my\nsaid sonn Richard Powell as shall equal the whole to be devided amongst\nhis brothers and sisters, that is to saie the one halfe of the estate to\nhimselfe and the other halfe to be devided amongst his brothers and\nsisters that are not alredie provided for; in which devision my will is\nthat his sisters have a third parte more than his brothers.--My will and\ndesire is that my said sonn Richard doe, out of my said landes and\npersonall estate herein mentioned, satisfy his mother, my dearely-beloved\nwife Ann Powell, that bond I have entered into for the makeing her a\njoynture, which my estate is not in a condition now to dischardge.--And,\nlastlie, I doe by this my last will and testament make and ordaine my\nsonn Richard Powell my sole executor of this my last will, and I doe\nhereby revoke all former wills by me made whatsoever. And my will farther\nis that, in case my sonn Richard Powell shall not accept the\nexecutorshipp, then I doe hereby constitute and appointe, and doe\nearnestly desire, my dearely beloved wife Ann Powell to be my sole\nexecutrix, and to take upon her the mannageing of my estate\nabovementioned to the uses and purposes herein expressed. And, in case\nshe doe refuse the same, then I desire my loveing friend Master John\nEllston of Forresthill to take the executorshipp uppon him and to\nperforme this my will as is herebefore expressed; to whom I give twentie\nshillings, to buy him a ring. And my earnest desire is that my wife and\nmy sonn have no difference concerning this my will and estate.--\n_Item_, I give and bequeathe to my sonn Richard Powell all my houses\nand landes at Whately in the countie of Oxford, and all other my estate\nreall and personall in the kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, to\nthe use, intent, and purpose above herein expressed: And my desire is\nthat my daughter Milton be had a reguard to in the satisfieing of her\nportion, and adding thereto in case my estate will beare it. And, for\nthis estate last bequeathed, in case my sonn take not upon him the\nexecutorshipp, then my will is my beloved wife shall be sole executrix,\nunto whom I give the landes and goods last abovementioned, to the uses\nand purposes herein mentioned. In case she refuses, then I appoint Master\nJohn Ellstone my executor, to the uses and purposes above-mentioned.--In\nwitness hereof I have hereto put my hand and seale the daie and yeare\nfirst above-written.--For the further strengthening of this my last will,\nI doe constitute and appoint my loveing friends, Sir John Curson and Sir\nRobert Pye the elder, Knights, to be overseers of this my last will,\ndesireing them to be aiding and assisting to my executor to see my last\nwill performed, according to my true meaning herein expressed, for the\ngood and benefitt of my wife and children; and I give them, as a token of\nmy love, twentie shillings apiece, to buy them each a ring, for their\npaines taken to advise and further my executor to performe this my will.\n\"RICHARD POWELL.\n\n\"Subscribed, sealed, and acknowledged to be his last will, in the\npresence of\n\n\"JAMES LLOYD, JOHN MILTON, HENRY DELAHAY.\" [Footnote: Found by me at\nDoctors' Commons.--The date assigned for Mr. Powell's death depends on\nhis widow's statement on oath, four years afterwards (Feb. 27, 1650-1),\nthat \"said Richard Powell, her late husband, died near the first day of\nJanuary, in the year of our Lord 1646, at the house of Mr. John Milton\nsituate in Barbican, London.\" (Todd, I. 57.)]\n\nWhile this is clearly the will of a dying man whose property is in such a\nstate of wreck and confusion that he knows not whether any provision\nwhatever will arise out of it for his wife and family, there are certain\nsuggestions in it of a contrary tenor. It is evident, for example, that\nMr. Powell had not given up all hope that his main property, the mansion\nand lands of Forest-hill, might ultimately be recovered. Though these are\nentirely omitted in the Particular of his Estate given in a month before\nto the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee for Compositions, they figure in his\nwill so expressly that one sees the testator did not consider them quite\nlost. This, followed by the kindly mention of Sir Robert Pye in the end\nof the will, and the appointment of that knight as one of the overseers\nto assist the executor in carrying out the will, confirms a guess which\nwe have already hazarded (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 475-6): viz. that the entry of\nSir Robert Pye into possession of the Forest-hill estate during the siege\nof Oxford was not the harsh exercise of his legal right to do so, nor\neven only the natural act of a prudent creditor seeing no other way of\nrecovering a large sum lent to a neighbour, but in part also a friendly\nprecaution in the interests of that neighbour himself and his family.\nThat Forest-hill, if it were to be alienated from the Powells, should\npass into the possession of Sir Robert Pye, an old friend of the family,\nmight be for their advantage in the end. Though nominally proprietor, he\nwould regard himself as interim possessor for the Powells; and, should\nthey ever be able to reclaim their property, and to pay the 1,400_l._ and\narrears of interest for which it had been pledged, they would find Sir\nRobert or his family more accommodating than strangers would have been.\nSomething of this kind must have been in Mr. Powell's mind when he made\nhis will. He clung to the Forest-hill property; it was worth much more\nreally than the sum for which it had been alienated; he looked forward to\nsome arrangement in that matter between his heir and Sir Robert Pye, in\nwhich Sir Robert himself would advise and assist. Then, as the smaller\nWheatley property was also really worth more than the 40_l._ a year at\nwhich it was rated, and as, besides other chances only vaguely hinted,\nthe family had immediate claims for 500_l._ on account of goods left at\nForest-hill, 400_l._ on account of timber, and l00_l._ in miscellaneous\ndebts, why, on the whole, with patience and good management, should there\nnot be enough to discharge all obligations, and still leave something\nover for the heir, the widow, and the other eight or nine children, in\nthe proportions indicated? Alas! if this were the possibility, it had to\nbe arrived at, the testator foresaw, through a dense medium of present\ndifficulties. The very items of most importance in the meantime, if his\nwidow and children were to be saved from actual straits, were the items\nof greatest uncertainty. The household goods, the timber, and the debts\ndue, were estimated together at 1,000_l._ of cash; but it was cash which\nhad to be rescued from the four winds. Nay, most of it had to be rescued\nfrom worse than the four winds--from the Parliamentary Government itself,\nand from its agents in Oxfordshire. The household stuff and goods at\nForest-hill! Had they not been sold in June last by the Oxfordshire\nsequestrators to Matthew Appletree of London, carted off by that dealer,\nand dispersed no one knew whither? The timber at Forest-hill! Had not\nthat also vanished, most of it voted in July last by the two Houses of\nParliament themselves to the people of Banbury for repairs of their\nchurch and other buildings? To be sure, the Goldsmiths' Hall Committee,\nby accepting these portions of Mr. Powell's property at his own valuation\nand including them in their calculation of his fine for Delinquency, had\nvirtually pledged Government that they should be restored. But then the\nfine had not been paid. Notwithstanding the statement in Mr. Powell's\nwill that he had compounded for his property, the case was not really so.\nThe Committee had fixed his composition at 180_l.,_ and so had admitted\nhim to compound; but, as he had not yet paid the usual first moiety, the\ntransaction was really incomplete at his death. Who was to pursue the\nmatter to completeness, undertaking on the one hand to pay the\ncomposition to Government, and on the other obliging Government to\nreproduce the value of the goods and timber that had been made away with\nby itself or by its Oxfordshire agents? All this too was in the\ntestator's mind, and hence his difficulty in fixing on an executor. His\neldest son and heir, Richard, then a youth of five-and-twenty, was to\nhave the first option of this office; if he shrank from it, then the\nwidow was to be the sole executrix; but, if she also shrank from it, a\ncertain \"Master John Ellston of Forest-hill,\" in whom Mr. Powell had\nconfidence, was entreated to take it up. This Ellston, it is implied,\nunderstood the business, and, as acting for the family, might expect the\nadvice of Sir Robert Pye and Sir John Curzon. [Footnote: The \"Ellston\" of\nthe will may be the \"Eldridge\" mentioned in a previously quoted document\n(_ant\u00e8_, p. 478) as having 100_l._ worth of Mr. Powell's timber on his\npremises. If so, Mr. Hamilton (92) has miscopied \"Eldridge\" for \"Ellston\"\nor \"Ellstone\" in that document.]\n\nThe eldest son did shrink from the hard post of executor under the will;\nbut the widow did not. This appears from the probate of the will, dated\nMarch 26, 1647, when she appeared as executrix before Sir Nathaniel Brent\nof the Prerogative Court, took the oath, and had the administration\ncommitted to her. [Footnote: Probate attached to the will in Doctors'\nCommons. There is a _second_ Probate in the margin, dated May 10,\n1662, showing that then the eldest son, Richard Powell, at the age of\nforty-one, reclaimed the executorship, and was admitted to it, the former\nProbate being set aside. This fact does not concern us at present.] It\nwas, as we shall find, a legacy of trouble and vexation to her, and\ncollaterally to Milton as her son-in-law, for many years; and, as we\nshall also find, she fought in it perseveringly and bravely. The trouble\nand vexation, however, so far as records revive it, do not begin within\nour limits in this volume. For the present it is enough to add that, some\ntime after Mr. Powell's death and burial, his widow and children removed\nfrom Milton's house in the Barbican, and quartered themselves elsewhere.\nThey can hardly have gone back to Oxfordshire. Not only was Forest-hill\nno home for them now, but the smaller tenement and grounds at Wheatley in\nthe same county seem to have been equally unavailable. There is\ndocumentary proof, at least, that immediately after Mr. Powell's death,\nin the same month of January 1646-7, his relative Sir Edward Powell,\nBart., took formal possession of that property in consequence of his\nlegal title to it from non-payment of the sum of \u00a3300 which he had\nadvanced to Mr. Powell, on that security, five years before (see Vol. II.\np. 497). [Footnote: Document, dated Aug. 28, 1650, among the Composition\nPapers given by Hamilton (86, 87).] This transaction, by a relative, may,\nlike the similar transaction by Sir Robert Pye, have had some meaning in\nfavour of the Powells; but, on the whole, though Mrs. Powell may have\nmanaged to dispose of some of her children, especially the elder boys, by\nappeal to relatives, the probability is that she remained in London and\nkept most of them with her. There is evidence that she had to live on in\nmost straitened circumstances. Relatives probably did something for her;\nand Milton, as we shall find, performed his part.\n\nLittle more than two months after the burial of Mr. Powell, and possibly\nbefore the removal of his widow and children from the house in Barbican,\nthere was another funeral from that house. It was that of Milton's own\nfather. Father-in-law and father had gone almost together, and the house\nwas in double mourning.\n\nWho can part with this father of one of the greatest of Englishmen\nwithout a last look of admiration and regret? Nearly fifty years ago, in\nthe last years of Elizabeth's reign, we saw him, an \"ingeniose man\" from\nOxfordshire, detached from his Roman Catholic kindred there, and setting\nup in London in the business of scrivenership, with music for his private\ntaste, and a name of some distinction already among the musicians and\ncomposers of the time. Then came the happy days of his married life in\nBread Street, all through James's reign, his business prospering and\nmusic still his delight, but his three surviving children growing up\nabout him, and his heart full of generous resolves for their education,\nand especially of pride in that one of them on whose high promise\nteachers and neighbours were always dilating. Then to Cambridge\nUniversity went this elder son, followed in time by the younger, the\nfather consenting to miss their presence, and instructing them to spare\nno use of his worldly substance for their help in the paths they might\nchoose. It had been somewhat of a disappointment to him when, after seven\nyears, the elder had returned from the University with his original\ndestination for the Church utterly forsworn, and with such avowed\nloathings of the whole condition of things in Church and State as seemed\nto bar the prospect of any other definite profession. There had been the\nrecompense, indeed, of that son's graceful and perfected youth, of the\nhaughty nobleness of soul that blazed through his loathings, and of his\nacquired reputation for scholarship and poetry. And so, in the country\nretreat at Horton, as age was beginning to come upon the good father, and\nhe was releasing himself from the cares of business, how pleasant it had\nbeen for him, and for the placid and invalid mother, to have their elder\nson wholly to themselves, their one daughter continuing meanwhile in\nLondon after her first husband's decease, and then younger son also\nmainly residing there for his law-studies. What though the son so\ndomiciled with them was plowing up to manhood, still without a\nprofession, still absorbed in books and poetry, doing exactly as he\nliked, and in fact more the ruler of them than they were of him? Who\ncould interfere with such a son, and why had God given them abundance but\nthat such a son might have the leisure he desired? All in all, one cannot\ndoubt that those years of retirement at Horton had been the most peaceful\non which the old man could look back. But those years had come to an end.\nThe sad spring of 1637 had come; the invalid wife had died; and he had\nbeen left in widowhood. Little in the ten years of his life since then\nbut a succession of shiftings and troubles! For a while still at Horton,\nsauntering about the church and in daily communion with the grave it\ncontained, his younger son and that son's newly-wedded wife coming to\nkeep him company while the elder was on his travels. Then, after the\nelder son's return, the outbreak of the political tumults, and the sad\nconvulsion of everything. In this convulsion his two sons had taken\nopposite sides, the elder even treasuring up wrath against himself by his\nvehement writings for the Parliamentarians. How should an old man judge\nin such a case? The Horton household now broken up, he had gone for a\ntime with Christopher and his wife to Reading, but only to be tossed back\nto London and the safer protection of John. We have seen him under that\nprotection in Aldersgate Street, all through the time of Milton's\nmarriage--misfortune and the Divorce pamphlets. There was some comfort,\non the old man's account, in the picture given of him by his grandson\nPhillips, then in the same house, as living through all that distraction\n\"wholly retired to his rest and devotion, without the least trouble\nimaginable.\" All the same one fancies him having his own thoughts in his\nsolitary upper room, contrasting the now with the then, and feeling that\nhe had become feeble and superfluous. A cheerful change for him may have\nbeen the larger house in Barbican, with his son's forgiven wife in her\nproper place in it and more numerous pupils going in and out, and at last\nthe birth of the infant-girl that made his grandfatherhood complete in\nall its three branches. He had been about eighteen months in this house.\nThe Civil War had come to an end, and the King had been surrendered by\nthe Scots at Newcastle and shifted to the second stage of his captivity\nat Holmby House, and Christopher Milton had returned ruefully to London\nfrom Exeter to sue out pardon for his delinquency, and the impoverished\nPowells also had come to the house from Oxford. Old Mr. Powell and old\nMr. Milton had been a good deal together, and at length, when Mr. Powell\nwas dying, old Mr. Milton may have assisted, scrivener-like, in the\nframing of his will. Only two months afterwards his own turn came. No\nwill of his has been found, and probably he had made a will unnecessary\nby previous arrangements. His Bible and music-books left in his room may\nhave been the mementoes of his last occupations. He was buried, March 15,\n1646-7, in the chancel of the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, not far\nfrom Barbican; and the entry \"John Milton, Gentleman, 15\" among the\n\"Burialls in March 1646\" may be still looked at with interest in the\nRegisters of that parish. [Footnote: To the courtesy of the Rev. P. P.\nGilbert, M.A., Vicar of the parish, I owe a certified copy of the burial-\nentry.]\n\nNothing came from Milton's pen on the occasion; but one remembers his\nLatin poem \"_Ad Patrem,_\" written fifteen years before, and the\nlines with which that poem closes may stand fitly here as the epitaph for\nthe dead:--\n\n  \"At tibi, care Pater, postquam non aqua merenti\n  Posse referre datur, nec dona rependere factis,\n  Sit memorasse satis, repetitaque munera grato\n  Percensere animo, fid\u00e6que reponere menti.\n  Et vos, O nostri, juvenilia carmina, lusus,\n  Si modo perpetuos sperare audebitis annos,\n  Nec spisso rapient oblivia nigra sub Orco,\n  Forsitan has laudes decantatumque parentis\n  Nomen, ad exmplum, sero servabitis \u00e6vo.\"\n[Footnote: It seems to me not improbable that the poem, as originally\nwritten, ended at the word \"menti.\" and that the last six lines,\nbeginning \"Et vos,\" were an addition when Milton published his Poems in\n1645 his father then residing with him.]\n\n\nSONNET XIV, AND ODE TO JOHN ROUS.\n\nSince the removal from the Aldersgate Street house to that in Barbican,\nMilton, as we know, had ceased from prose pamphleteering; and all that he\nhad done of a literary kind, besides publishing his volume of collected\nPoems, had been his two Divorce Sonnets, his Sonnet to Henry Lawes, and\nhis Sonnet with the scorpion tail, entitled _On the Forcers of\nConscience_. To these have now to be added, as written since Aug.\n1646, two other scraps--viz.: the Sonnet marked XIV. in most of our\nmodern editions of his Poems, and the Latin Ode to John Rous which\ngenerally appears at or near the end of the Latin portion of these\neditions.\n\nSonnet XIV., though printed without a heading by Milton himself in the\nSecond or 1673 edition of his Poems, and often so printed still, exists\nfortunately in two drafts in his own hand (one of them erased) among the\nMilton MSS. at Cambridge, and bears there this heading, also in his own\nhand: \"_On the Religious memory of Mrs. Catherine Thomson, my Christian\nfriend, deceased 16 Decemb._ 1646.\" We have no other information about\nthis Mrs. Catherine Thomson than is conveyed by these words and the\nSonnet itself; and the fact that we know of her existence only by chance\nsuggests to us how many friends and acquaintances of Milton there may\nhave been in London whose very names have perished. One may suppose her\nto have been a neighbour of Milton's, and rather elderly. That he had no\nordinary respect for her appears from the fact that he felt moved to\nwrite something in her memory. If written exactly at the time of her\ndeath, it was while his house was full of the Powells, and Mr. Powell was\ngrieving over the state of his affairs and perhaps known to be dying.\nThere is a suggestion, however, in the wording, that it may have been\nwritten later.\n\n  \"When Faith and Love, which parted from thee never,\n    Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,\n    Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load\n    Of death, called life, which us from Life doth sever.\n  Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour,\n    Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;\n    But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,\n    Followed thee up to joy and bliss for ever.\n  Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best\n    Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams\n    And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,\n  And speak the truth of thee on glorious themes\n    Before the Judge, who thenceforth bid thee rest\n    And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.\"\n\nCertainly written in Barbican between the death of Mr. Powell and that of\nMilton's father, but in a very different strain from the foregoing, is\nthe Latin Ode to Rous, the Oxford Librarian. The circumstances were\nthese:--\n\nMilton, we have had proof already, cared enough both about his opinions\nand about his literary reputation to adopt the common practice of sending\npresentation-copies of his books to persons likely to be interested in\nthem. He had sent out, we have seen, such presentation-copies of Lawes's\n1637 edition of his \"Comus,\" and of some of his pamphlets individually.\nWe find, however, that in 1645 or 1646, when he had published no fewer\nthan eleven pamphlets in all, and when moreover his English and Latin\nPoems had been issued by Moseley, he must have taken some pains to secure\nthat copies of the entire set of his writings, as then extant, should be\nin the hands of eminent book-collectors and scholars. Thus, in the\nLibrary of Trinity College, Dublin, there is a small quarto volume\ncontaining ten of the pamphlets bound together in this order--\"Of\nReformation,\" \"Of Prelatical Episcopacy,\" \"The Reason of Church-\ngovernment,\" \"Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence,\" \"An Apology\nagainst a modest Confutation,\" \"The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,\"\n\"The Judgment of Martin Bucer,\" \"Colasterion,\" \"Tetrachordon,\"\n\"Areopagitica;\" and the volume exhibits (in a slightly mutilated form,\nowing to clipping in the re-binding) this inscription in Milton's\nautograph: \"_Ad doctissimum virum, Patricium Junium, Joannes Miltonius\nh\u00e6c sua, unum in fasciculum conjecta, mittit, paucis hujusmodi lectoribus\ncontentes_\" (\"To the most learned man, Patrick Young, John Milton\nsends these things of his, thrown together into one volume, content with\nfew readers were they but of his sort\") The volume, therefore, though it\nhas found its way to Dublin, originally belonged to the Scotchman Patrick\nYoung, better known by his Latinized name of Patricius Junius, one of the\nmost celebrated scholars of his time, especially in Greek, and for more\nthan forty years (1605?-1649) keeper of the King's Library in St.\nJames's, London. Milton, it is clear, did not intend the gift for the\nRoyal Library, unless Young chose to put it there. He meant it for Young\nhimself, with whom he had probably some personal acquaintance, and who\nwas of Presbyterian sympathies, and in fact then under the orders of\nParliament. [Footnote: There is a facsimile of the inscription to Young\nin Sotheby's Milton Ramblings, p. 121; but I am indebted for a more\nparticular account of the volume, with a tracing of the inscription, to\nthe Rev. Andrew Campbell of Dublin. There is a memoir of Young in Wood's\nFasti, I. 308-9]\n\nAbout the time when Milton sent this collection of his pamphlets to\nPatrick Young, or perhaps a little later, he sent a similar gift to\nanother librarian, expressly in his official capacity. This was John\nRous, M.A., chief Librarian of the Bodleian at Oxford from 1620 to 1652,\nMilton, there is reason to believe, had known Rous since the year 1635\n(see Vol. I. p. 590); at all events an acquaintance had sprung up between\nthem, as could hardly fail to be the case between a reader like Milton\nand the keeper of the great Oxford Library; and, as Rous's political\nleanings, Oxonian though he was, were distinctly Parliamentarian, there\nwas no reason for coolness on that ground. Accordingly, Rous, it appears,\nhad asked Milton for a complete copy of his writings for the Bodleian,\nand had even been pressing in the request. Milton at length had\ndespatched the required donation in the form of a parcel containing two\nvolumes--the Prose Pamphlets bound together in one volume, and the Poems\nby themselves in the tinier volume as published by Moseley. On a blank\nleaf at the beginning of the larger volume he had written very carefully\nwith his own hand a long Latin inscription, \"_Doctissimo viro, proloque\nlibrorum \u00e6stimatori, Joanni Rousio_\" &c.; which may be given in\ntranslation as follows: \"To the most learned man, and excellent judge of\nbooks, John Rous, Librarian of the University of Oxford, on his\ntestifying that this would be agreeable to him, John Milton gladly\nforwards these small works of his, with a view to their reception into\nthe University's most ancient and celebrated Library, as into a temple of\nperpetual memory, and so, as he hopes, into a merited freedom from ill-\nwill and calumny, if satisfaction enough has been given at once to Truth\nand to Good Fortune. They are--'Of Reformation in England,' 2 Books; 'Of\nPrelatical Episcopacy,' 1 Book; 'Of the Reason of Church-government,' 2\nBooks; 'Animadversions on the Remonstrant's Defence,' 1 Book; 'Apology\nagainst the same,' 1 Book; 'The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce,' 2\nBooks; 'The Judgment of Bucer on Divorce,' 1 Book; 'Colasterion,' 1 Book;\n'Tetrachordon: An Exposition of some chief places of Scripture concerning\nDivorce,' 4 Books; 'Areopagitica, or a Speech for the Freedom of the\nPress;' 'An Epistle on Liberal Education;' and 'Poems, Latin and\nEnglish,' separately.\" Here, it will be seen, Milton sends to Rous the\nsame pamphlets he had sent to Patrick Young, and in the same order, only\nadding the Letter on Education to Hartlib, and the Moseley volume of\nPoems. Now, all the pieces so enumerated, with the inscription, had duly\nreached Rous in the Bodleian, with one exception. In the carriage of the\nparcel to Oxford the tiny volume of Poetry had somehow dropped out or\nbeen abstracted; so that Rous, counting over the pieces by the inventory,\nfound himself in possession only of the eleven prose-pamphlets. He had\nintimated this to Milton, and petitioned for another copy of the Poems to\nmake good the loss of the first. Milton complied; but, as the loss of the\nfirst copy had amused him, he took the trouble of writing a mock-heroic\nLatin ode on the subject to Rous, and causing this ode, transcribed on a\nsheet of paper in a secretary hand of elaborate elegance, to be inserted\nby the binder in the new copy, between the English and the Latin portions\nof the contents. This is the _Ode to Rous_ of which we have spoken\nas, with the exception of _Sonnet XIV.,_ the sole known production\nof Milton's muse during those eight months of his Barbican life which\nhave brought us to our present point. When he printed it in the second or\n1673 edition of his Poems, he prefixed the exact date, \"Jan. 23, 1646\"\n(_i.e._ 1646-7). It was written, therefore, in the interval between\nMr. Powell's death and his father's--three weeks after the one, and six\nor seven weeks before the other. The manuscript copy sent to Rous still\nexists in the Bodleian in the volume into which it was inserted; and in\nthe same library they show also the volume of the eleven collected prose\npamphlets, with the previous inscription to Rous in Milton's autograph.\n[Footnote: Warton's Note on the Ode to Rous (Todd's Milton, IV. 507-9);\nMilton's Poems ed. 1678, Latin portion, p. 90; Sotheby's Milton\nRamblings, pp. 113-121, where there is a fac-simile of the inscription in\nthe Bodleian volume of the prose pamphlets, and also a fac-simile of a\nconsiderable portion of the Latin Ode to Rous from the MS. copy in the\nother Bodleian volume. The \"inscription\" is indubitably Milton's\nautograph; Mr. Sotheby thinks the \"ode\" also to be in his penmanship,\nthough not in his usual hand, but in a \"beautiful secretary hand\" which\nhe assumed for the special purpose. Judging from the fac-simile, I doubt\nthis, and think the transcript may have been by some professional\nscribe.--According to Warton's account, it is by accident that these two\nprecious volumes have been preserved in the Bodleian. In 1720 a number of\nbooks, whether as being duplicates or as being thought useless, were\nweeded out of the Library and thrown aside, and a Mr. Nathaniel Crynes,\none of the Esquire Bidels and a book collector, was permitted to have the\npick of these for himself on the understanding that he was to leave the\nLibrary a valuable bequest. Fortunately Mr. Crynes did not care for the\nMilton volumes, and so they went back to the shelves.]\n\nThe ode is headed \"_Ad Joannem Rousium, Oxoniensis Academi\u00e6\nBibliothecarium: de Libro Poematum amisso, quem ille sibi denuo mitti\npostulabat, ut cum aliis nostris in Bibliothec\u00e2 public\u00e2 reponeret,\nOde_\" (\"To John Rous, Librarian of the University of Oxford: An Ode on\na lost Book of Poems, of which he asked a fresh copy to be sent him, that\nhe might replace it beside our other books in the Public Library\").\n\nWhat strikes one first in reading the Ode is the strange metrical\nstructure. Evidently in a whim, and to suit his mock-heroic purpose,\nMilton chose a peculiar form of mixed verse, distantly suggested by the\nchoruses of the Greek dramatists, and more closely by some precedents in\nLatin poetry. There are three Strophes, each followed by an Antistrophe,\nand the whole is wound up by a closing Epodos. In an appended prose note\nMilton calls attention to this novelty, and explains moreover that he had\ntaken considerable liberties with the verse throughout, pleasing his own\near, and regarding rather the convenience of modern reading than ancient\nprosodic rules. Altogether, in this respect, the poem was a bold\nexperiment, for which Milton has been taken to task by purists among his\ncommentators down to our own time.\n\nIt is the _matter_, however, that interests us most here. The ode\nopens half-humorously with an address to the little book he was sending\nto Rous. It is described as a pretty little book enough, with two sets of\ncontents and a double arrangement of paging to match, neatly but simply\nbound (_fronde licet gemin\u00e2, munditieque nitens non operos\u00e2_), and\ncontaining the juvenile productions of a certain Poet of no superlative\nmerit (_haud nimii poet\u00e6_), written partly in Britain and partly in\nItaly, partly in English and partly in Latin. [Footnote: Critics have\nobjected to Milton's volume, phrase \"_fronde licet gemin\u00e2_,\" on the\nground that \"_fronte_\" would be the better Latin word for \"title-\npage.\" But Milton did not mean only that there were two title pages in\nthe volume, one to the English and one to the Latin poems; he meant also\nthat these two sets of poems were paged separately throughout. His phrase\n\"_fronde gemin\u00e2_,\" (\"with double leafing\") was therefore perfectly\nexact.] Then the Antistrophe asks what had become of the former copy of\nthe same, on its way to the sources of the Thames and the great seat of\nlearning there established. The second Strophe and Antistrophe continue\nthe strain, with a hope that now at length the wretched civil tumults may\ncease in England and Peace and Literature come back, but still with a\nreturn of the query what could possibly have become of the missing volume\nbetween London and Oxford, and into what clownish hands it might have\nfallen. In the third Strophe and Antistrophe there is a compliment to\nRous as the faithful keeper of one of the most splendid libraries in the\nworld, with acknowledgment of his kindness in seeking to have the missing\nvolume replaced, so that it might have a chance of readers in such\nglorious company and in all-famous Oxford. The closing Epode may be given\nin the skilful, though rather lax, rendering of Cowper:--\n\n  \"Ye, then, my Works, no longer vain\n  And worthless deemed by me,\n  Whate'er this sterile genius has produced,\n  Expect at last, the rage of envy spent,\n  An unmolested happy home,\n  Gift of kind Hermes and my watchful friend,\n  Where never flippant tongue profane\n  Shall entrance find,\n  And whence the coarse unlettered multitude\n  Shall babble far remote.\n  Perhaps some future distant age,\n  Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught,\n  Shall furnish minds of power\n  To judge more equally.\n  Then, malice silenced in the tomb,\n  Cooler heads and sounder hearts,\n  Thanks to Rous, if aught of praise\n  I merit, shall with candour weigh the claim.\"\n\n\nITALIAN REMINISCENCES: LOST LETTERS FROM CARLO DATI OF FLORENCE: MILTON'S\nREPLY TO THE LAST OF THEM.\n\nOur next trace of Milton, through anything written by himself in his\nBarbican abode, belongs to April 1647, the month after his father's\ndeath. We owe it also perhaps to the fact that the publication of his\nPoems by Moseley had given him an opportunity of distributing\npresentation-copies of some of his former writings.\n\nA feature in that volume, it may be remembered, was its richness in\nItalian reminiscences. Not only were there included among the English\nPoems the five Italian Sonnets and the Italian Canzone which Milton is\nbelieved to have written in Italy; not only were the encomiums of his\nItalian friends, Manso of Naples, Salzilli and Selvaggi of Rome, and\nFrancini and Dati of Florence, prefixed to the Latin Poems, with a note\nof explanation; not only among these Latin poems did he print the three\npieces to the singer Leonora, the Scazontes to Salzilli, and the fine\nfarewell to Manso; but in the _Epitaphium Damonis_, or pastoral on\nCharles Diodati's death, which ended the volume, and which had been\nwritten immediately after his return to England, there were references\nthroughout to his Italian experiences, and passages of express mention of\nDati, Francini, the Florentine group generally, and the venerable Manso.\nWhat more natural than to have sent copies of such a volume to the\nvarious Italian friends named in it, to remind them of the Englishman to\nwhom they had been so kind. The venerable Manso, indeed, was by this time\ndead; Salzilli seems to have been dead; the great Galileo, whom Milton\nhad at least once visited near Florence, had died in 1642; but most of\nthe Florentine group were still alive. To these last, all of them poets\nthemselves more or less, Milton might have been expected to send copies\nof his volume. Or, if he did not trouble them with the English part,\nwhich they could not read, he might have sent them at least the Latin\npart, which had been separately paged, and provided with a separate title\nand imprint, precisely in order that it might be so detached. For a\nreason which will appear Milton did not even do this. He seems, however,\nto have procured from the printer some copies of the last eleven pages of\nthe Latin part, which contained the _Epitaphium Damonis_ by itself,\nand to have sent these to Florence. Either so, or by some prior\ntransmission of this particular poem to his Florentine friends,\nunaccompanied by any letter, copies of it _had_ reached them. This\nwe learn from the sequel.\n\nOf all Milton's Florentine friends none had remembered him more\nfaithfully than young Carlo Dati (see Vol. I. pp. 724-5). Only nineteen\nyears of age when Milton had visited Florence in 1638-9, but then a\nleading spirit in the literary Academies of the city, and especially\nenthusiastic in his attentions to strangers, he had outgone all the\nothers, except Francini, in his admiration of the Englishman who had come\namong them, and in the extravagance of his parting adieu. The admiration\nwas real; and, after Milton had gone, young Dati had often thought of\nhim, often talked of him among his companions of the Delia Crusca and of\nGaddi's more private Academy of the Svogliati, often wondered what he was\ndoing in his native land. Three times at intervals he had written to\nMilton; but all the letters had miscarried. Conceive, then, Dati's\npleasure, when, some time in 1646 (if that is the correct supposition), a\ncopy of the _Epitaphium Damonis_ reached him from London, and he\nread the passage there in which Milton had made such affectionate mention\nof his Florentine friends of 1638-9, and of himself and Francini in\nparticular. Immediately he wrote to Milton a fourth time; and this\nletter, more fortunate than its predecessors, did arrive at its\ndestination. Milton, on his part, though the letter must have reached him\nabout the time of his father's death, had peculiar pleasure in receiving\nit and returning an answer. The answer was in Latin, and may be\ntranslated as follows:--\n\n\"To CHARLES DATI, Nobleman of Florence.\n\n\"With how great and what new pleasure I was filled, my Charles, on the\nunexpected arrival of your letter, since it is impossible for me to\ndescribe it adequately, I wish you may in some degree understand from the\nvery pain with which it was dashed, such pain as is almost the invariable\naccompaniment of any great delight yielded to men. For, on running over\nthat first portion of your letter, in which elegance contends so finely\nwith friendship, I should have called my feeling one of unmixed joy, and\nthe rather because I see your labour to make friendship the winner.\nImmediately, however, when I came upon that passage where you write that\nyou had sent me three letters before, which I now know to have been lost,\nthen, in the first place, that sincere gladness of mine at the receipt of\nthis one began to be infected and troubled with a sad regret, and\npresently a something heavier creeps in upon me, to which I am accustomed\nin very frequent grievings over my own lot: the sense, namely, that those\nwhom the mere necessity of neighbourhood, or something else of a useless\nkind, has closely conjoined with me, whether by accident or by the tie of\nlaw (_sive casu, sive lege, conglutinavit_), _they_ are the persons,\nthough in no other respect commendable, who sit daily in my company,\nweary me, nay, by heaven, all but plague me to death whenever they are\njointly in the humour for it, whereas those whom habits, disposition,\nstudies, had so handsomely made my friends, are now almost all denied me,\neither by death or by most unjust separation of place, and are so for the\nmost part snatched from my sight that I have to live well nigh in a\nperpetual solitude. As to what you say, that from the time of my\ndeparture from Florence you have been anxious about my health and always\nmindful of me. I truly congratulate myself that a feeling has been equal\nand mutual in both of us, the existence of which on my side only I was\nperhaps claiming to my credit. Very sad to me also, I will not conceal\nfrom you, was that departure, and it planted stings in my heart which now\nrankle there deeper, as often as I think with myself of my reluctant\nparting, my separation as by a wrench, from so many companions at once,\nsuch good friends as they were, and living so pleasantly with each other\nin one city, far off indeed, but to me most dear. I call to witness that\ntomb of Damon, ever to be sacred and solemn to me, whose adornment with\nevery tribute of grief was my weary task, till I betook myself at length\nto what comforts I could, and desired again to breathe a little--I call\nthat sacred grave to witness that I have had no greater delight all this\nwhile than in recalling to my mind the most pleasant memory of all of\nyou, and of yourself especially. This you must have read for yourself\nlong ere now, if that poem reached you, as now first I hear from you it\ndid. I had carefully caused it to be sent, in order that, however small a\nproof of talent, it might, even in those few lines introduced into it\nemblem-wise, [Footnote: See the lines themselves in the translation of\nthe _Epitaphium Damonis_, Vol. II. p. 90.] be no obscure proof of my love\ntowards you. My idea was that by this means I should lure either yourself\nor some of the others to write to me; for, if I wrote first, either I had\nto write to all, or I feared that, if I gave the preference to any one, I\nshould incur the reproach of such others as came to know it, hoping as I\ndo that very many are yet there alive who might certainly have a claim to\nthis attention from me. Now, however, you first of all, both by this most\nfriendly call of your letter, and by your thrice-repeated attention of\nwriting before, have freed the reply for which I have been some while\nsince in your debt from any expostulation from the others. [Footnote:\nAlthough I have supposed that the copies of the _Epitaphium Damonis_ sent\nby Milton to Italy were from the sheets of the Moseley volume of 1645 as\nit was passing through the press, the reader ought to note, with me, the\n_possibility_ (already hinted, and now implied in this passage of the\nletter to Dati) that Milton had sent copies in some form at an earlier\ndate--say immediately after the poem was written, and when his parting\nfrom his Italian friends was quite recent.] There was, I confess, an\nadditional cause for my silence in that most turbulent state of our\nBritain, subsequent to my return home, which obliged me to divert my mind\nshortly afterwards from the prosecution of my studies to the defence\nanyhow of life and fortune. What safe retirement for literary leisure\ncould you suppose given one among so many battles of a civil war,\nslaughters, flights, seizures of goods? Yet, even in the midst of these\nevils, since you desire to be informed about my studies, know that we\nhave published not a few things in our native tongue; which, were they\nnot written in English, I would willingly send to you, my friends in\nFlorence, to whose opinions I attach very much value. The part of the\nPoems which is in Latin I will send shortly, since you wish it; and I\nwould have done so spontaneously long ago, but that, on account of the\nrather harsh sayings against the Pope of Rome in some of the pages, I had\na suspicion they would not be quite agreeable to your ears. Now I beg of\nyou that the indulgence you were wont to give, I say not to your own\nDante and Petrarch in the same case, but with singular politeness to my\nown former freedom of speech, as you know, among you, the same you, Dati,\nwill obtain (for of yourself I am sure) from my other friends whenever I\nmay be speaking of your religion in our peculiar way. I am reading with\npleasure your description of the funeral ceremony to King Louis, in which\nI recognise your style (_Mercurium tuum_)--not that one of street bazaars\nand mercantile concerns (_compitalem ilium et mercimoniis ad dictum_)\nwhich you say jestingly you have been lately practising, but the right\neloquent one which the Muses like, and which befits the president of a\nclub of wits (_facundum ilium, Musis acceptum, et Mercurialium virorum\npr\u00e6sidem_). [Footnote: The production of Dati to which Milton refers, and\nof which a copy had probably accompanied Dati's letter, was an Italian\ntract or book, entitled \"Esequie del la Maest\u00e0 Christianiss: di Luigi\nXIII. il Giusto, Re di Francia e di Navarra, celebrate in Firenze dall\naltezza serenissima di Ferdinando Granduca di Tose., e discritte da Carlo\nDati: 1644.\" Louis XIII. of France had died May 14, 1643, and the Grand\nDuke of Tuscany had ordered a celebration in his honour at Florence.--The\nhint that Dati was now engaged in mercantile business is confirmed by\nsubsequent evidence.] It remains that we agree on some method and plan by\nwhich henceforth our letters may go between us by a sure route. This does\nnot seem very difficult, when so many of our merchants have frequent and\nlarge transactions with you, and their messengers run backwards and\nforwards every week, and their vessels sail from port to port not much\nseldomer. The charge of this I shall commit, rightly I hope, to\nBookseller James (_Jacobo Bibliopol\u00e6_), or to his master, my very\nfamiliar acquaintance (_vel ejus hero mihi familiarissimo_). [Footnote: I\nhave translated this as well as I can, but it is obscure. Did Milton\nrefer to some Florentine \"Jacopo,\" a bookseller (the publisher of Dati's\n_Esequie_?), and playfully entrust the arrangement of the future means of\ncorrespondence to Dati himself, as master of the services of this\nperson?]  Meanwhile farewell, my Charles; and give best salutations in my\nname to Coltellini, Francini, Frescobaldi, Malatesta, Chimentelli the\nyounger, anyone else you know that remembers me with some affection, and,\nin fine, to the whole Gaddian Academy. Again farewell!\n\nLondon: April 21, 1617.\" [Footnote: This letter to Dati is the tenth of\nMilton's _Epistol\u00e6 Familiares_, as published by himself in 1674, and\nreprinted in the collected editions of his works. By a curious chance,\nhowever, a MS. copy of it exists in Milton's own hand--either a draft\nwhich Milton kept at the time, or perhaps the actual copy sent to Dati.\nIt is one of some valuable Milton documents in the possession of Mr. John\nFitchett Marsh of Warrington, who has described it in his _Milton\nPapers_, printed for the Chetham Society in 1851, and given there a\nfac-simile of the beginning and end of it. There is a copy of this fac-\nsimile in Mr. Sotheby's _Milton Ramblings_ (p. 122). Mr. Marsh, who\nis inclined to think that the MS. is the actual letter as it reached\nDati, has favoured me with an exact list of some verbal variations in it\nfrom the printed copy. They are slight, but rather confirm the idea that\nthe printed copy is from the draft which Milton kept and that the MS. was\nthe transcript actually dispatched to Italy. Thus, while the printed copy\nis headed merely \"_Carolo Dato, Patricio Florentino_,\" the MS. is\nheaded \"Carolo Dato, Patricio Florentino, Joannes Miltonius, Londinensis,\nS.P.D.\" Again, at the close, instead of the printed dating \"_Londino,\nAprilis 21, 1647_,\" the MS. presents the dating \"_Londini: Pascatis\nferia tertia, MDCXLVII_,\" (\"London: the third feast day of Easter,\n1647.\") On this Mr. Marsh, in a note to me, remarks ingeniously, \"Dating\nfrom the feast-day, according to the Roman Catholic usage, in writing to\nan Italian friend, indicates a tolerance and politeness worth noticing.\"\nEaster in 1647 fell on Sunday, April 18, so that the third day, or\nEaster-Tuesday, was April 20. The printed copy is dated a day later.]\n\nThere are passages in this letter which we can interpret now better than\nDati can have done then. The sentences in which Milton speaks of his hard\nfate in being tied by accident or law to the constant companionship of\npeople with whom he had no sympathy, while those whom he really cared for\nwere distant or dead, may have been read by Dati with only a vague\ngeneral construction of their meaning, and perhaps would not have been\nwritten by Milton to any one capable of a more exact construction from\nknowledge of the circumstances. We can now discern in them, however, a\nreference by Milton to his domestic troubles, to the worry brought on him\nby the whole Powell connexion, and perhaps also to the recent loss of his\nfather. Altogether the letter is a melancholy one. One sees Milton, as he\nwrote it in Barbican in the spring of 1647, the gloomy master of an\nuncomfortable household.\n\n\nPEDAGOGY IN THE BARBICAN: LIST OF MILTON'S KNOWN PUPILS: LADY RANELAGH.\n\nYet precisely this spring of 1647, if we are to believe his nephew\nPhillips, was Milton's busiest time with his pupils. \"And now,\" says\nPhillips, after mentioning the death of Milton's father, and the\ndeparture at last of the Powell kindred from the house in Barbican, \"the\nhouse looked again like a house of the Muses only, though the accession\nof scholars was not great. Possibly his proceeding thus far in the\neducation of youth may have been the occasion of some of his adversaries\ncalling him Pedagogue and Schoolmaster; whereas it is well known he never\nset up for a public school to teach all the young fry of a parish, but\nonly was willing to impart his learning and knowledge to relations, and\nthe sons of some gentlemen that were his intimate friends, besides that\nneither his converse, nor his writings, nor his manner of teaching ever\nsavoured in the least anything of pedantry; and probably he might have\nsome prospect of putting in practice his academical institution,\naccording to the model laid down in his sheet Of Education!\" Taking this\npassage in connexion with prior passages already quoted from the same\nmemoir, we are to conclude that, though Milton's practice in teaching had\nbegun as far back as 1639-40, when he gave lessons to his two nephews in\nhis lodgings in St. Bride's Churchyard, and although the practice had\nbeen kept up all through the time of his residence in Aldersgate Street,\nwhen his nephews boarded with him and other pupils were gradually added\n(1640-45), yet it was in the Barbican house, and there more especially in\n1647, that his employment in pedagogy was most engrossing. The house had\nbeen taken expressly that there might be accommodation for additional\npupils, and such pupils had come in--not in any considerable number, nor\nyet miscellaneously from the neighbourhood, but rather by way of favour\non Milton's part to select boys whose parents knew him well, and were\nanxious that they should have the benefit of his instructions.\n\nAs to Milton's theories and methods of education we are already\nsufficiently informed. This may be the place, however, for a list of\nthose who can be ascertained to have had the honour of being his pupils.\nPerhaps that honour may have been shared by as many as twenty or thirty\nyouths in all, afterwards distributed through English society in the\nseventeenth century, and some of them living even into the eighteenth;\nbut I have been able to recover only the following:--[Footnote: It is to\nbe understood that Milton may have continued the practice of pedagogy, in\nindividual cases at least, after the Barbican period of its fullest\nforce, and hence that one or two of the pupils in my present list may not\nhave been in the Barbican house, but may be strays afterwards undertaken\nby him, on special request, in those later days and those other houses\ninto which we have yet to follow him. As it is not worth while, however,\nto break up such a list, I present all Milton's known pupils, of whatever\ndate, in one cluster.]\n\nEDWARD PHILLIPS (the elder nephew):--Not ten years old when he first\nreceived lessons from Milton in the St. Bride's Churchyard lodging, this\nelder nephew, after five years of board in Aldersgate Street, and about a\nyear and a half in Barbican, had reached his seventeenth year. He had\nreceived the full benefit so far of his uncle's method of teaching; and,\nif he were to go to the University, it was about time that he should be\npreparing. About two years after our present date, or in March 1648-9, by\nwhatever management of his uncle, or of his mother and step-father, Mrs.\nand Mr. Agar, he did enrol himself in Magdalen Hall, Oxford. The rest of\nhis life will concern us hereafter. [Footnote: Wood's Ath., IV. 760, and\nGodwin's Lives of the Phillipses, p. 12.]\n\nJOHN PHILLIPS (the younger nephew):--This nameson of Milton's, first\ncommitted to his entire charge in the St. Bride's Churchyard lodging, had\nbeen as long under training as his elder brother, and had now reached his\nsixteenth year. He was to remain a more unmixed example of his uncle's\ntraining, for he never went to any University. He also will reappear in\nthe subsequent course of his uncle's life. [Footnote: Wood's Ath., IV.\n764, and Godwin.]\n\nRICHARD HEATH, OR HETH:--That a person of this name was among Milton's\npupils, rests on the evidence of one of Milton's own _Epistol\u00e6\nFamiliares_, dated Dec. 1652, and addressed \"Richardo Hetho.\" As he\nwas then a minister of the Gospel somewhere, it is to be inferred that he\nwas one of the earliest pupils of the Aldersgate Street days. I have not\nbeen able to identify him farther.\n\n----PACKER:--\"Mr. Packer, who was his scholar,\" is one of Aubrey's\nJottings about Milton, written in 1680 or thereabouts. This is a very\ninsufficient clue. A John Packer, who had taken the degree of Doctor of\nPhysic at Padua, was incorporated in the same degree at Oxford, Feb. 19,\n1656-7. [Footnote: Aubrey's Notes on Milton's Life (Godwin's reprint, p.\n349); Wood's Fasti, II. 196.]\n\nCYRIACK SKINNER:--He was the third son of William Skinner, a Lincolnshire\nsquire (son and heir of Sir Vincent Skinner, Knt., of Thornton College,\nco. Lincoln) who had married Bridget Coke, second daughter of the famous\nlawyer and judge, Sir Edward Coke. As his father died in 1627, Cyriack\nmust have been at least twenty years of age in 1647: he had, therefore,\nbeen one of the Aldersgate Street pupils. The fact that he was a grandson\nof the great Coke was one of his distinctions through life; but he was to\nbecome of some note in London society on his own' account. The connexion\nformed between him and Milton continued, as we shall find, unbroken and\naffectionate through future years. Indeed, there came to be associations,\npresumably through Cyriack, between Milton and other persons of the name\nof Skinner. A Daniel Skinner, and a Thomas Skinner, presumably relatives\nof Cyriack's, are heard of as merchants in Mark Lane, London, from 1651\nonwards. This Daniel Skinner, merchant, had a son, Daniel Skinner,\njunior, whose acquaintance with Milton in the end of his life led to\ncurious and important results. Care must be taken, even now, not to\nconfound this far future Daniel Skinner, junior (not born till about\n1650), with our present Cyriack, his senior, and probable kinsman.\n[Footnote: Aubrey's Notes; Wood's Ath., III. 1119; Skinner's Pedigree in\nIntrod. to Bishop Sumner's Translation of Milton's Treatise on Christian\nDoctrine (1825); Hamilton's Milton Papers, 29 _et seq._ and 131-2. Wood\n(Fasti, I. 486) has confounded Cyriack Skinner in one particular with the\nmuch later Daniel Skinner junior, and the mistake has been kept up.]\n\nHENRY LAURENCE:--There is no positive attestation, as in the other cases,\nthat this person, certainly intimate with Milton in subsequent years,\nbegan acquaintance with him as one of his pupils. The presumption is so\nstrong, however, that I risk including him. He was the second son of\nHenry Laurence, of St. Ives, Hunts, member for Westmoreland in the Long\nParliament, known in 1647 as a thoughtful man, and author of \"A Treatise\nof our Communion and War with Angels,\" and afterwards a staunch\nOliverian, President of Cromwell's Council (1654), and one of his Lords\n(1657). He had an elder son, Edward, who was fourteen years of age in\n1647, and died in 1657, when Henry became the heir. Therefore, if we are\nright in supposing Henry to have been Milton's pupil in the Barbican, he\ncannot have been older than twelve or thirteen at the time. [Footnote:\nWood's Ath., IV. 63, 64; note by Bliss.]\n\nSIR THOMAS GARDINER, OF ESSEX:--That a person of this name was among\nMilton's pupils in the Barbican, either with the title already, or having\nit to come to him, seems to be implied in a statement of Wood, quoted in\nthe next paragraph.\n\nRICHARD BARRY, 2ND EARL OF BARRIMORE:--\"To this end that he might put it\nin practice,\" says Wood, after describing Milton's system of education as\nexplained in his Letter to Hartlib, \"he took a larger house, where the\nEarl of Barrimore sent by his aunt the Lady Ranelagh, Sir Thomas Gardiner\nof Essex, to be there with others (besides his two nephews) under his\ntuition.\" [Footnote: Wood's Fasti (edit. by Bliss), I. 483. The sentence\nis exactly in the same form in earlier editions.] The pointing and\nstructure of the sentence make it obscure; but I take the meaning to be\nthat Wood had heard of two of Milton's pupils in the Barbican house\nspecially worth naming on account of their rank--the Earl of Barrimore\nand Sir Thomas Gardiner--and that he had also been informed that it was\nthe Earl of Barrimore's aunt, the Lady Ranelagh, that had placed that\nyoung Irish nobleman under Milton's charge. The full significance of this\nwas clear when Wood wrote, for Lady Ranelagh was then still alive, and\nknown as one of the most remarkable women of her century; but readers now\nmay need to be informed who Lady Ranelagh was.--Her husband was Arthur\nJones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh in the Irish peerage; but that was not her\nchief distinction. By birth she was a Boyle, one of the daughters of that\nRichard Boyle, an Englishman of Kent, who, having gone over to Ireland in\n1588, had risen there, by his prudence and integrity through three\nreigns, to be successively Sir Richard Boyle, Lord Boyle of Youghall,\nViscount Dungarvan, and Earl of Cork, with the office of Lord High\nTreasurer of Ireland, and with vast estates both in Ireland and England.\nThis great Earl, dying in good old age in 1643, after some final service\nagainst the Irish Rebellion, left four sons mid six daughters surviving\nout of a total family of fifteen. The eldest surviving son, Richard, till\nthen Viscount Dungarvan, succeeded to the Earldom of Cork, and was\nafterwards created Lord Clifford of Lanesborough (1644) and Earl of\nBurlington (1664) in the English peerage; the second, Roger, created\nBaron Broghill in his father's lifetime, bore that title till the\nRestoration, with a high character for wisdom and literary talent, which\nhe maintained afterwards as Earl of Orrery; the next, Francis, after\ngiving proof of his Royalism both in England and in exile, received a\nplace with his brothers in the Irish peerage as Viscount Shannon; and the\nfourth and youngest, born Jan. 25, 1626-7, was called to the end of his\ndays merely \"The Hon. Mr. Robert Boyle,\" but became the most famous of\nthem all as \"the divine philosopher,\" and founder of English Chemistry.\nSo also, among the daughters, though all were \"ladies of great piety and\nvirtue and an ornament to their sex,\" one was the paragon. This was\nCatharine, Viscountess Ranelagh, born March 22, 1614-15, or twelve years\nbefore her brother Robert. Of her reputation for \"vast reach both of\nknowledge and apprehension,\" \"universal affability,\" and liberality both\nof mind and of purse, there is the most glowing tradition, interspersed\nwith facts and anecdotes; and the singularly strong mutual affection that\nsubsisted between her and her brother Robert till the close of their\nlives runs like a silver thread through that philosopher's biography. At\nour present date she was yet a young woman, but her influence among the\nmembers of her family was already recognised. Since the Irish Rebellion\nthe fixed residence of herself and her husband had been in (Pall Mall?)\nLondon. Here her relatives from Ireland and elsewhere gathered round her;\nand here in 1644 her youngest brother, the future chemist, turning up\nbrown and penniless, a foreign-looking lad of eighteen, after his six\nyears of travel abroad, had been received with open arms. He had remained\nin her house about five months, and then had retired to his estate of\nStalbridge in Dorsetshire, where he continued mainly till 1650,\ncorresponding with her from amid his speculative studies and his\napparatus for chemical experiments.--One other service, if Anthony Wood's\ninformation is correct, Lady Ranelagh must have rendered about the same\ntime to another member of her family. Most of her sisters had married\ninto noble English or Irish houses; but the eldest of them, Alice, Lady\nBarrimore, had been left a widow with three young children by the death\nof her husband, David, first Earl of Barrimore. This death had occurred\nbefore that of her father the great Earl of Cork, and in that Earl's\nwill, dated Nov. 24, 1642, he had shown his concern for this unexpected\nwidowhood of his eldest daughter by special bequests to her three\nchildren. Two of them, being daughters, were to receive 1,000_l._\napiece; and for the behoof of the only son there was this provision: \"For\nthat I have ever cordially desired the restitution and recovery of the\nEarl of Barrimore's noble and anciently honourable house, that his\nposterity may raise the same to its former lustre and greatness again,\nand in regard that in my judgment there is no way so likely and probable\n(God blessing it) to redeem and bring home the encumbered and disjointed\nestate of the said Earl, and his house and posterity, as by giving a\nnoble, virtuous, and religious education to the said now young Earl, my\ngrandchild, who, by good and honourable breeding, may (by God's grace)\neither by the favour of the prince, or by his service to the King and\ncountry, or a good marriage, redeem and bring home that ancient and\nhonourable house, which upon the marriage of my daughter unto the late\nEarl I did with my own money freely clear: I do hereby, for his\nlordship's better maintenance and accommodation in the premises, bequeath\nunto my said grandchild, Richard, now Earl of Barrimore, from the time of\nmy decease, for, during, and until he shall attain the full age of 22\nyears, one yearly annuity of 200_l._\" This was the boy who, a year\nor two afterwards, was sent to Milton's in the Barbican for tuition. His\naunt Ranelagh had heard of Milton, or had come to know him personally;\nand she thought he was the very man to give the boy the training which\nhis wise grandfather had desired for him.--There will be proof in time\nthat Lady Ranelagh did know Milton well, saw him often, and entertained a\nhigh regard for him, which he reciprocated. Meanwhile we may anticipate\nso far as to say that she was not content with having obtained Milton's\ninstructions for her nephew, the Earl of Barrimore, but secured them also\nfor her only son, Richard Jones, afterwards third Viscount and first Earl\nof Ranelagh. This nobleman, who lived to as late as 1712 with\nconsiderable distinction of various kinds, and on the site of whose last\nhouse at Chelsea Ranelagh Gardens were established, is also to be\nreckoned, we shall find, in the list of Milton's pupils. It is just\npossible he may have begun his lessons, with his cousin Barrimore, in the\nBarbican house; but, as he was but seven years of age in 1647, this is\nhardly probable. [Footnote: Birch's Life of Robert Boyle, prefixed to the\n1714 edition of Boyle's Works in five volumes folio (pp. 1-20); Collins's\nPeerage by Brydges, VII. 134 _et seq. (Boyle, Lord Boyle)_, and VI.\nl84; Irish Compendium or Rudiments of Honour (1756), for Barrimore\nfamily, Debrett's Peerage, for Ranelagh family; Worthington's Diary, by\nCrossley, I, 164-7; Cunningham's Handbook of London, 373 and 418;\nPhillips' Memoir of Milton; and four letters \"_Nobili Adolescenti\nRichardo Jonslo_\" in Milton's _Epistol\u00e6 Familiares._]\n\n\nEDUCATIONAL REFORM STILL A QUESTION: HARTLIB AGAIN: THE INVISIBLE\nCOLLEGE: YOUNG ROBERT BOYLE AND WILLIAM PETTY.\n\nThere may be something in Phillips's guess that his uncle, about 1647,\nhad some idea of putting in practice his system of Pedagogy on a larger\nscale than a mere private house permitted, by becoming the head of some\nsuch public Academy as that which he had described three years before in\nhis Letter to Hartlib.\n\nThe question of a Reform of the apparatus for national Education had\nnever quite vanished from the public mind even in the midst of the\nengrossing struggle between the Presbyterians and the Independents, and a\nfresh interest was imparted to the subject by the Ordinance of Parliament\nin May 1647 for a Visitation and Purgation of the University of Oxford\n(_ant\u00e8_, pp. 545-6). Hartlib, for one, was again on the top of the\nwave. The claims of this indefatigable man to some reward for his long\nand various services had at length been brought before Parliament. On the\n25th of June, 1646, on the report of a Committee, the House of Commons\nhad voted him 100_l._ and in April 1647 the two Houses farther\nagreed in a resolution to pay him 300_l._ \"in consideration of his\ngood deserts and great services to the Parliament,\" with a recommendation\nthat, on account of his special merits \"from all that are well-wishers to\nthe advancement of learning,\" he should be provided with some post of\nemolument at Oxford. [Footnote: Commons Journals of June 25, 1646, and\nMarch 31, 1647; and Lords Journals of April 1, 1647.] Nothing came of the\nlast suggestion, and Hartlib lived on in London as before, still only\nventilating his ideas of Educational Reform in a general way, amid the\nother novelties of all sorts which he patronized.\n\nHartlib's hero-in-chief on the Educational subject, the great Comenius,\nthough doubtless remembered, had practically gone out of view. Labouring\nat Elbing on that piece of mere drudgery for which Oxenstiern and others\nhad persuaded him to lay aside his Pansophic dreams (_ant\u00e8_, p.\n228), he had indeed compiled, in four years, a large recast of his Latin\nDidactics under the title of _Novissima Linguarum Methodus_, and had\nreturned to Sweden in 1646 to present the mass of manuscript to his\nemployer Ludovicus de Geer. The Swedish critics do not seem to have yet\nbeen satisfied with the performance, and Comenius had carried it away\nwith him again for corrections and additions, not any longer in Elbing,\nbut in his old Polish home. [Footnote: Comenius's Preface to the Second\nPart of his _Opera Didactica_, between 1627 and 1657.] No chance for\nHartlib, then, of co-operating again with Comenius in the foundation of a\nPansophic College in London! Hartlib's faculty of making new\nacquaintances, however, was as versatile as his passion for new lights;\nand a certain \"_Invisible College_\" which had already some habitat\nin London, had become the substitute in his fancies for the unbuilt\nPansophic Temple of the distant Slavonian sage. Since 1645 there had been\nheld, sometimes in Wood Street, sometimes in Cheapside, and sometimes in\nGresham College, those humble weekly meetings of a few \"worthy persons\ninquisitive into Natural Philosophy,\" out of which there grew at length\nthe great Royal Society of London. Theodore Haak, a naturalized German,\nhad originated the club; and among the first members were Dr. John Wallis\n(the clerk of the Westminster Assembly, but with other things in his head\nthan what went on there), the afterwards famous Wilkins, and the\nphysician Dr. Jonathan Goddard. If Hartlib, the fellow-countryman and\nfriend of Haak, was not an original member, he knew of the meetings from\nthe first; and the _Invisible College_ of his imagination seems to\nhave been that enlarged future association of all earnest spirits for the\nprosecution of real and fruitful knowledge of which this club might be\nthe symbol and promise. The _Invisible College_, at all events, was\nthe temporary form of his ever-varying, and yet indestructible, zeal for\nprogress. It figures much in his correspondence at this time with one new\nfriend, who, though not more than twenty years of age, had that in him\nwhich made his friendship as precious to Hartlib as any he had yet\nformed. This was young Robert Boyle, recently returned to England from\nhis foreign travels, and dividing his time between philosophical\nretirement at his house in Dorsetshire and occasional visits to London.\nIn a letter to a Cambridge friend written in Feb. 1646-7, during one of\nthose London visits, Boyle says: \"I have been every day these two months\nupon visiting my own ruined cottage in the country; but it is such a\nlabyrinth, this London, that all my diligence could never yet find my way\nout on't.... The cornerstones of the _Invisible_, or, as they term\nthemselves, _Philosophical College_, do now and then honour me with\ntheir company, which makes me as sorry for those pressing occasions that\nurge my departure as I am at other times angry with that solicitous\nidleness that I am necessitated to during my stay: men of so capacious\nand searching spirits that school-philosophy is but the lowest region of\ntheir knowledge, and yet, though ambitious to lead the way to any\ngenerous design, of so humble and teachable a genius as they disdain not\nto be directed by the meanest, so he can but plead reason for his\nopinion,--persons that endeavour to put narrowmindedness out of\ncountenance, by the practice of so extensive a charity that it reaches\nunto everything called man, and nothing less than an universal goodwill\ncan content it. ... I will conclude their praises with the recital of\ntheir chiefest fault, which is very incident to almost all good things;\nand that is that there is not enough of them.\" The first extant letters\nof Boyle to Hartlib were written from his Dorsetshire retreat immediately\nafter this visit to London, and are in reply to letters received there\nfrom Hartlib. A new system of Real characters or Universal Writing;\nPneumatical Engines or Wind-guns; Mr. Durie, his Church-conciliation\nScheme, and a Discourse on the Teaching of Logic he had brought out; the\ningenious Utopian Speculations of a certain young Mr. Hall; the\nCopernican Astronomy (to which Mr. Boyle was \"once very much inclined\");\nthe French mathematicians, Mersenne and Gassendi; Oughtred's _Clavis\nMathematica_; a Cure for the Stone suggested by Hartlib, or rather by\nMrs. Hartlib: such are some of the topics of the correspondence, but with\nthe _Invisible College_ irradiating all. Thus, May 8, 1647, Boyle,\nwriting to Mr. Hartlib, to congratulate him on the 300_l._ he had\nbeen voted by Parliament, says: \"You interest yourself so much in the\n_Invisible College_, and that whole society is so highly concerned\nin all the accidents of your life, that you can send me no intelligence\nof your own affairs that does not, at least relationally, assume the\nnature of Utopian.\" In the same letter Boyle expresses his anxiety to\nhave a copy of a pamphlet of Hartlib's which had just appeared. He names\nit rather vaguely; but I have ascertained it to be \"_A Briefe Discourse\nconcerning the Accomplishment of our Reformation: tending to shew that by\nan Office of Publicke Address in spirituall and temporall matters the\nGlory of God and the Happiness of this Nation may be greatly\nadvanced._\" It consisted of a preface, addressed by Hartlib to\nParliament, and 59 pages of text, explaining the said Office of Public\nAddress to be a kind of universal Register House \"whereunto all men might\nfreely come to give information of the commodities they have to be\nimparted to others.\" The pamphlet was out in May 1647. [Footnote: Birch's\nLife of Boyle, pp. 20-25; Worthington's Diary by Crossley, 1. 313; and\ncopy of Hartlib's pamphlet in the British Museum, with MS. note of date\nof publication.]\n\nWhile Hartlib was writing on all things and sundry to young Boyle, the\nEducation subject included, there was another new acquaintance of his,\nonly three years older than Boyle, with whom he seems to have been\ndiscussing the Education subject more expressly. William Petty,\nafterwards so famous as \"the universal genius, Sir William Petty,\" had\nreturned from France at the age of twenty-three. The considerable stock\nof knowledge which he had taken abroad with him when he left his native\nHampshire, eight years before, a pushing boy of fifteen, had been\nincreased by his studies at foreign Universities, his readings with\nHobbes in Paris, his commercial dealings, and his inquisitiveness into\nthe processes of all trades and handicrafts by which men earn their\nlivings. He came back a tall, slender youth, with a very large head, to\nbe spoken of in London as an encyclop\u00e6dia of information, a wonderful\nmathematician and mechanician, teeming with schemes of all sorts, and yet\nshrewd, practical, and business-like. He was an invaluable addition to\nthe Invisible College, and a delightful discovery for Hartlib; and he\ntook to Hartlib at once, as every one else did. What occupied him\nespecially at the moment was a machine for double writing, _i.e._\nfor making two copies of any writing at once. He hoped to obtain a patent\nfor this invention from Parliament; and such a patent, for seventeen\nyears, he did obtain in March 1647-8. While the thing was in progress,\nhowever, Hartlib was his chief confidant. This appears from a tract of\nhis, of 26 pages, published Jan. 8, 1647-8, and entitled \"_The Advice\nof W. P. to Mr. Samuel Hartlib for the advancement of some particular\nparts of Learning._\" The invention for double writing is described in\nthe tract, but it also sets forth Petty's ideas on Hartlib's favourite\nsubject of a Reformation of Schools. In fact, in any collection of\nseventeenth-century tracts on that subject, it ought to be bound up with\nHartlib's own older tracts in exposition of Comenius, and with the Letter\non Education which Hartlib had elicited from Milton in 1644. Petty's\nnotions, as may be supposed, differ considerably from Milton's. He is for\na universal education in what he calls _Ergastula Literaria_ or\nLiterary Workhouses, \"where children may be taught as well to do\nsomething toward their living as to read and write;\" and, though he does\nnot undervalue reading and writing, or book-culture generally, he lays\nthe stress rather on mathematical and physical science, manual dexterity,\nand acquaintance with useful arts and inventions. Besides reading and\nwriting, he would have all children taught drawing and designing; he\nwould rather discourage the learning of languages, both because people\nmay have all the books they want in their mother-tongue, and because the\nuse of real characters, or an ideographic system of writing, would lessen\nthe necessity of knowing foreign tongues; but, so far as languages might\nhave to be learnt, their acquisition, as well as that of the simple arts\nof reading and writing, might be much facilitated by improved methods. In\nshort, in Petty's project of Education, with much of the same general\nspirit of innovation, utilitarianism, contempt of tradition, as in\nMilton's, there is a characteristic difference of detail and even of\nprinciple. You are to be made expert in \"graving, etching, carving,\nembossing, and moulding in sundry matters,\" in \"grinding of glasses\ndioptrical and catoptrical,\" in \"navarchy and making models for building\nand rigging of ships,\" in \"anatomy, making skeletons, and excarnating\nbowels;\" but you miss all that Milton would have taught you of Latin and\nGreek, Poetry and Philosophy, Italian and Hebrew, moral magnanimity and\nspiritual elevation, the History of Nations, and the ways of God to men.\n[Footnote: Wood's Ath., IV. 214; Worthington's Diary by Crossley, I. 294-\n8; and Pett's own Tract. On its title-page are the words \"London: Printed\nanno Dom 1648;\" but a copy in the British Museum bears the MS. note\n\"London, 8 January, 1647-8.\"]\n\n\nREMOVAL FROM BARBICAN TO HIGH HOLBORN.\n\nIt would have been no surprise if Milton, on the skirts of the Invisible\nCollege as he was, and in sympathy with many of their aims, had exerted\nhimself about this time in setting up a great Academy for young\ngentlemen, embodying some of the new utilitarian fancies even to the\nsatisfaction of Petty, but fulfilling also his own higher ideal. He was\npeculiarly fond of Pedagogy; and his notion of an institution combining\nthe School with the University, and so tending to the abolition of\nUniversities, seems to have been coming more and more into favour.\n\nNot only, however, did Milton abandon the experiment of which Phillips\nthinks there was then some prospect; but, precisely in 1647, he broke up\nhis actual pedagogic establishment in Barbican, and went into a new\nhouse, where he either ceased to teach altogether, or had no pupils\nremaining but his two nephews. What may have been his reasons for the\nstep we do not know; but it is not unlikely that the change of his\ncircumstances by his father's death had something to do with it. No will\nof the ex-scrivener having been found, it is not known what property he\nleft; but there is reason to believe that he left something considerable,\nand that, whatever it was, it came more completely to the two sons, and\ntheir sister Mrs. Agar, than while the old man lived. [Footnote: We may\nremember here Phillips's and Aubrey's hints as to the scrivener's\nprosperity in business. Phillips's information is that he \"gained a\ncompetent estate, whereby he was enabled to make a handsome provision\nboth for the education and maintenance of his children;\" and he adds such\nparticulars as that his mother, Mrs. Phillips, \"had a considerable dowry\ngiven her\" on her first marriage, and that the lease of the scrivener's\nhouse in Bread Street--the Spread Eagle, where he had carried on his\nbusiness, and where his children had been born (or at least of some house\nin that street)--became in time part of the poet's estate. Aubrey\ndistinctly reckons the Spread Eagle house as the scrivener's property,\nbesides another house in the same street called The Rose,\" and other\nhouses in other places.\" Christopher Milton, as we know, owned a house in\nLondon called the Cross Keys, worth 40_l._ a year, while his father\nwas alive.] At all events, the fact of Milton's change of residence\nwithin a few months after his father's death is certified by Phillips.\n\"It was not long,\" says Phillips, \"after the march of Fairfax and\nCromwell through the City of London, with the whole Army, to quell the\ninsurrections Browne and Massey, now malcontents also, were endeavouring\nto raise in the City against the Army's proceedings, ere he left his\ngreat house in Barbican, and betook himself to a smaller in High Holborn,\namong those that open backward into Lincoln's-Inn Fields.\" The date of\nthat famous march of the Army through London, to tame the tumultuous\nPresbyterianism of the City, rescue Parliament from its domination, and\ncompel a policy more favourable to Independency and Toleration, was\nAugust 6 and 7, 1647 (see _ant\u00e8,_ pp. 553-4). Milton's removal from\nBarbican may be assigned, therefore, to September or October in the same\nyear.\n\nChange we, then, from those eastern purlieus of Aldersgate Street and\nBarbican, where we have been observing Milton for seven years, to a scene\nfarther west, more within the cognisance of Londoners generally, and\nnearer to those two Houses of Parliament which the Army had rescued for\nthe time from Presbyterian leadership within and Presbyterian mob-law\nwithout. Holborn was not then the dense continuity of houses it is now;\nthere were more spaces in it of gardens and greenery, and the houses had\nnot crept as far as Oxford Street; but it was, as now, the familiar\nthoroughfare of relief from the narrower and noisier Fleet Street and\nStrand, and the part of it which Milton had chosen was the most\nconvenient. The actual house which he took may be still extant, wedged\nsomewhere in the labyrinthine block between Great Turnstile and Little\nTurnstile; but one could judge but poorly from present appearances how\npleasant may have been its old outlook to the rear. The fine open area of\nLincoln's-Inn Fields was then only partly built round, and was used as a\nlounge and bowling-green by the lawyers and citizens. The houses in the\nneighbourhood were mostly new ones. [Footnote: Cunningham's London:\n_Holborn_ and _Lincoln's-Inn Fields_.]\n\n\nMEDITATIONS AND OCCUPATIONS IN THE HOUSE IN HIGH HOLBORN: MILTON'S\nSYMPATHIES WITH THE ARMY CHIEFS AND THE EXPECTANT REPUBLICANS.\n\nWhen Milton removed to High Holborn, with his wife, their infant\ndaughter, and the two nephews, the King was in the third and least\ndisagreeable stage of his captivity. His detention with the Scots at\nNewcastle, and his subsequent residence under Parliamentary custody at\nHolmby House, were affairs of the Barbican period; and, by Joyce's act of\nthe previous June, his Majesty had been for some months in the keeping of\nthe Army, very generously treated, and permitted at last to reside, with\nmuch of restored state-ceremony, at his own palace of Hampton Court.\nFairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and the other Army-chiefs, from their head-\nquarters at Putney, were negotiating with him; and, the march of the Army\nthrough London having disabled the ultra-Presbyterians for the moment and\ntransferred the ascendancy to the Independents, people were looking\nforward to a settlement on the basis of an established Presbyterian\nChurch for the nation at large, but with liberty of conscience and of\nworship for Dissenters. For Milton, among others, this was a pleasant\nprospect. His sympathies, nay his personal interests, were wholly with\nthe Independents; all that the Army had done had his approbation; and,\nwhatever he might have had to say now (with the strong new lights he had\nobtained since 1641) as to the propriety of a Presbyterian Establishment\non its own merits, he was probably prepared to accept such an\nEstablishment, if with a sufficient guarantee of Toleration. Now,\nalthough he cannot have retained, more than other people, any strong\nconfidence in Charles personally, any real hope of his voluntary and\nunreserved assent to a system of kingly government limited by great\nconstitutional checks, yet a Treaty with Charles by the Independents\nrather than the Presbyterians must have seemed to him the most feasible\nway of reaching the end in view. Hence, while the King was at Hampton\nCourt, and the Army-chiefs, with Cromwell most prominent among them, were\nplying his royal mind with arguments to bring him round, there can have\nbeen no private person more interested in their endeavours, more willing\nto believe them in the right, than Milton. Hardly had he been settled in\nhis new house in High Holborn, however, when there came the snap of all\nthose negotiations by the King's flight from Hampton Court to the Isle of\nWight (Nov. 11, 1647). Then, I conceive, Milton's mood changed, in exact\nunison with the change of mood at the same time among the Army-chiefs and\nother leading Independents. For a month or two, indeed, there may have\nbeen some interest, some faint prolongation of hope, in attending to the\nproceedings of Parliament in pursuit of the King, and their attempt to\nobtain his assent to the Four Bills. But, from the moment when that\nattempt failed, and the two Houses passed their indignant resolutions\nthat there should be no more communications with the King (Jan. 1647-8),\nall hesitation must have ceased. From that moment Milton was a Republican\nat heart. From that moment he was one of those who, with Vane, Marten,\nCromwell, Ireton, and the Army officers generally, had forsworn all\nfuture allegiance to the Man in the Isle of Wight, and looked forward,\nthrough whatever intermediate difficulties, to his deposition and\npunishment, and the conversion of England iinto some kind of free\nCommonwealth. In such a matter, it could not, of course, be expected that\na private citizen like Milton, who had no ambition to rank with Lilburne\nand other London Levellers of the coarser order, would anticipate\nCromwell, Vane, and Ireton. He expressly says himself that, though he had\nbeen so prominent as a speculative politician, had made certain great\nquestions of the time more peculiarly his own, had written largely on\nthem and publicly identified his name with them, yet he had not hitherto\ntaken any direct part in the immediate practical question of the future\nconstitution of the State, but had left it to the appointed authorities\n[Footnote: _Df. Sec. pro Pop. Angl._, published in 1654]. Not the\nless are we to imagine that the time of his residence in High Holborn,\nwhile the King was a prisoner in the Isle of Wight, was the time when\nthose high and semi-poetic Republican sentiments which seem always to\nhave been congenial to him, and which his classic readings may have\nnurtured, took a definite shape applicable to England. From the end of\n1647, I should say, Milton has to be reckoned as a foremost spirit in the\nband of expectant English Republicans.\n\nWhether the issue was to be a Republic or not was a question which Milton\nhad to leave in the hands of the Army and Parliament. While they were\nslowly working it out, what could he do but occupy himself, as patiently\nas possible, with his books and studies? There is evidence, accordingly,\nthat three pieces of work, already begun or projected by him in\nAldersgate Street or Barbican, were prosecuted with some increased\ndiligence in his house in High Holborn. One of these was the collection\nof materials for a _Thesaurus Lingu\u00e6 Latin\u00e6_, or _Latin Dictionary_,\nwhich he hoped some time to complete. Another was the composition of a\n_History of England_, or _History of Britain_, from the earliest times to\nthe Norman Conquest:--nay, though that was the form it ultimately took,\nthe original project was nothing less than Hume anticipated, or a\ncomplete _History of England_, brought down in a continuous thread from\nthe remotest origins of the nation to Milton's own time. The third was\nthe long-meditated _Body of Divinity_, or _Methodical Digest of Christian\nDoctrine_. Here, surely, were three huge enough tasks of sheer hackwork\nhung round the neck of a poet! Milton's liking all his life for such\nlabours of compilation, however, is as remarkable as his liking for\npedagogy. Nor, though we may regard the tasks as hackwork now, were they\nso regarded by Milton. To amass gradually by readings in the Latin\nclassics a collection of idioms and choice references, with a view to a\nDictionary that should be an improvement even on that of Stephanus, was a\nside-labour to which a scholar, who was also a poet, might well dedicate\na bit of each day or a week or two at intervals. To write a complete\nHistory of England, or even to compile, from Geoffrey of Monmouth, Bede,\nand the old chroniclers, a popular summary of the early legendary History\nof Britain, and of the History of the Saxon Kings and Church, was a\nblending of daily recreation with useful labour. Above all, the\ncompilation of a System of Divinity was no mere dry drudgery for Milton,\nbut a business of serious personal interest. From an early date he had\nresolved on some such compendium for his own use; he had ever since kept\nit in view and made notes for it; but his notions of the form it should\ntake had undergone a change. \"I entered,\" he says, \"upon an assiduous\ncourse of study in my youth, beginning with the books of the Old and New\nTestament in their original languages, and going diligently through a few\nof the shorter Systems of Divines, in imitation of whom I was in the\nhabit of classing under certain heads whatever passages of Scripture\noccurred for extraction, to be made use of hereafter as occasion might\nrequire. At length I resorted with increased confidence to some of the\nmore copious Theological Treatises, and to the examination of the\narguments advanced by the conflicting parties respecting certain disputed\npoints of faith.\" Apparently he was still in this stage of his design in\nthe Aldersgate period; for then, as we have seen (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 254-5), one\nof his exercises with his pupils on Sundays was the dictation to them of\na Tractate on Christian Divinity digested from such approved Protestant\nDivines as Amesius and Wollebius. But this method, he tells us, had\nceased to satisfy him. Often he had found the theologians quibbling and\nsophistical, more anxious to \"evade adverse reasonings\" and establish\nforegone conclusions than to arrive at the truth. \"According to my\njudgment, therefore,\" he adds, \"neither my creed nor my hope of salvation\ncould be safely trusted to such guides; and yet it appeared highly\nrequisite to possess some methodical Tractate of Christian Doctrine, or\nat least to attempt such a disquisition as might be useful in\nestablishing my faith or assisting my memory. I deemed it therefore\nsafest and most advisable to compile for myself, by my own labour and\nstudy, some original treatise which should be always at hand, derived\nsolely from the Word of God itself, and executed with all possible\nfidelity, seeing I could have no wish to practise any imposition on\nmyself in such a matter.\" In all probability the preparations for the\nwork on this new plan began in the house in High Holborn. For some years\nEngland had been in such a state of theological ferment that it was\nimpossible not to inquire how much of the traditional Orthodoxy had real\nwarrant in the Bible and how much was mere matter of inveterate opinion;\nin one important particular Milton, to his own surprise, had found\nhimself standing out publicly as the champion of what was thought a\nhorrible heresy; might it not be well to go over the whole ground, and\nfix one's whole Christian creed so as to be able to give an account of\nit, when called upon, in every other particular? The Westminster\nAssembly, like other Assemblies before it, had laboured out a Confession\nof Faith which it wished to impose on the entire community; but, as \"it\nwas only to the individual faith of each man that God had opened up the\nway of eternal salvation,\" was it not the duty of every Englishman to\nexamine that Confession before accepting it as his own, or even to\ncompile his own private Confession first and let the comparison follow at\nleisure? [Footnote: Phillips's Memoir at several points; Milton's _Def.\nSec_.; and Preface to his posthumous \"Treatise on Christian Doctrine\"\n(Sumner's Translation, 1825). Phillips mentions expressly the _History of\nEngland_ as occupying Milton in High Holborn; but the most interesting\nallusion to it is Milton's own in his _Def. Sec._, where the words are\n\"Ad historiam gentis, ab ultim\u00e2 origine repetitam, ad h\u00e6c usque tempora,\nsi possem, perpetuo filo deduoendam, me converti.\"]\n\n\nSTILL UNDER THE BAN OF THE PRESBYTERIANS: TESTIMONY OF THE LONDON\nMINISTERS AGAINST HERESIES AND BLASPHEMIES: MILTON IN THE BLACK LIST.\n\nAlas! Milton, busy with these occupations in his room looking out upon\nLincoln's-Inn Fields, could not shut out the continued hue and cry after\nhim on account of his Divorce heresy. It was more than two years since\nhis wife had returned to him; he had then closed the controversy so far\nas it was a personal one; he was now respectably in routine, as a married\nman with one child. But the world round about, more especially the\nclerical part of it, had not forgiven him his Divorce Pamphlets. Were\nthey not still in circulation, doing infinite harm? Had not their\ninfamous doctrine become one of the heresies of the age, counting other\nunblushing exponents, and not a few practical adherents? Keep silence as\nhe now might, move as he might from Aldersgate Street to Barbican and\nfrom Barbican to High Holborn, would not his dark reputation dog him, sit\nat his doorstep, and gaze in at his windows? Actually it did. The series\nof attacks on Milton for his Divorce Doctrine, begun by Herbert Palmer\nand other mouthpieces of the Westminster Assembly in 1644, and continued\nin that and subsequent years by the Stationers' Company, Featley, Paget,\nPrynne, Edwards, Baillie, and others, had not ceased at the close of\n1647. One fresh attack, of some significance in itself, may be instanced\nas a sample of the rest.\n\nLondon, it is to be remembered, was now under Presbyterian Church-\ngovernment. In every parish there was the Parochial or Congregational\nCourt, consisting of the minister and lay-elders, charged with all the\necclesiastical concerns of the parish, and with the right of spiritual\ncensure over the parishioners. The parishes were also grouped into\nClasses of ministers and lay-elders. At last there had come into\noperation even the crowning device of Provincial Synods for all London,\nin which representative ministers and elders met to discuss metropolitan\nChurch affairs generally and to revise the proceedings of Classes and\nCongregations. The first of these Provincial Synods, with Dr. Gouge for\nProlocutor, had met in St. Paul's in May 1647, and had continued its\nsittings twice a week in Sion College till November 8, 1647, when its\nhalf-year of office expired, and it was succeeded by the Second\nProvincial Synod, under the Prolocutorship of Dr. Lazarus Seaman. Now,\nhad London been perfect in its Presbytery according to the extreme rigour\nof the Scottish model, Milton could not possibly have escaped the clutch\nof one or other of these Church-judicatories. As a resident in Barbican,\nhe had been, I think, in the parish of St. Botolph without Aldersgate;\nand, when he removed to High Holborn, he came into the parish of St.\nAndrew, Holborn. Had the Scottish strictness prevailed in London, the\nminister of either of these parishes would have felt himself bound to\nbring Milton before the parochial consistory for his Divorce heresy\n[Footnote: From Newcourt's _Repertorium_ and Wood's Ath. III. 812, I\nlearn that the Curate or Vicar of St. Botolph's, Aldersgate, \"in the late\nrebellious times,\" was George Hall, a son of Bishop Hall and himself\npromoted to the Bishopric of Chester after the Restoration; and the\nRector of St. Andrew's, Holborn, before the civil troubles was Dr. John\nHacket, already well known to us (Vol. II. 225-8), and also afterwards a\nBishop. Both of these, as strenuous Prelatists, must have been\ndispossessed from their charges long before the time with which we are\nnow concerned; and I have not been able to ascertain who were their\nPresbyterian successors at this exact date.--There may be some\nsignificance in the fact that the parish minister before whom Milton's\nbrother Christopher and his father-in-law Mr. Powell performed the\nnecessary ceremony of taking the Covenant, with a view to their admission\nto compound for their Delinquency, was William Barton, minister of John\nZachary (_ant\u00e8_, p. 485 and p. 634). The parish of St. John Zachary\nwas one of the parishes of Aldersgate Ward, and the church stood at the\nnorth-west corner of Maiden Lane, till it was burnt down in the Great\nFire of 1666; after which it was not rebuilt, and the parish of St. John\nZachary was united to that of St. Ann in the same ward. Had Milton found\nMr. Barton of John Zachary's a more convenient minister to have dealings\nwith than other ministers of the Aldersgate Street and Barbican\nneighbourhood; and did he attend Mr. Barton's church when he attended\nany? If so, and if we are right in identifying this William Barton with\nthe minister of the same name whose Metrical Version of the Psalms was\npreferred by the Lords to Rous's (see _ant\u00e8_, p. 425), their metrical\nsympathies may have had something to do with the connexion.--The fact\nthat a son of Bishop Hall's was Curate or Vicar of St. Botolph's,\nAldersgate, at the time when the Bishop and another son of his were\nattacking Milton for his part in the Smectymnuan controversy, and\nspeaking of him as then living in a \"suburb sink about London,\" and\ncollecting gossip about him, was not known to me when I was engaged on\nthat part of the Biography (Vol. II. p. 390 et seq.); but it may be worth\nremembering even now.]; or, if the duty had been neglected, Classis IV.,\nto which the parish of St. Botolph belonged, or Classis VIII., to which\nthe parish of St. Andrew belonged, would have interfered; or, finally, in\nthe case of so notorious an offender, the Provincial Synod itself would\nnot have been asleep. True, the censure that could have been inflicted\nwould only have been spiritual; but, by zealous management, especially if\nthe culprit were obstinate, such spiritual censure might have led to\nfarther prosecution by the secular courts. Certainly, if Milton had been\nin Scotland, this would have happened. Certainly it would have happened\nin London if the English Presbyterians had succeeded in subjecting that\ncity to the grip of their absolute or ideal Presbytery. But they had not\nsucceeded, and it was their constant lamentation that they had not.\nThough the Presbyterian organization of London had been voted on trial,\nthe Congregationalist principle still asserted itself in the existence of\nmany independent congregations and meeting-houses; though sometimes\ninterfering with the less respectable of these, Parliament and the law-\ncourts had taken no steps for their general suppression; and, by\nbelonging to one of them, a Londoner of peculiar opinions might have the\ncomfort and respectability of being a church-goer like his neighbours,\nand yet avoid unpleasant inquisitorship. Then, again, through what the\nultra-Presbyterians regarded as the Erastian backwardness of Parliament,\nthose offences for which the parochial or other Church-judicatories might\ninflict even spiritual censures had been very strictly defined. Only for\ncertain faults of ignorance or of scandalous life, enumerated and\nspecified by Act of Parliament, could the Presbyterian Church-\njudicatories debar from the communion; in any case lying beyond that\nrange they could not act without reference to the superior authority of a\ngreat Parliamentary Commission (_ant\u00e8_, pp. 399, 405, 423). Sore had been\nthe complaints of the Presbyterians over this limitation of the powers of\nChurch discipline, as well as over the negligence of Parliament in not\nhaving yet passed such an Act against Heresies and Blasphemies as might\nenable the State to use the sterner discipline of fines, imprisonment,\nscourging, and hanging, in aid of true Christianity. Even as things were,\nhowever, it may be wondered that some zealot did not try to bring\nMilton's case within the powers actually assigned to the Church-courts,\nor to push it on the notice of the secular judges in virtue of such Acts\nas did exist against Heresy. There was very good reason, however, for not\nmaking the experiment. It had already been tried and bad failed. Twice\nhad Milton's case been brought before Parliament, and Parliament had\ndistinctly declined to trouble him. Evidently, whatever the hotter\nPresbyterians desired, Milton was safe in the respect entertained for him\npersonally by some of those who were at the head of affairs, or in an\nopinion prevailing in high quarters that the publication of a new\nspeculation on Divorce was not an offence for which a man otherwise\neminent ought to be questioned at law.\n\nWhat cannot be done in one way, however, may sometimes be done in\nanother. Not only was London the central stronghold of English\nPresbyterianism; the power of Presbyterianism there centralized was a\nkind of Proteus. One of its forms was the Westminster Assembly, a large\nnucleus of which consisted of ministers from London and the suburbs;\nanother, since May 1647, was the London Provincial Synod. But, in aid of\nthese two bodies, and including many that belonged to both, there was a\nthird, of vaguer character, in that Sion College conclave which the\nLondon clergy had instituted of their own accord for the concoction of\nnotions that might take shape in the Assembly or the Synod (_ant\u00e8_,\np. 394). Now, in December 1647, this Sion College conclave, \"since they\ncould do no more,\" sent forth a Presbyterian manifesto of some magnitude.\nIt was \"_A Testimony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to our Solemn\nLeague and Covenant; as also against the Errors, Heresies, and\nBlasphemies of these times, and the Toleration of them: wherein is\ninserted a Catalogue of the said Errors, &c.: subscribed by the Ministers\nof Christ within the Province of London, Dec. 14, 1647._\"\n\nThis Testimony, which was immediately published, [Footnote: London:\nPrinted by A. M. for Tho. Underhill at the Bible in Wood Street: 1648.]\nbore the signatures of 58 London ministers in all, of whom 41 signed to\nthe whole document, while 17, being members of Assembly, abstained from\nsigning to those parts that related particularly to the Confession of\nFaith and the Directory of Worship, not because they did not thoroughly\napprove of those parts, but because they thought themselves precluded, by\nconstitutional etiquette, from publicly affirming portions of the\nAssembly's work which still waited full Parliamentary sanction. All the\n58, however, subscribed to that main portion of the Testimony which\nconsisted in an enumeration, and condemnation of certain \"abominable\nerrors, damnable heresies, and horrid blasphemies.\" Among the seventeen\nmembers of Assembly so subscribing were Dr. Lazarus Seaman of Allhallows,\nBread Street (Milton's native parish), then Prolocutor of the London\nProvincial Synod; Dr. Gouge of Blackfriars, ex-Prolocutor of the same;\nDr. Hoyle of Stepney, Dr. Tuckney, and Messrs. Gataker, Calamy, Ashe and\nCase; and among the forty-one others were Samuel Clarke of Benetfink,\nChristopher Love of Anne's, Aldersgate, John Downam of Allhallows, Thames\nStreet, Henry Roborough, one of the scribes of the Assembly and minister\nof Leonard's, Eastcheap, and John Wallis, sub-clerk of the Assembly, now\nuniting as well as he could the duties of that office and the parish-cure\nof Gabriel's, Fenchurch Street, with his mathematical proclivities and\nhis association with the \"physicists\" of the Invisible College. And what\nwere the errors, heresies, and blasphemies, thus publicly certified\nagainst by these London divines and the rest? They were classified with\ngreat punctuality under nineteen heads, each head being subdivided into\nspecific varieties of error, and the chief heretics under each openly\nnamed. First came Anti-Scripturism, or \"Errors against the divine\nauthority of Holy Scriptures,\" associated with the names of John Goodwill\nand Laurence Clarkson; then, in four heads and their subdivisions, came\nAnti-Trinitarianism, or \"Errors against the nature and essence of God,\nagainst the Trinity, against the Deity of the Son of God, and against the\nDeity and divine worship of the Holy Ghost,\" the culprits named for chief\ncondemnation in this department being Biddle and Paul Best; and so on the\ncatalogue proceeds through various forms of Arminianism, Antinomianism,\nSeekerism, Anti-Sabbatarianism, Antip\u00e6dobaptism, Anabaptism, Materialism\nor Mortalism, ending in Tolerationism. Among the Arminians denounced as\nnotorious are Paul Best again, Paul Hobson, but especially John Goodwin\nagain, and the Episcopalian and Royalist Dr. Henry Hammond, whose\n_Practical Catechism_, published in 1644, is cited as full of Arminian\nerror. Among the Antinomians are denounced Randall, Simson, Eaton, Crisp,\nand Erbury; among the Seekers, Saltmarsh and Jos. Salmon; among the Anti-\nSabbatarians, Saltmarsh again; among the Antip\u00e6dobaptists and\nAnabaptists, Saltmarsh again, Tombes, and Webb. In a special group, as\nopposing magistracy and lawful oaths, are mentioned Roger Williams,\nSamuel Gorton, and Dr. Henry Hammond again; the chief representative of\nthe tremendous doctrine of Materialism or the Denial of the Immortality\nof the Soul is R. O., the anonymous author of the tract on _Man's\nMortality_; and among the leading Tolerationists or representatives of\nthe grand error of Liberty of Conscience, \"patronizing and promoting all\nother errors, heresies, and blasphemies whatsoever,\" are named Roger\nWilliams again and Paul Best again.--One head or department in this long\nblack list we have reserved. It is the 17th in order, including \"Errors\ntouching Marriage and Divorce.\" Here the anonymous author of a pamphlet\ncalled _Little Nonsuch_, published in 1646, bears the brunt of the\nobloquy, on account of the opinion that, as \"that marriage is most just\nwhich is made without any ambitious or covetous end,\" so, \"if this liking\nand mutual correspondency happen betwixt the nearest of kindred, then it\nis also the most natural, the most lawful, and according to the primitive\n(Patriarchal) purity and practice.\" But Milton comes in company with this\n_Little Nonsuch_, as hardly less worthy of execration on account of his\nDivorce Doctrine. The main proposition of his _Doctrine and Discipline of\nDivorce_ is extracted textually from page 6 of the Second or 1644 Edition\nof that treatise, to show what a dreadful doctrine had been there\nmaintained; but, in case this should not seem enough, the Testifying\nDivines, in the marginal note where they give the reference, add the\nwords, \"Peruse the whole book.\" They do not name Milton fully, but only\nby his initials \"J. M.,\" as on the title-page of his Treatise. [Footnote:\nThere is a general account of this _Testimony_ of the London ministers in\nDec. 1647 in Neal's Puritans, III. 359-363; but the account in the text\nis from the published copy of the Testimony itself.]\n\nSold at the shop of that very Underhill in Wood Street who had been the\npublisher of three of Milton's own pamphlets in the Smectymnuan\nControversy in 1641 (_ant\u00e8_, p. 450), this _Testimony_ of the London\nministers had an extensive circulation. It was adopted, in fact, as the\nauthorized manifesto of all the English Presbyterianism then most\nmilitant for that full right of ecclesiastical and civil control over\nheresy and its dissemination which Parliament hitherto had refused to\nrecognise. In a short time, accordingly, it received the adhesion of 64\nministers in Gloucestershire, 84 in Lancashire, 83 in Devonshire, and 71\nin Somersetshire. Nor was this subscription of the same printed document\nby 360 of the most active Presbyterian ministers throughout England a\nmere appeal to public opinion. It was intended as an aid to\nPresbyterianism in its anxious endeavour to obtain even yet all it wanted\nfrom Parliament. One observes, for example, that, within a month after\nthe manifesto of the London ministers had gone forth from Sion College,\n_i.e._ on the 12th of January, 1647-8, a petition was presented to\nParliament by the London Provincial Synod itself, praying for various\nextensions and amendments of the Presbyterian system in the City, among\nwhich was the better establishment of Church censures for notorious and\nscandalous offenders. [Footnote: Neal's Puritans, III. 359-363; and Lords\nJournals, Jan. 12, 1647-8; but see also Halley's _Lancashire and its\nPuritanism_ (1869), I. 467 _et seq._]\n\nAt least two of the heretics denounced in the Sion College manifesto\npublished replies. The Royalist Dr. Henry Hammond thought it worth while\nto defend his _Practical Catechism_ in a tract called _Views of some\nExceptions, &c._ [Footnote: Wood's Ath. III. 494-5.] John Goodwin of\nColeman Street, who had been more largely attacked, and who indeed had\nreason to believe that the manifesto was mainly directed against himself,\nreplied with his usual cool stoutness in a pamphlet called _Sion College\nVisited_. He there rebukes his accusers for their uncharitableness,\nunfairness, and malice in seeking to \"exasperate the sword of the civil\nmagistrate\" against pious and peaceable citizens who had done them no\ninjury. [Footnote: Jackson's Life of Goodwin. 172-175.] In effect, this\nreply of Goodwin's answered for the others as well as for himself.\nMilton, at all events, let the thing pass unnoticed. Entering his house\nin High Holborn, it may have been enough for him to repeat to himself, by\nway of comment, the lines he had already written--\n\n  \"I did but prompt the age to quit their clogs\n    By the known rules of ancient liberty,\n    When straight a barbarous noise environs me\n  Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes, arid dogs;\"\n\nor perhaps, by way of more determinate conclusion, his other and ever\nfamous line,\n\n  \"New _Presbyter_ is but old _Priest_ writ large.\"\n\n\nANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI: TRANSLATION OF NINE PSALMS FROM THE\nHEBREW.\n\nExactly at this time, when the repeated attentions of _New Presbyter_ in\nEngland must have been annoying Milton, he had a friendly gleam from the\nland of the _Old Priest_. Carlo Dati had duly received his Latin Epistle\nof the previous April, and had acknowledged it in a long Italian letter,\ndated Nov. 1, 1647, but which may not have reached Milton till Jan. 1647-\n8, or even later. The letter still exists in Dati's own hand, and the\nfollowing is a translation of as much of it as can interest us here:--\n\n_All Illmo. Sig. Gio. Miltoni, Londra_ [meaning literally \"To the\nmost illustrious Signor John Milton, London;\" but this is merely the\npolite Italian form of correspondence, and implies no more than \"To Mr.\nJohn Milton, London.\"]\n\nWhen all hope of receiving letters from you was dead in me, most keen as\nwas my desire for such, lo! there arrives one to delight me more than I\ncan express with this most grateful pen. O what feelings of boundless joy\nthat little paper raise in my heart--a paper written by a friend so\nadmirable and so dear; bringing to me, after so long a time and from so\ndistant a land, news of the welfare of one about whom I was as anxious as\nI was uncertain, and assuring me that there remains so fresh and so kind\na remembrance of myself in the noble soul of Signor John Milton! Already\nI knew what regard he had for my country; which reckons herself fortunate\nin having in great England (separated, as the Poet said, from our world)\none who magnifies her glories, loves her citizens, celebrates her\nwriters, and can himself write and discourse with such propriety and\ngrace in her beautiful idiom. And precisely this it is that moves me to\nreply in Italian to the exquisite Latin letter of my honoured friend, who\nhas such a very singular faculty of reviving dead tongues and making\nforeign ones his own; hoping that there may be something agreeable to him\nin the sound of a language which he speaks and knows so well. I will take\nthe same opportunity of earnestly begging you to be please to honour with\nyour verses the glorious memory of Signor Francesco Rovai, a\ndistinguished Florentine poet prematurely dead, and, to the best of my\nbelief, well known to you: this having already been done at my request by\nthe very eminent Nicolas Heinsius and Isaac Vossius of Holland,\npeculiarly intimate and valued friends of mine, and famous scholars of\nour age. [Footnote: About Nicolas Heinsius (1620-1681) and his intimacy\nwith Dati and the other Florentine wits, see Vol. I. 721 2. Both he and\nIsaac Vossius (1618-1688) will reappear in closer connexion with Milton\nhimself.] Signor Francesco was noble by birth, endowed by nature with a\ngenius of the highest kind, which was enriched by culture and by\nunwearied study of the finest sciences. He understood Greek excellently,\nspoke French, and wrote Latin and Italian wonderfully. He composed\nTragedies, and excelled also in lyrical Canzoni, in which he praised\nheroes and discountenanced all vice, particularly in one set of seven\nmade against the seven capital sins. He was well-bred, courteous, a\nfavourite with our Princes, or uncorrupted manners, and most religious.\nHe died young, without having published his works: a splendid obituary\nceremonial is being prepared for him by his friends, faulty only in the\nfact that the charge of the funeral oration has been imposed upon me.\nShould you be pleased to send me, as I hope, some fruit of your charming\ngenius for such a purpose, you will oblige me not only, but all my\ncountry; and, when the Poems of Signor Francesco are published, with the\neulogisms upon him, I will see that copies are sent you.--But, since I\nhave begin to speak of our language and our poets, let me communicate to\nyou one of the observations which, in the leisure-hours left me from my\nmercantile business, I occasionally amuse myself with making on our\nwriters. The other day, while I was reflecting on that passage in\nPetrarch's _Triomf' d'Amor_, C. 3:\n\n \"Dura legge d'Amor! m\u00e0 bench\u00e8 obliqua,\n    Servar conviensi, per\u00f2 ch' ella aggiunge\n    Di cielo in terra, universale, antiqua,\"\n[Footnote: \"Hard law of Love! but, however unjust, it must be kept,\nbecause it reaches from heaven to earth, universal, eternal.\"]\n\nI perceived that already the gifted Castelvetro had noted in it some\nresemblance to the lines in Horace, Ode I. 33:\n\n  \"Sic visum Veneri; cui placet impares\n  Formas atque animos sub juga ahenea\n    S\u00e6vo mittere cum joco,\"--\n[Footnote: \"So it seemed good to Venus; whose pleasure it is, in savage\njest, to bind unlike forms and minds in a brazen yoke of union.\"]\n\nexcellently imitated by the reviver of Pindaric and Anacreontic poesy,\nGabriello Chiubrera, in Canzonetta 18:\n\n  \"Ah! che vien cenere\n  Penando un amator benche fedele!\n  Cosi vuol Venere,\n  Nata nell' ocean, nume crudele.\"\n[Footnote: \"Ah that there should be ashes from the torture of a lover,\nthough faithful! So Venus wills it, the ocean-born, a cruel deity.\"]\n\nTo me these verses look like a little bit taken from Horace, as the\nremainder is taken from Tibullus, not without a notable improvement; for\nin Tibullus, Eleg. I. 2, one reads this threat against the revealers of\nLove's secrets:--\n\n  \"Nam, fuerit quicumque loquax, is sanguine natam,\n    Is Venerem e rapido sentiet esse mari.\"\n[Footnote: \"For whosoever is indiscreet with his tongue, he shall feel\nthat Venus was born of blood and came from the rapid sea.\"]\n\n[Dati then suggests the reading of _rabido_ in the last line and\ndiscusses the subject in six folio pages, with passages from Catullus,\nOvid, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Claudian, Homer, Tasso, &c.; and then\nproceeds as follows]:\n\nI communicate to you these considerations of mine, sure of being excused,\nand kindly advised by your exquisite learning in such matters as I\nsubmit, urgently begging you to pardon me if excess of affection, the\nsense of being so long without you, and our great intimacy, have made me\nexceed the limits proper for a letter.--It is an extreme grief to me that\nthe convulsions of the kingdom have disturbed your studies; and I\nanxiously await your Poems, in which I believe I shall have large room\nfor admiring the delicacy of your genius, even if I except those which\nare in depreciation of my Religion, and which, as coming from a friendly\nmouth, may well be excused, though not praised. This will not hinder me\nfrom receiving the others, conscious as I am of my own zeal for freedom.\nMeanwhile I beg Heaven to make and keep you happy, and to keep me in your\nremembrance, giving me proofs thereof by your generous commands. All\nfriends about me send you salutations and very affectionate respects.\n\nYour most devoted,\n\nFlorence, 1st Nov. 1647.   CARLO DATI [Footnote: The original of this\nletter is in the possession of Mr. J. Fitchett Marsh of Warrington, who\nhas printed facsimiles of the opening and closing words (\"_All' Illmo.\nSig. Gio. Miltoni, Londra_,\" and \"_Ser. Devotino. Carlo Dati_\")\nin his Milton Papers. To Mr. Marsh's kindness I owe the transcript from\nwhich I have made the translation; and the words within brackets,\ndescribing the omitted portion in the middle, are Mr. Marsh's own.]\n\nCircumstanced as Milton was when he received this letter, he can hardly\nhave been in a mood to respond sufficiently to its minute and overflowing\n_dilettantismo._ The amiability and polite affectionateness,\nperceptible even yet through the dilettantism, may have been pleasant to\nhim; and he may have noted the subtle and delicate expression of sympathy\nwith his domestic unhappiness which seems to be conveyed in the passages\nquoted, as if by accident, from Petrarch, Horace, Chiabrera, and\nTibullus. Dati may have been there replying to that portion of Milton's\nletter in which he had vaguely intimated his private melancholy in being\ndoomed to unfit companionship; or he may have heard more particular\nrumours in Florence of Milton's marriage-mishap and its consequences. At\nall events, there is no trace of any answer by Milton to this long\nepistle from Dati, or of any poetical contribution sent by him, as Dati\nhad requested, to the exequies of the interesting Rovai.\n\nAbout the time when Milton should have been answering Dati's epistle,\nenclosing the requested tribute to the memory of Rovai, and also the\nexquisite comments which Dati expected on his quotations from Petrarch,\nHorace, Chiabrera, and Tibullus, his occupation, we find, was very\ndifferent. \"_April_, 1648, _J. M. Nine of the Psalms done into\nMetre, wherein all but what is in a different character are the very\nwords of the Text translated from the Original;_\" such is the heading\nprefixed by Milton himself to the Translations of Psalms LXXX.-LXXXVIII.\nwhich are now included among his Poetical Works. [Footnote: The heading\nstands so in the Second Edition of Milton's Miscellaneous Poems,\npublished by himself in 1678.] Through some mornings and evenings of that\nmonth, therefore, we can see him, in his house in High Holborn, with the\nHebrew Bible before him, making it his effort to translate, as literally\nas possible, these nine Psalms into English verse. On looking at the\nresult, as it now stands among his Poems, with Hebrew words printed\noccasionally in the margin, and every phrase for which there is not a\nvoucher in the original printed carefully in italics, one has little\ndifficulty in perceiving one of the motives of Milton in this metrical\nexperiment. It was his knowledge of the interest then felt in the chance\nof some English metrical version of the Psalms that should supersede, for\npopular purposes and in public worship, the old version of Sternhold and\nHopkins. Rous's version, with amendments, had been recommended by the\nWestminster Assembly, and approved by the Commons (_ant\u00e8,_ 425); the\nLords were still standing out for Barton's competing version (_ant\u00e8,_\n512); other versions were in the background, but had been heard of. In\nthese circumstances, might not a true poet, attending to all the\nessential conditions, and especially to the prime one of exactness to the\nHebrew original, exhibit at least a specimen of a better version than any\nyet offered?\n\nUnfortunately, if this was Milton's intention, it cannot be said that he\nsucceeded. By all the critics it is admitted that his version of those\nNine Psalms is inferior to what we should have expected from him; nor is\nit, I think, the mere prejudice of habit that leads those that have been\naccustomed to one particular revision of Rous's version--that which has\nbeen the Scottish authorized Psalter since 1650--to prefer Psalms LXXX.-\nLXXXVIII. as there given, rude though the versification is, to the\nTranslations of the same Psalms proposed even by Milton. Something of\nthis impression may have prevailed even in 1648, if, as is likely enough,\nMilton took the trouble of showing his translations to some who were\ninterested in the question of the new Psalter, and wavering between\nRous's and Barton's. On the faith of dates, however, there is another\ninterest to us now in these careful translations by Milton of Psalms\nLXXX.-LXXXVIII. in April 1648. Why did he choose those particular Psalms?\nNot for metrical experiment only, but also because their mood fitted him.\nHe needed the strong Hebrew of those Psalms himself, and he drank it in\nafresh from the text that he might reproduce it for himself and others.\nPetrarch, Tibullus, Horace, Chiabrera! silence all such for the time, and\nlet the Hebrew Psalmist speak! Thus (Psalm LXXX.):--\n\n  \"Turn us again; thy grace divine\n    To us, O God, vouchsafe;\n  Cause thou thy face on us to shine,\n    And then we shall be safe.\"\n\nOr again, with reference to the dangers then gathering round\nParliamentary England (Psalm LXXXIII.):--\n\n  \"For they consult with all their might,\n    And all as one in mind\n  Themselves against thee they unite,\n    And in firm union bind.\n  The tents of Edom, and the brood\n    Of scornful Ishmael,\n  Moab, with them of Hagar's blood\n    That in the desert dwell,\n  Gebal and Ammon, there conspire,\n    And hateful Amalec,\n  The Philistims, and they of Tyre,\n    Whose bounds the sea doth check.\n  With them great Asshur also bands\n    And doth confirm the knot\n  All these have lent their armed hands\n    To aid the sons of Lot.\n  Do to them as to Midian bold\n    That wasted all the coast,\n  To Sisera, and, as is told\n    Thou didst do to Jabin's host,\n  When at the brook of Kishon old\n    They were repulsed and slain,\n  At Endor quite cut off, and rolled\n    As dung upon the plain.\"\n\nOr perhaps, with closer personal reference, such lines as these (Psalm\nLXXXVII.):--\n\n  \"The Lord shall write it in a scroll\n    That ne'er shall be outworn,\n  When He the nations doth enroll,\n    That this man there was born:\n  Both they who sing and they who dance\n    With sacred songs are there;\n  In thee fresh brooks and soft streams glance,\n    And all my fountains clear.\"\n\n\nMILTON THROUGH THE SECOND CIVIL WAR: HIS PERSONAL INTEREST IN IT, AND\nDELIGHT IN THE ARMY'S TRIUMPH: HIS SONNET TO FAIRFAX.\n\nWhile these translations were being written, there was the ominous rumour\nof the Engagement between the Scots and the King in the Isle of Wight,\nterrifying all men's minds with the prospect of a Second Civil War. We\nhave seen what effects this prospect had on the English Parliament--how\nthe resolute mood of the winter of 1647-8 was changed into a mood of\ntimidity; how negotiations with the King were again talked of; how the\nPresbyterians recovered from their temporary submission to the\nIndependents, and began to turn on them rather than on the King; how, in\norder to repudiate the Republican sentiments appearing in the Army and\nelsewhere, the Commons pledged themselves to a continuance of Royalty and\nthe House of Lords, and, in order to please the English Presbyterians and\nthe Scots, the two Houses passed at length the tremendous Ordinance\nagainst Heresies and Blasphemies, making the least of them punishable\nwith imprisonment and the graver punishable with death. This last\nOrdinance, passed May 2, 1648, the very day before the meeting of the\nThird Provincial Synod of London in Sion College, must have given great\nsatisfaction to that body, but may well have spread alarm through general\nsociety. Beyond a doubt, most of those persons who had been denounced as\nnotorious heretics and blasphemers in the Sion College manifesto of the\npreceding December were, by this Ordinance, liable to death if they did\nnot recant. With due zeal on the part of the prosecution, nothing could\nhave saved from the scaffold such of Milton's co-heretics as Biddle, Paul\nBest, the anonymous Mortalist R. 0. (Richard Overton, or Clement\nWrighter?), or even perhaps John Goodwin. Milton's particular heresy not\nbeing specifically named in the Ordinance, it would have been more\ndifficult to apply it to him; but, if the terrible Presbyterian\ndiscipline which the Ordinance favoured were once imposed upon London,\nthere would have been ingenuity enough to include Milton somehow among\nthose worthy of minor punishment.\n\nThe comfort was that, before the Ordinance could come into real effect,\nbefore the terrible Presbyterian discipline it promised could be set up,\nthe SECOND CIVIL WAR had to be fought through. How would that war end?\nWould it end in a triumph of Presbyterianism in hypocritical\nreconciliation with Royalty; or, despite the ugly mustering of forces in\nall parts of England to aid Duke Hamilton and his Scottish invasion,\nwould it end, after all, in the triumph of that little English Army of\nIndependents and Sectaries which had always beaten before, and might now,\nthough distrusted and discountenanced by its own masters, prove once more\nits matchless mettle? With what anxiety, through May, June, July, and\nAugust 1648, must Milton, with myriads of other Englishmen, have revolved\nthese questions! With what anxiety must he have watched Fairfax's\nmovements round London, his preliminary smashings of the Royalist\nInsurrection in Kent and Essex, and then the concentration of his efforts\n(June 12) on the siege of Colchester! With what anxiety must he have\nfollowed Cromwell into Wales, heard of his doings against the insurgents\nthere, and then of his rapid march into the north (Aug. 3--10), to meet\nthe invading Scottish Army under Duke Hamilton! But O the relief at last!\nO the news upon news of that glorious month of August 1648! Hamilton and\nthe Scots utterly routed by Cromwell in the three days' battle of Preston\n(Aug. 17-19); Colchester at last surrendered to Fairfax (Aug 28); the\nPrince of Wales a fugitive back to Holland with his useless fleet (Aug.\n28); the little English Army of Independents and Sectaries were more\neverywhere the victor, and the Parliament and the Presbytery-besotted\nLondoners ruefully accepting the victory when they would have been nearly\nas glad of a defeat! No fear now of any very violent execution of the\nOrdinance against Heresies and Blasphemies, or of a Presbyterian\ndiscipline of absolutely intolerable stringency! The Army and the\nIndependents were once more supreme.\n\nThe sole piece of Milton's verse that has come down to us from the time\nof the Second Civil War is an expression of his joy at its happy\nconclusion. It is in the form of a Sonnet to Fairfax. The Sonnet is\ngenerally printed with the mere heading \"_To the Lord General\nFairfax_;\" but in the original in Milton's own hand among the\nCambridge MSS. one reads this heading through a line of erasure; \"_On\nye Lord Gen. Fairfax at ye seige of Colchester_.\" This assigns the\nSonnet to the end of August, or to September, 10-48.\n\n  \"Fairfax, whose name in arms through Europe rings,\n    And fills all mouths with envy or with praise,\n    And all her jealous monarchs with amaze,\n    And rumours loud that daunt remotest kings,\n  Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings\n    Victory home, though new rebellions raise\n    Their Hydra-heads, and the false North displays\n    Her broken League to imp their serpent wings:\n  O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,\n    For what can War but endless war still breed,\n    Till Truth and Right from Violence be freed,\n  And public Faith cleared from the shameful brand\n    Of public Fraud! In vain doth Valour bleed,\n    While Avarice and Rapine share the land.\"\n[Footnote: For obvious reason, Milton could not print this Sonnet in the\nSecond or 1673 Edition of his Minor Poems. It was first printed by\nPhillips at the end of his Memoir of Milton prefixed to the English\ntranslation of Milton's State Letters in 1688; and Toland inserted it in\nhis Life of Milton in 1698.]\n\nThrough the later months of 1648 Milton's heart must have been wholly\nwith Fairfax and the other Army-chiefs, as he saw them driving things,\ncautiously at first, but more and more boldly by degrees, into the exact\ncourse marked out by this Sonnet. Their very professions were that,\nhaving finished the war and crushed the Hydra-heads of the new\nrebellions, they must and would proceed to the yet nobler task of\npreventing future wars, by freeing Truth and Right once for all from\nViolence, and clearing the public Faith of England from the brand of\npublic Fraud. Hence, from September to December, the adoption by the Army\nof that peculiarly intrepid policy which has been described in our last\nchapter. Though the Parliament began their new Treaty with the King in\nthe Isle of Wight, there were significant signs from the first that the\nArmy regarded the Treaty with utter disdain; as the Treaty proceeded,\nregiment after regiment spoke out, each with its manifesto calling for\njustice on the King, and otherwise more or less democratic; and so till\nthe Army rose at last collectively, issued its great Remonstrance and\nprogramme of a Democratic Constitution (Nov. 16), dragged the King from\nhis unfinished Treaty at Newport to safer keeping in Hurst Castle (Dec.\n1), and itself marched into London to superintend the sequel (Dec. 2).\nNominally in the centre of all this was the Lord General Fairfax, with\nIreton as his chief adviser. Cromwell had not yet returned from his work\nin the north.\n\n\nBIRTH OF MILTON'S SECOND CHILD: ANOTHER LETTER FROM CARLO DATI.\n\nIn the very midst of these thrilling public events there inserts itself a\nlittle domestic incident of Milton's life in Holborn. Oct. 25, 1648, his\nsecond child was born, two years and three months after the first. This\nalso was a daughter, and they called her Mary after her mother. From that\ndate on to our limit of time in the present volume we have no distinct\nincident of the Holborn household to record, unless it be the receipt of\nanother letter from Carlo Dati. Although the amiable young Italian had\nreceived no answer to his last, of Nov. 1647, there had meantime readied\nhim, by some slow conveyance, those copies of the Latin portion of\nMilton's published volume of Poems which had been promised him as long\nago as April of the same year. This occasioned the following letter:--\n\n_Illmo. Sig. e Pron Osso_ [literally, \"Most Illustrious Sir and Most\nHonoured Master,\" but the phrase is merely one of custom].\n\nAs far back as the end of last year I replied to your very courteous and\nelegant letter, thanking you affectionately for the kind remembrance you\nare pleased to entertain of me. I wrote, as I do now, in Italian, knowing\nmy language to be so dear and familiar to you that in your mouth it\nscarcely appears like a foreign tongue. Since then I have received two\ncopies of your most erudite Poems, and there could not have reached me a\nmore welcome gift; for, though small, it is of infinite value, as being a\ngem from the treasure of Signor John Milton. And, in the words of\nTheocritus:--\n\n        [Greek: h\u00e6 megala chariz\n  eoro xiyn holigo, panta de gimanta ta par' philon.]\n\n        \"Great grace may be\n  In a slight gift: all from a friend is precious.\"\n\nI return you therefore my very best thanks, and pray Heaven to put it in\nmy power to show my devoted appreciation of your merit. There are some\npieces of news which I will not keep from you, because I am sure, from\nyour kindness, they will be agreeable to you. The most Serene Grand Duke\nmy master has been pleased to appoint me to the Chair and Lectureship of\nHumanity in the Florentine Academy, vacant by the death of the very\nlearned Signor Giovanni Doni of Florence. This is a most honourable\noffice, and has always been held by gentlemen and scholars of this\ncountry, as by Poliziano, the two Vettori, and the two Adriani,\nluminaries in the world of letters. Last week, on the death of the Most\nSerene Prince Lorenzo of Tuscany, uncle of the reigning Grand Duke, I\nmade the funeral oration; when it is published, it shall be my care to\nsend you a copy. I have on hand several works, such as, please God, may\nlead to a better opinion of me among my learned and kind friends. Signor\nValerio Chimentelli has been appointed by his Highness to be Professor of\nGreek Literature in Pisa, and there are great expectations from him.\nSignors Frescobaldi, Coltellini, Francini, Galilei, and many others unite\nin sending you affectionate salutations; and I, as under more obligation\nto you than any of the others, remain ever yours to command. [No\nsignature, but addressed on the outside,   _All Illmo. Signor e Pron\nOsso,     Il Signor Giovanni Miltoni, Londra._] [Footnote: The Italian\nof this letter is printed in the Appendix to Mr. Mitford's Life of Milton\nprefixed to Pickering's edition of Milton's Works, and was communicated,\nI believe, by the late Mr. Watts of the British Museum from the original\nin that collection. It is doubtless the copy which Milton received. Of\nthe Doni mentioned in the letter, as Dati's predecessor in the chair of\nBelles Lettres at Florence, we had a glimpse Vol. I. p. 746. He died, Mr.\nWatts says, in Dec. 1647, and left to Dati the charge of publishing his\nworks. Frescobaldi, Coltellini, and Francini are already known (Vol. I.\n725-9); the Galilei mentioned is not the great Galileo, who had died in\n1642, but his natural son Vincenzo Galilei, also a man of talent.--As we\ntake leave of Dati at this point, for some time at least, I may quote an\ninteresting sentence, respecting one of his intentions in later life,\nfrom the notices of him in Salvini's _Fasti Consolari dell' Accademia\nFiorentina_ (1717): \"He had particularly in view the publication of\nthe letters which he had received from various literary men, such as John\nMilton, Isaac Vossius, Paganino Gaudenzio, Giovanni Rodio, Valerio\nChimentelli, and Nicolas Heinsius: from the last he had a very large\nnumber.\" When he died, Jan. 11, 1675, a few months after Milton, he had\nnot fulfilled this intention; but it is likely, as we have seen\n(_ant\u00e8_, p.655), that there has survived from among his papers only\nthe one letter of Milton to him which Milton himself published. ]\nFlorence, Dec. 4, 1648.\n\nWhile this letter was on its way to Milton, and possibly before it could\nhave reached him, there had enacted itself, close within his view in High\nHolborn, that final catastrophe of a great political drama the boom of\nwhich was not to stop within the British Islands, but was to be heard in\nItaly itself and all the foreign world.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE TWO HOUSES IN THE GRASP OF THE ARMY: FINAL EFFORTS FOR THE KING:\nPRIDE'S PURGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES--THE KING BROUGHT FROM HURST CASTLE TO\nWINDSOR: ORDINANCE FOR HIS TRIAL PASSED BY THE COMMONS ALONE:\nCONSTITUTION OF THE COURT--THE TRIAL IN WESTMINSTER HALL: INCIDENTS OF\nTHE SEVEN SUCCESSIVE DAYS: THE SENTENCE--LAST THREE DAYS OF CHARLES'S\nLIFE: HIS EXECUTION AND BURIAL.\n\n\nIn taking the King out of the Isle of Wight, and lodging him for a time\nin the solitary keep of Hurst Castle on the Hampshire coast, the Army had\nproclaimed their intention of bringing him to public justice, and it was\nthat they might compel this result that they had marched into London with\nFairfax at their head. As they desired that the proceedings should be\nregular, they had resolved that the two Houses of Parliament, or at least\none of them, should conduct the business.\n\n\nTHE TWO HOUSES IN THE GRASP OF THE ARMY: THEIR FINAL EFFORTS FOR THE\nKING: PRIDE'S PURGE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.\n\nHere was their difficulty. On Dec. 2, 1648, when the Army took possession\nof London, there were nineteen Peers present in their places in the House\nof Lords: viz. the Earl of Manchester, as Speaker; the Earls of Pembroke,\nRutland, Salisbury, Suffolk, Lincoln, Mulgrave, Middlesex, Stamford,\nNorthumberland, and Nottingham; Viscount Save and Sele; and Lords Howard,\nMaynard, Dacres, Montague, North, Hunsdon, and Berkeley. From such a body\nthe Army could not hope much. Three or four of them might be reckoned on\nas thorough-going; but to most a crisis had come which was too terrible.\nAh! had they foreseen it six years before, had they then foreseen that\ntheir own order and all the pleasantness of their aristocratic lives\nwould go down in the contest to which they were lending themselves, would\ntheir choice between the two sides have been the same? To have sat on\nthrough those six years, a mere residuary rag of the English Peerage, at\nvariance with the King and the vast majority of their own order; to have\nfigured through the struggle as nominally the superior House, but really\nthe mere ciphers of the Commons; to have had to throw all their\naristocratic dignity and all their permissible conservatism at last into\nthe miserable form of partisanship with a despotic Presbyterianism and\nzeal for the suppression of Sects, Heresies, and Independency:--here was\na retrospect for men of rank, men of ambition, men of pride in their\npedigrees! And now to have an Army of these Independents, Sectaries, and\nHeretics, holding them by the throat, and prepared to dictate to them the\nalternative of their own annihilation or their assent to a deed of\nhorror!--Such being the position of the Lords, how was it with the\nCommons? In that House about 260 members were still giving attendance, or\nwere at hand to attend when wanted. On the 2nd of December there were 232\nin the House. A staunch minority of these were Independents in league\nwith the Army; but the decided majority were men of the Presbyterian\nparty, full of regrets at the failure of the Treaty of Newport, but ready\nto resume negotiations with the King on the basis of the terms offered\nhim in that Treaty, or indeed now on any other basis on which there could\nbe agreement. Detestation of the Army was, therefore, the ruling feeling\nin this House too: but the detestation was mingled with dread. With\nregiments at their doors, with regiments posted here and there on the\nskirts of the City, all alert against any symptom of a rising of the\nPresbyterian Londoners, they could not hope now for any chance of seeing\nthe Army overmastered for them by the only means left-popular tumult and\na carnage in the streets. All that the Commons could do, therefore, was\nto be sullen, and offer a passive resistance. [Footnote: Lords and\nCommons Journals of Dec. 2, 1648; and Records of Divisions in Commons\nJournals through the previous month. There were thirteen divisions in\nthat month, showing an attendance ranging from 80 to 261.]\n\nIt was on Monday the 4th and Tuesday the 5th of December that the\nattitude which the two Houses meant to take towards the Army was\ndefinitely ascertained. On the first of these days, the news of the\nKing's removal to Hurst Castle having meanwhile arrived, there was a\nfierce debate in the Commons over that act of the Army, the Presbyterians\nprotesting against its \"insolency,\" and at length carrying, by a majority\nof 136 votes to 102, a Resolution that it had been done \"without the\nknowledge or consent\" of the House. On the same day the House proceeded\nto a debate, continued all through the night, and till nine o'clock next\nmorning, on the results of the Treaty of Newport. The Presbyterian\nspeakers, such as Sir Robert Harley, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, Harbottle\nGrimstone, Sir Simonds D'Ewes, and Clement Walker, contended that the\nKing's concessions were satisfactory; the negative was maintained by a\nsuccession of speakers, among whom were the two Vanes. The Presbyterians,\nhaving originally put the question in this form, \"Whether the King's\nAnswers to the Propositions of both Houses be satisfactory,\" did not risk\na division on so wide an issue, but thought it more prudent to divide on\nthe previous question, \"Whether this question shall now be put.\" Having\ncarried this in the negative by 144 to 93, they were enabled to shape the\nquestion in this likelier form, \"That the Answers of the King to the\nPropositions of both Houses are a ground for the House to proceed upon\nfor the Settlement of the Peace of the Kingdom;\" and it was on the\nquestion in this form that the debate was protracted through the night of\nthe 4th and into the 5th. The most extraordinary incident of the debate\non the 5th was the appearance made by Prynne. He had been a member of the\nHouse only a month, having taken his seat for Newport in Cornwall on the\n7th of November; and he now came forward, the poor indomitable man, with\na speech of vast length and most elaborate composition, in favour of that\nsovereign whose reign had been to him of all men ruinous and horrible.\nWith his face muffled to hide the scars of his old mutilations by the\nhangman's knife, he stood up, and, after a touching recitation of all\nthat he had suffered, denounced the Army and its outrages on\nParliamentary freedom, expounded his views of Presbyterianism and right\nconstitutional government, and pleaded earnestly for a reconciliation\nwith Charles. His speech, if it was actually delivered as it is printed,\nmust have occupied four or five hours in the delivery; but one must\nsuppose he gave only part of it and reserved the rest for the press. He\nwas heard, he says, with great attention, and had the satisfaction not\nonly of pleasing his own party, but also of making converts. At one time\nor another during the debate there had been, he says, as many as 340\nmembers present; but many of these had been wearied out by the long\nnight-sitting. Accordingly in the final vote on Tuesday morning there\nwere 129 for the affirmative in the question, and only 83 for the\nnegative: _i.e._ in a House of 212 there were three-fifths for a\nreconciliation with the King, and two-fifths for complying with the Army\nand bringing the King to justice. The concurrence of the Lords with the\nmajority in the Commons was a matter of course. It was given the same\nday, _nem. con._, Manchester being in the chair, and only fourteen\nother Peers present. By way of tempering the whole result as much as\npossible, a Committee was appointed by the Commons to wait on Fairfax and\nhis officers that afternoon, with a view to \"the keeping and preserving a\ngood correspondence\" between Parliament and the Army. [Footnote: Commons\nand Lords Journals of the days named; Clement Walker's Hist, of Indep.\nPart. II. pp. 28, 29; and Parl. Hist. III. 1147-1239. Of these 92 closely\nprinted columns of the Parl. Hist. 86 are taken up with a reprint of\nPrynne's speech, as published by himself in the end of Jan. 1648-9. The\neditor remarks on the fact that, with the exception of Clement Walker,\nnone of the contemporary writers mention Prynne's speech at all. This\nconfirms the supposition that it cannot have been so large in delivery as\nit is in print. Yet that it must have been very large appears not only\nfrom Prynne's own account, but also from who says: \"This he held on the\naffirmative with so many strong and solid reasons, arguments, and\nprecedents both out of Divinity, Law, History, and policy, and with so\nclear a confutation of the opposite argument, that no man took up the\nbucklers against him.\"]\n\nThe Army had their own plan for bringing about a \"good correspondence,\"\nand they put it in operation on the two following days, Dec. 6 and 7. Not\ntroubling themselves with the Lords--who met for mere form on each of\nthese days (only seven present on the first and eight on the other)--they\napplied their plan to the Commons. It consisted in what was called\nPRIDE'S PURGE, the style of which was as follows:--On the morning of the\n6th, when the members were going into the House, they found all the\nentrances blocked by two or three regiments of soldiers, under the\ncommand of Colonels Pride, Hewson, and Sir Hardress Waller. Every member,\nas he came up, was scrutinized by these armed critics, and especially by\nColonel Pride, who had a list of names in his hand, and some people about\nhim to point out members he did not know. If a member passed this\nscrutiny, they let him in; if not, they begged him not to think of taking\nhis place in the House, and, if he persisted, hauled him back, and locked\nhim up in one of the empty law-courts conveniently near. Mr. Prynne, who\nmade a conspicuous resistance, was locked up in this way; Sir Robert\nHarley, Sir William Waller, Sir Samuel Luke, Sir Robert Pye, General\nMassey, Clement Walker, Sir Simonds D'Ewes, Sir Benjamin Rudyard, and\nothers and others, including even Nathaniel Fiennes, who had shown\nmomentary weakness, were similarly disposed of; till at length the\nmembers who had presented themselves were sifted into two divisions--a\ngoodly band regularly within the House, and forty-one fuming outside as\nprisoners in the law-courts. Messages passed and repassed between the two\ndivisions, and the House made some faint show of protest and of anxiety\nfor the release of the arrested. Any decided motion to this effect,\nhowever, was prevented by a communication to the House from Fairfax and\nhis General Council of Officers. Colonel Axtell and some other officers,\nbeing admitted, announced the message verbally, and it was subsequently\npresented in writing by Colonel Whalley. Under the name of \"Humble\nProposals and Desires,\" this paper reminded the House of their former\nvotes for expelling and disabling Denzil Holles, General Massey, and the\nrest of the Presbyterian Eleven impeached by the Army in 1647, and\ndemanded that these members, irregularly and scandalously re-admitted to\ntheir places, should be again excluded and held to trial. It farther\ndemanded that about 90 members, alleged to have been more or less in\ncomplicity with the Scots in their late invasion of England, should be\ndisabled; it prayed for an immediate repeal of the Votes on which the\nTreaty of Newport had proceeded, and of the Vote of the previous day for\nreliance on that Treaty; and it begged all truly patriotic members to\nform themselves visibly into a phalanx, apart from the others, that they\nmight be counted and known. In fact, the message not only adopted Pride's\nrough measure of that day as authorized by the whole Army, but\nrepresented it as only a friendly interposition, doing for the House in\npart what the House must be anxious to do more fully for itself. So the\nafternoon passed, the forty-one, still remaining in durance, visited by\nvarious persons who had Fairfax's or Pride's permission, and especially\nby Hugh Peters. He took a list of their names, discoursed with them,\nreleased Rudyard and Fiennes, and promised the rest that they should be\nremoved to fit quarters for the night in Wallingford House. As night came\non, however, and Wallingford House was not available, they were taken,\nunder guard, to a common victualling-house near, jocularly called\n_Hell_; and here, some of them walking about, and others stretched\non benches and chairs, or on the floor, in two upper rooms, they spent\nthe night \"reading and singing psalms to God.\" Next day there were again\nrequests from the House to Fairfax for their release. It could not be\ngranted; but they were marched through the streets to better\naccommodation in two inns in the Strand, called the Swan and the King's\nHead. Meanwhile Pride's watch at the doors of the House had been\neffectively continued. There were several new arrests on the 7th; many\nmembers, not arrested, were forcibly turned back; and many more, among\nwhom was Denzil Holies, kept prudently out of the way. Altogether, the\nnumber of the arrested was 47, and that of the excluded 96. It was a\npurgation quite sufficient for the Army's purpose. This was proved by a\nvote actually taken in the House on the 7th, after the purgation was\ncomplete. \"The question being propounded, That the House proceed with the\nProposals of the Army,\" it was carried by 50 to 28 that the question\nshould be put and the Proposals proceeded with. As most of the minority\nin this division withdrew in consequence, the House was reduced from that\nmoment to just such a tight little Parliamentary body as the Army\ndesired. [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals of days named; Rushw. VII.\n1353-1356; Parl. Hist. III. 1240-1249 (a careful compilation of\ncontemporary accounts).]\n\nCromwell was again among them. He had returned to town on the evening of\nthe 6th, and he was in his place in the Commons on the 7th, receiving the\nthanks of the House, through the Speaker, for his \"very great and\neminently faithful services\" in Wales, Scotland, and the North of\nEngland. He had not been concerned in the design of Pride's Purge, and\nthe business was half over before his arrival in town; but he quite\napproved of what had been done, and said he would maintain it. The\nyounger Vane, on the other hand, had been so staggered by the proceeding\nthat he had withdrawn from the scene, to avoid further responsibility.\n[Footnote: Commons Journals, Dec. 7; Parl. Hist. III. 1246; and Godwin,\nIII. 31.]\n\nFor a fortnight after Pride's Purge, the two Houses, reduced now to such\ndimensions as might suit the Army's purpose, went on transacting various\nbusiness. The attendance in the Lords had dwindled to five, four, and\neven to three, raised on one occasion to seven. In the Commons the\nattendance does not seem to have ever exceeded 50 or 60. It is in the\nproceedings of this House, of course, that one sees the steady direction\nof affairs towards the end prescribed by the Army. There were all kinds\nof items of employment during the fortnight, including orders about the\nNavy, orders in mercantile matters, discharges of some of the secluded\nand imprisoned members, votes condemning those who continued contumacious\nand had ventured on protests in print, receptions of petitions and\naddresses of confidence from various public bodies, and attendance by\nsuch as chose on a special Fast-day Sermon preached by Hugh Peters. But\nthrough these miscellaneous proceedings one notes the main track in such\nvotes as these:--Dec. 12, Vote for repealing all former votes and acts\ncondoning the faults of Denzil Holles and the rest of the impeached\nPresbyterian leaders, and on the same day a Vote declaring the re-opening\nof a Treaty with the King in the Isle of Wight to have been dishonourable\nand apparently destructive to the good of the kingdom; Dec. 13, A farther\nVote, in compliance with the Army's Proposals, disowning entirely the\nTreaty in the Isle of Wight, and repealing the Vote of the previous week\nfor proceeding to a settlement on the grounds supplied by the King's\nAnswers in that Treaty; Dec. 23, Resolution, \"That it be referred to a\nCommittee to consider how to proceed in a way of justice against the King\nand other capital offenders, and that the said Committee do present their\nopinions thereupon to the House with all convenient speed.\" The Committee\nso appointed consisted of 38 members of the House, among whom were St.\nJohn, Whitlocke, Skippon, Lord Grey, Lord Lisle, Sir Henry Mildmay,\nPennington, and Henry Marten. [Footnote: Lords and Commons Journals from\nDec. 8 to Dec. 23; Parl. Hist. III. 1247-1253; Whitlocke, Dec. 23.]\nCromwell was not of the Committee, and some of those put upon it were not\nlikely to attend. Indeed, though the Resolution passed without a\ndivision, the reluctance of some who were present had appeared in the\ncourse of the debate. They argued that there was no precedent in History\nfor the judicial trial of a King, and that, if the Army were determined\nthat Charles should be punished capitally, the business should be left to\nthe Army itself as an exceptional and irregular power.\n\n\nTHE KING BROUGHT FROM HURST CASTLE TO WINDSOR: ORDINANCE FOR HIS TRIAL\nPASSED BY THE COMMONS ALONE: CONSTITUTION OF THE COURT.\n\nSome days before the Resolution of Dec. 23 was adopted by the Commons,\nthe Army had taken steps for bringing the King nearer to London, to abide\nthe issue. He had been in Hurst Castle for about a fortnight, rather\npoorly lodged in the old apartments of the keep, and complaining of the\nfogs that rose from the salt-water marshes around, with their beds of\nooze and sea-kelp. His amusement had been in the sight of the passing\nships, in his daily walk along the narrow neck of shingle connecting the\ncastle with the mainland, and in the companionship of his select\nattendants in the evenings, when the drawbridge was up, the guard set,\nthe woodfires blazing indoors, and the candles lit. He had brought with\nhim from Newport fourteen personal attendants in all, including his two\ngentlemen of the bedchamber, Mr. James Harrington (afterwards known as\nthe author of _Oceana_) and Mr. Thomas Herbert. Both these\ngentlemen, though their principles and connexions were originally\nParliamentarian, had, in the course of their long attendance on the royal\ncaptive, contracted a respectful affection for him. Harrington, indeed,\nhad been speaking out so openly in praise of his Majesty's conduct in the\nNewport Treaty, and of the talent he had shown in his debates with the\nPresbyterian divines, that those who were in charge had thought it unsafe\nto let him remain in the service. He had therefore been dismissed, and\nthe duty of immediate waiting on the King had been left entirely to Mr.\nHerbert.\n\nIt was at midnight on the 16th or 17th of December that this gentleman,\nasleep in the little room he occupied next to the King's chamber, was\nroused by hearing the drawbridge outside let down, and some horsemen\nenter the Castle. Next morning he found that the King had heard the noise\ntoo, and was curious to know the cause. Mr. Herbert went out to inquire,\nand came back with the information that Major Harrison had arrived in the\nnight. Nothing more was said at the moment, and the King went to prayers;\nbut later in the day the King seemed very much discomposed, and told\nHerbert that Harrison was the very man against whom he had most\nfrequently received private warnings. He had never, to his knowledge,\nseen the Major, but he had heard much of the wild enthusiasm of his\ncharacter; and, if assassination were intended, and this man were to be\nthe agent, what likelier place than the lonely sea-keep where they then\nwere? To relieve his Majesty's mind if possible, Mr. Herbert went out to\nmake farther inquiries. He soon returned with the intelligence that the\npurpose of Harrison's visit was to arrange for his Majesty's removal to\nWindsor Castle. Nothing could be more agreeable to the King than the\nprospect of \"leaving the worst to enjoy the best Castle in England;\" and\nall fear vanished.\n\nAfter two nights, Major Harrison left the Castle mysteriously as he had\ncome, and without having seen the King or spoken to any of his\nattendants. He had made the necessary arrangements, and the actual\nremoval of the King was to be superintended by the same Colonel Cobbet\nwho had managed his abduction from the Isle of Wight. This officer,\narriving two days afterwards, formally announced his business; and, his\nMajesty being very willing, there was no delay. Passing along the spit of\nland from Hurst Castle to Milford, they found a body of horse there\nwaiting; and, under this convoy, they rode inland through Hampshire,\ngradually leaving the sea behind. By a route through the New Forest and\npast Romsey, they reached Winchester, where they made some stay, the\nMayor, Aldermen, and Clergymen of the City, and many of the gentry round,\ncoming in dutifully to pay their respects. Thence to New Alresford, and\nso to Farnham in Surrey. It was on the road between these two towns that\nthey passed another troop of horse drawn up in good order, which\nimmediately closed up in the rear and went on with them. The King was\nparticularly struck with the appearance of the commander of this troop, a\nman gallantly mounted, with a velvet montero on his head, a new buff-\ncoat, and a crimson silk scarf round his waist, who, as the King passed\nat an easy pace, saluted him splendidly \"_alia soldado_\" and\nreceived a gracious bow in return. Inquiring of Mr. Herbert who he was,\nthe King was greatly surprised to learn he was the dreadful Major\nHarrison. He looked a real soldier, the King said, and, if there might be\ntrust in men's faces, was not the man to be an assassin. On arriving at\nFarnham, where they spent the night in a private house, the King took\ncare to pay considerable attention to Harrison. Standing by the fire\nbefore supper, in a large wainscoted room full of people, he singled out\nHarrison at the other end, beckoned him to come up, took him by the arm,\nand led him to a window-recess, where they conversed for half an hour.\nApparently Harrison's words were not so satisfactory as his looks. He\ndisowned indignantly any such design against the King as had been imputed\nto him, but added something to the effect that great and small alike must\nbe subject to Law, and that Justice could pay no respect to persons. The\nKing, who had never yet brought himself to imagine the possibility of his\npublic trial in any form, saw no particular significance in Harrison's\nwords, but thought them \"affectedly spoken,\" and broke off the\nconversation. He was very cheerful at supper, greatly to the delight of\nhis suite. Next day, taking Bagshot on the way and dining at Lord\nNewburgh's house there, they arrived at Windsor, and were received by\nColonel Whichcot, the officer in command. It was the very day, Saturday\nDec. 23, on which the Commons had appointed their Committee for\nconsidering the means of bringing the King to justice, and the Committee\nwere holding their first meeting in Westminster that afternoon. The news\nhad probably not yet reached Windsor, or it remained unknown to the King.\nHe took up his abode in his royal apartments in the Castle; and the next\nday, as he paused in his Sunday walk round the exterior, he looked with\nno especial anxiety Londonwards, but rejoiced once more in the view of\nthe Thames flowing by Eton, and the far expanse of lull and valley,\nvillages and fair houses, noble even in its wintry leaflessness and the\ndull gloom of the December air. [Footnote: Herbert's Memoirs, 126-145;\nRushworth VII. 1371; Parl. Hist. III. l26.]\n\nChristmas-week having passed, and the Committee for justice on the King\nhaving had several meetings, the Commons, on the 1st of January 1648-9,\npassed a Resolution and an Ordinance. The Resolution was \"That, by the\nfundamental laws of this kingdom, it is Treason in the King of England\nfor the time being to levy war against the Parliament and Kingdom of\nEngland;\" the Ordinance was one beginning \"Whereas it is notorious that\nCharles Stuart, the now King of England,\" and ending with the appointment\nof a High Court of Justice for the Trial of the King, to consist of about\n150 persons named as Commissioners and Judges expressly for the purpose.\nFive Peers were named first on this Commission; then Chief Justices Rolle\nand St. John and Chief Baron Wylde; then Fairfax, Cromwell, Ireton, and\nmany more members of the Commons and Army Officers; but a considerable\nproportion of those named were Lawyers, Aldermen, and Citizens, not\nmembers of the House. Any twenty of the Commissioners were to be a\nquorum.--On the following day (Jan. 2), the Resolution and Ordinance\nhaving been sent up to the Lords for their concurrence, there was a scene\nof agony in that House. As many as twelve Peers had mustered for the\noccasion, including four of the five whom the Commons had named first in\nthe dreadful Commission. Unanimously and passionately all the Peers\npresent rejected both Resolution and Ordinance, the Earl of Denbigh\ndeclaring he \"would be torn in pieces rather than have any share in so\ninfamous a business,\" and the Earl of Pembroke, who came nearest to\nneutrality, saying he \"loved not businesses of life and death.\" Having\nhurled this defiance at the Commons, the Lords were powerless for more,\nand adjourned for a week.\n\nIt was a week of rapid action and counter-defiance by the Commons. Not a\nfew of the feebler spirits, indeed, had taken leave of absence.\nWhitlocke, for one, had gone into the country. The Clerk of the House,\nMr. Elsyng, had feigned ill-health and resigned. Nevertheless, with a\ntemporary substitute to do Mr. Elsyng's duty, the House pushed on. Jan.\n3, they sent two of their number to inspect the Journals of the Lords and\nascertain formally the proceedings of that House on the preceding day.\nWhen these were reported, some were for impeaching the twelve Peers as\nco-Delinquents with the King. To the majority, however, such a course\nappeared quite unnecessary; it was enough to declare that, as the Lords\nwould not concur, the Commons would act without their concurrence. Jan.\n4, after a debate with locked doors, this momentous Resolution was\npassed: \"That the Commons of England in Parliament assembled do declare,\nThat the People are, under God, the original of all just power; and do\nalso declare, That the Commons of England in Parliament assembled, being\nchosen by and representing the People, have the supreme power in this\nnation; and do also declare, That whatsoever is enacted, or declared for\nlaw, by the Commons in Parliament assembled hath the force of a law, and\nall the People of this nation are concluded thereby, although the consent\nand concurrence of the King, or House of Peers, be not had thereunto.\"\nThe Ordinance for a High Court of Justice for the King's trial had\nmeanwhile been re-introduced, with the omission of the five Peers, the\nthree Judges, and some other reluctant persons named in the original\nOrdinance, and with the addition of two eminent lawyers not there named;\nso that Fairfax, Cromwell, and Treton now stood at the top of a total\nlist of 135 judicial Commissioners. Hurried through the proper three\nstages, this Bill became law by the authority of the Commons alone, Jan.\n6,--On the 9th of January, when the Peers re-assembled after their\nadjournment, seven being present, they made a faint attempt to recover\ninfluence. They sketched out an Ordinance to the effect that whatsoever\nKing of England should _in future_ levy war against the Parliament\nand the Kingdom should be guilty of High Treason, and they appointed a\nCommittee to prepare such an Ordinance. At the same time, ignoring the\nvirtual abolition of their House by the Commons, they endeavoured to\nrenew communications between the two Houses in the usual manner, by\nsending a message about various matters of mere ordinary business that\nhad been pending between the two. This led to a curious proof that even\nin the thoroughgoing body that now constituted the Commons there was\nstill a difference between most thoroughgoing and moderately\nthoroughgoing. There was first a division on the question whether the\nmessengers from the Lords should he received at all; and, while 31 voted\nfor admitting them, a minority of 18, with Henry Marten and Ludlow for\ntheir tellers, voted _No_. Then, after the messengers had been\nreceived and had delivered their message, it was debated whether they\nshould be dismissed with the customary answer that the House would reply\nin due course by messengers of their own. Out of 52 present, 19 voted\n_No_ (Ireton one of the tellers), and 33 voted for keeping up the\nusual courtesy. But, though a majority were thus for treating the Lords\nas still extant, practically the whole House was in the same ultra-\ndemocratic temper. That very day, for example, on the report of a\nCommittee, orders were given for the engraving of a new Great Seal, with\ninstructions that on one side there should be a map of England and\nIreland, with the Islands of Jersey and Guernsey, also the English and\nIrish arms, and the words \"The Great Seal of England: 1648,\" and on the\nreverse a representation of the House of Commons sitting, and the motto\n\"In the First Year of Freedom by God's blessing restored: 1648.\" The\ndeviser of these emblems was the Republican Henry Marten. [Footnote:\nLords and Commons Journals of days named; Rushworth, VII. 1379 _et\nseq._; Parl. Hist. III. 1253-1258; Whitlocke under dates given.]\n\nNot even yet did Charles realize the extent of his danger. Well-treated\nat Windsor, and allowed the liberty of walking on the terrace and in the\ngrounds, he had kept up his spirits wonderfully, and had been heard to\nsay he \"doubted not but within six months to see peace in England, and,\nin case of not restoring, to be righted from Ireland, Denmark, and other\nplaces.\" Even after information of the proceedings of the Commons and\ntheir rupture with the Lords had reached him, he scouted the idea of the\npublic trial which was threatened. They dared not do such a thing! At the\nutmost, he expected that the Commons might venture to depose him, confine\nhim in the Tower or elsewhere, and call upon the Prince of Wales, or\nperhaps the Duke of York or the Duke of Gloucester, to assume the\nsuccession! [Footnote: Herbert's Memoirs, 145-156; Whitlocke, II. 488.]\n\nMeanwhile the Court appointed to try the King had met to constitute\nitself. Formal proclamation of its authority and of its business had been\nmade in various public places in London; and, in a series of meeting held\nin the Painted Chamber in Westminster, preliminaries had been arranged.\nNot so many as half of the Commissioners appointed by the Ordinance seem\nto have attended at any of these meetings. Fairfax, who was present at\nthe first (Jan. 8), recoiled then and there, and never went back.\n[Footnote: In Notes and Queries for July 6, 1872, Mr. William J. Thorns\ngave a carefully prepared list of the 135 persons named King's Judges by\nthe Second Ordinance for the Trial, so printed as to show which of them\nreally took part in the business thus assigned them, and to what extent,\nand which of them abstained wholly or withdrew before the close of the\nproceedings.] For President of the Court, with the title \"Lord High\nPresident,\" there was chosen John Bradshaw, one of the lawyers added in\nthe second form of the Ordinance, to make up for the omission there of\nthe three Judges from the regular Law-Courts who had been appointed in\nthe first Ordinance, but had been excused. He was over sixty years of\nage; had been eminent for some time in his profession; and had recently\nbeen one of a group of lawyers raised to the serjeantcy, with a view to\ntheir promotion to the Bench. As counsel for the prosecution, four\nlawyers, not on the Commission, were appointed, one of them John Cook,\nand another the learned Dutchman Dr. Dorislaus. Although these\narrangements had been made before the 12th of January, another week\nelapsed before the Court was quite ready. The vaults under the Painted\nChamber, which was to be the ordinary place of meeting of the Court, when\nnot sitting in Westminster Hall for the open trial, had to be searched\nand secured against any attempt of the Guy Fawkes kind; a bullet-proof\nhat, it is said, had to be made for Bradshaw: the Mace and Sword of State\nhad to be brought from their usual repositories; &c. The two Houses of\nParliament meanwhile met from day to day, four or five Peers still\nkeeping up the pretence of their corporate existence, and about 50\nCommoners transacting this or that business as it happened, without the\nleast reference to the Peers. Prynne, from his confinement in the King's\nHead Tavern in the Strand, had issued a defence of the King in the form\nof _A Brief Memento to the Present Unparliamentary Juncto_; and a\ngood deal of the time of the Commons was taken up with notices of this\npamphlet and votes for the prosecution of its author. [Footnote:\nRushworth, VII, 1389-1394; Lords and Commons Journals; and Godwin's Hist.\nof the Commonwealth, II. 621 and 664-668.]\n\n\nTHE TRIAL IN WESTMINSTER HALL: INCIDENTS OF THE SEVEN SUCCESSIVE DAYS:\nTHE SENTENCE.\n\nOn Friday, Jan. 19, Charles was brought from Windsor in a coach, guarded\nby a body of horse under Harrison's command, and conveyed through\nBrentford and Hammersmith to St. James's Palace. That same night he was\nremoved to Whitehall; and, on the afternoon of Saturday the 20th, he was\ntaken thence to Cotton House, adjoining Westminster Hall. This great\nhall, used for Strafford's trial, had now been fitted up for the King's,\nand the High Court of Justice were already assembled in it, waiting their\nprisoner. Bradshaw was in the chair, and sixty-six more of the\nCommissioners were present. Among them were Cromwell, Ireton, Henry\nMarten, Edmund Ludlow, General Hammond, Lord Grey of Groby, several\nBaronets and Knights, Colonels Ewer, Hawson, Robert Lilburne, Okey,\nPride, Hutchinson, Purefoy, Sir Hardress Waller, and Whalley, with Major\nHarrison, Alderman Pennington of London, and three barristers. The hall\nwas crowded with spectators, both on the floor and in the galleries; and\norder was kept by a guard of red-coats under Colonel Axtell. As the Court\nwas forming itself, there had been a rather startling interruption by a\nwoman's voice from one of the galleries. It was that of Lady Fairfax, who\nhad gone in indignant curiosity, and, on hearing her husband's name read\nin the Commission, called out loudly to this effect, \"He is not here, and\nwill never be; you do him wrong to name him.\" This interruption was over,\nand the Court composed, when Charles was brought in by Colonel Hacker,\nand a select guard of officers armed with halberts. The Serjeant-at-Arms\nreceiving him, and preceding him with the mace, he was conducted to the\nbar, where a chair of crimson velvet had been set for him. Some of his\nown servants followed him and stood round him. He looked sternly at the\nCourt and at the people in the galleries; then sat down, keeping on his\nhat; then stood up, and turned round to look at the soldiers and the\nmultitude; then sat down again, still with his hat on. He was now face to\nface with his judges. He looked at them carefully, and recognised about\neight as personally known to him. [Footnote: Rushworth, VII. 1394-1399,\nand Herbert, 150-161. It is strange to find some points of contradiction\nbetween these two trustworthy accounts. Herbert, after apparently\nimplying that the King had been brought from Windsor to St James's\n_before_ the 19th, makes his removal from St. James's to Whitehall\noccur on that day. Rushworth brings him to St. James's exactly on the\n19th, and removes him to Whitehall next morning. Again, Herbert makes the\nKing conveyed from Whitehall to Cotton House \"in a sedan or close chair,\"\nand describes the walk through the posted guards, along King Street and\nPalace Yard, adding that only he himself was allowed to go with the King\nthat way; whereas Rushworth says that the King was brought to Cotton\nHouse from Whitehall by water, \"guarded by musketeers in boats.\"\nRushworth's accounts, written at the moment, ought to be more accurate in\nsuch particulars, and especially in dates, than Herbert's, written from\nrecollection; but Herbert can hardly have been wrong in the matter of the\nsedan chair. Perhaps, while the King went in such a chair, Herbert\naccompanying him, most of the King's servants went by water. For the\nnames of all the sixty-seven King's Judges present on the first day of\nthe Trial see Mr. Thomb's list in _Notes and Queries_, July 6, 1872.\nThe figure 20 there appended to a name intimates presence that day.--\nAmong those of the 135 appointed Judges who did not attend on that day or\non any subsequent one, and therefore must be supposed to have agreed with\nFairfax in disowning the entire business, we may note Skippon, Sir Arthur\nHaselrig, Sir William Brereton, Desborough, Lambert, Overton, Lord Lisle,\nand Algernon Sidney.]\n\nThe proceedings of the Trial will be best exhibited in the following\ncondensed account of the particulars of each day:--\n\n_Saturday, Jan. 20_:--The President, in a brief address to the King,\ninformed him of the business on which the Court had met, and called on\nhim to hear the Charge against him. Solicitor Cook, standing within the\nbar, on the King's right, then began to state the Charge, but was\ninterrupted by the King, who held out a stick which he had in his hand,\nand laid it softly twice or thrice on the Solicitor's shoulder, bidding\nhim stop. Bradshaw having interfered, the Solicitor continued his\nstatement, and delivered in his Charge in writing, which Bradshaw called\non the Clerk of the Court to read. Charles again interrupted, and\ncontinued to interrupt; but, Bradshaw telling him that he would be heard\nafterwards if he had anything to say, the document was at length read. It\naccused Charles Stuart, King of England, of having \"traitorously and\nmaliciously levied war against the present Parliament and the People\ntherein represented;\" and it supported the Charge by a recitation of\nspecific acts of the King done in the First Civil War from June 1642 to\n1646, and again more generally of acts done in 1648 before and during the\nSecond Civil War. Charles had smiled often as the Charge was read; and,\nwhen the President at the close asked what answer he had to give, begged\nto know by what authority he had been brought thither. He had been in\ntreaty with Parliament in the Isle of Wight; he had been forcibly taken\nthence; he saw no Lords present; the crown of England was hereditary and\nnot elective; in whose name was this Court held? \"In that of the Commons\nof England,\" Bradshaw replied; and there ensued a skirmish between him\nand the King on the question of authority, which Bradshaw ended by\nadjourning the Court till Monday at ten o'clock.\n\n_Monday, Jan. 22_:-After a consultation in the Painted Chamber, the\nCourt met in Westminster Hall, _seventy_ members present, and\nanswering to their names. The skirmish between Bradshaw and the King was\nrenewed: Bradshaw requiring the King's Answer to the Charge \"either by\nconfessing or denying,\" and the King refusing the Court's jurisdiction,\nnot for his own sake alone, he said, but \"for the freedom and liberty of\nthe people of England,\" imperilled by the assumption of the Court's\nlegality. \"Sir, I must interrupt you,\" said Bradshaw; \"which I would not\ndo, but that what you do is not agreeable to the proceedings of any Court\nof Justice.\" No Court, he said, could permit its own authority to be\nquestioned; the King must not go out into such wide discourses; he must\ngive a punctual and direct answer. No such answer would the King give; he\nwould have law and reason for his being in that place at all. \"Sir, you\nare not to dispute our authority,\" again interrupted Bradshaw; \"you are\ntold it again by the Court: Sir, it will be taken notice of you that you\nstand in contempt of the Court, and your contempt will be recorded\naccordingly.\" The King \"did not know how a King might be a delinquent by\nany law he ever heard of;\" but any Delinquent might put in a demurrer.\nAnd so on and on for a considerable time, the Clerk of the Court reading\nout the Resolution of the Court that the King should give his answer, and\nthe King still insisting on giving reasons why he would not. \"Serjeant,\ntake away the prisoner,\" said the Lord President at last; and the King,\nstill talking, was removed to Cotton House.----He left in writing, for\nsubsequent publication, the reasons he wanted to state to the Court that\nday. The chief of them was that no earthly power could justly call a King\nto account. He quoted, as Scripture authority, Eccles. viii. 4: \"Where\nthe word of a King is, there is power; and who may say unto him, What\ndost thou?\" But he appealed also to the Law and Custom of England.\n\n_Tuesday, Jan. 23_:-The Court again met in Westminster Hall, 63\nCommissioners present. Solicitor Cook moved that, the King having refused\nto plead either Guilty _or_ Not Guilty, the rule for such cases of\ncontumacy should be applied to him, his refusal taken _pro confesso_, and\njudgment pronounced. The Lord President, calling the King's attention to\nthis motion, offered him another opportunity of pleading, which he used\nonly to return to the discourses of the two previous days. \"Clerk, do\nyour duty!\" said Bradshaw at last. \"Duty, Sir!\" exclaimed the King; and,\nthe Clerk having again read out a paper requiring the King's positive\nanswer to the Charge, and the King still refusing, \"Clerk, record \"the\ndefault,\" said Bradshaw, \"and, gentlemen, you that took \"charge of the\nprisoner, take him back again.\" That night, like the preceding, was spent\nin Cotton House.\n\n_Wednesday, Jan. 24, and Thursday, Jan. 25_:--No public meetings of\nthe Court in Westminster Hall on these days; but more private sessions in\nthe Painted Chamber for the purpose of receiving the depositions of\nwitnesses,--the Court having determined that, though not obliged to that\ncourse, they would adopt it for their own satisfaction. Accordingly there\nwere examined more than thirty witnesses from various parts of England--\n\"W. C., of Patrington in Holderness, in the county of York, gentleman,\naged 42;\" \"W. B., of Wixhall, in the county of Salop, gentleman;\" \"H. H.,\nof Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire;\" \"R. L., of Cotton in\nNottinghamshire, tiler;\" \"J. W., of Ross in Herefordshire, shoemaker;\"\n\"S. L., of Nottingham, maltster, aged 30 years;\" \"A. Y., citizen and\nbarber-surgeon of London, aged 29;\" \"H. G., of Gray's Inn, in the county\nof Middlesex, gentleman;\" &c. &c. They deposed to various acts of the\nKing seen by themselves, from the setting up of his standard at\nNottingham onwards. Papers in the King's own hand, or by his authority,\nwere also produced and read. Finally, the Court, \"taking into\nconsideration the whole matter,\" resolved to proceed to sentence on the\nKing as \"a tyrant, traitor, and murderer,\" and as \"a public enemy to the\nCommonwealth of England.\"\n\n_Friday, Jan. 26_:--A private sitting of the Court in the Painted\nChamber, in which the Sentence was drafted, agreed to, and ordered to be\nengrossed.\n\n_Saturday, Jan. 27_:--First another private meeting in the Painted\nChamber to settle the procedure of the Court for the day, and give\nPresident Bradshaw instructions for his behaviour in any contingency that\nmight arise, one of them being that he \"should hear the King say what he\nwould before the sentence, and not after.\" Then, about one o'clock, an\nadjournment to full state in Westminster Hall. The Lord President was now\nrobed in scarlet, and there were 67 Commissioners present. The Court\nhaving been opened, Charles, whose presence had not been required on the\nthree preceding days, was brought in. As he went to his place, the\nsoldiers in the Hall called out \"Justice,\" \"Justice,\" and \"Execution!\"\ntill the Court commanded silence. The King, in his usual posture, with\nhis hat on, immediately began to speak. The President told him he would\nhave liberty to do so, but must hear the Court first. After some farther\nattempts to speak then, the King submitted; and Bradshaw, reminding him\nof what had passed in the first three meetings of the Court, related the\nsubsequent action of the Court, and their conclusion on the whole matter,\nand called upon him to say anything he pleased in bar of judgment,\nprovided it were in his own defence, and not in renewed challenge of the\nCourt's jurisdiction. With difficulty keeping off the forbidden topic,\nCharles dwelt on the dangers of a hasty sentence, and urged a special\nrequest which he had reserved for the occasion. It was that, before\nsentence was read, he should be permitted to have a conference with the\nLords and Commons in the Painted Chamber. Bradshaw, though he gave it as\nhis opinion that the request only tended to delay, and was in fact a\nfarther declining of the jurisdiction of the Court, yet announced that\nthe Court would withdraw to consider it. There was therefore a private\nconsultation for half an hour in the Court of Wards, the King meanwhile\nbeing removed from the Great Hall. When the Court had returned thither,\nand the King had been brought back, Bradshaw intimated that the\nconsultation had been _pro forma_ only, that the request could not\nbe granted, that the Court must proceed to sentence. There was another\npainful altercation, the King pressing his request for delay, and seeming\nto hint he had some important proposal to make to the Lords and Commons\n(abdication in favour of the Prince of Wales, it was afterwards guessed);\nand Bradshaw trying to stop him. At length, the King ceasing to\ninterrupt, Bradshaw's words took continuous form for a minute or two in\nthat kind of address which a Judge makes to a capital criminal before\npassing sentence. \"Make an _O yes,_\" he said in conclusion to the\nofficers, \"and command silence while the Sentence is read.\" The Clerk\nthen read out the sentence as it had been engressed on parchment, as\nfollows:--\"_Whereas the Commons of England in Parliament, &c._ [a\nstatement of the purpose of the Court, an insertion of the Charge against\nCharles, and a record of his refusal to plead and the consequent\nproceedings of the Court], _ this Court doth  adjudge that the said\nCharles Stuart, as a Tyrant, Traitor, Murderer, and a Public Enemy, shall\nbe put to death by the severing of his head from his body._ \"The\nPresident then said, \"The sentence now read and published is the act,\nsentence, judgement, and resolution of the whole Court;\" whereupon all\nthe Commissioners stood up to express their assent. \"His Majesty then\nsaid, Will you hear me a word, Sir? _President_: Sir, you are not to be\nheard after the sentence. _King_: No, Sir? _President_: No, Sir, by your\nfavour. Sir. Guard, withdraw your prisoner. _King_: I _may_ speak after\nsentence, by your favour, Sir; I _may_ speak after sentence, ever. By\nyour favour, hold [the guard, one must suppose, now hustling around\nCharles]. The sentence, Sir--I say Sir, I do--I am not suffered to speak;\nExpect what justice other people will have.\"  As he passed out with the\nguard, there were again cries from the soldiers of \"Justice,\" \"Justice,\"\nand some brutes among them puffed their tobacco-smoke in front of him,\nand threw their pipes in his way. He was taken to Whitehall and thence to\nSt. James's. [Footnote: Abridged mainly from Rushworth's collection of\naccounts in 30 folio pages (VII. 1395-1425). The _sixty-seven_ of the\nKing's judges who were present in Westminster Hall on the 27th, when the\nsentence was pronounced, are to be regarded as the men most resolute in\nthe business, the committed Regicides. Two of these (George Fleetwood and\nThomas Wayte) came in at the last moment, not having attended any of the\nprevious meetings of the Court from the beginning of the Trial on the\n20th. On the other hand, some nine or ten who had been present on one,\ntwo, or even all of the three previous public days of the Trial (the\n20th, 22nd, and 23rd), had dropped off before the sentence; among them\nwhome I note Alderman Isaac Pennington. He had been present all the three\nprevious days; but could not reconcile himself to the conclusion. Of the\nsixty-seven who did reconcile themselves to it, _fifty-one_, as I reckon,\nare conspicuous for their unswerving steadiness throughout the\nproceedings, never having missed a day in their attendance from the 20th\nto the 27th inclusively. Among these are Bradshaw, Cromwell, Ireton,\nMarten, General Hammond, Ludlow, Lord Grey of Groby, Sir John Danvers,\nPride, Purefoy, Hewson, Hutchinson, Robert Lilburne, Okey, Sir Hardress\nWaller, Whalley, Harrison, Sir M. Livesy, and Thomas Scott. Several of\nthose, however, who had missed one or even two of the days of the Trial\nhad done so accidentally, or for some reason of business, and not from\nflinching. Finally, of the sixty-seven who were present at the sentence,\nand stood up when it was pronounced to signify their concurrence, several\nwere either reluctant at the time, or at all events afterwards wished\npeople to believe that they were.]\n\n\nLAST THREE DAYS OF CHARLES'S LIFE: HIS EXECUTION AND BURIAL.\n\nThe last two days and three nights of Charles's life were spent by him in\nthe utmost possible privacy. From the first day of his trial, by an order\nof the Commons, procured by the intercession of Hugh Peters, he had been\nallowed to have Dr. Juxon, ex-Bishop of London, constantly in attendance\nupon him; and there was a fresh order continuing this favour after the\nsentence. Except Juxon and the faithful gentleman of the bedchamber,\nThomas Herbert, the King did not desire company; and it was a relief to\nhim when, on the remonstrances of these two with Hacker, that officer\ndesisted from his intention of placing two musketeers on guard in his\nchamber. [Footnote: Commons Journals of the 20th and the 27th, and\nHerbert, 182-3.]\n\nOn the evening of the 27th, the day of the sentence, the King's nephew,\nthe Prince Elector, who had special permission to see him, came for the\npurpose, accompanied by the Duke of Richmond, the Marquis of Hertford,\nthe Earls of Southampton and Lindsey, and some other noblemen. They had\nto be content with a message of thanks through Herbert, and went\nsorrowfully away. The same evening there also arrived Mr. Henry Seymour,\nwith a letter from the Prince of Wales, dated from the Hague a few days\nbefore. This messenger, having been admitted by Colonel Hacker, did see\nthe King, and knelt passionately at his feet, while he read the letter,\nand returned some verbal answer. There then remained only Herbert and\nJuxon with the King; but, as the night came on, Herbert was sent out on a\nmessage. He was to take a ring which the King gave him, an emerald\nbetween two diamonds, and deliver it to a lady living in Channel Row, who\nwould know what it meant. The night was very dark; but Herbert, having\ngot the pass-word from Colonel Tomlinson, who was in command outside,\nmade his way through the sentries to the house indicated. He saw the\nlady, and, on delivering the ring, received from her a sealed cabinet. It\nwas a box of diamonds and other jewels, chiefly broken Georges and\nGarters, which had been deposited with the lady, who was the King's\nlaundress and wife of Sir William Wheeler. Returning with it to St.\nJames's, Herbert found Juxon just gone to his lodging near, and the King\nalone. Herbert slept that night in the King's chamber, as he had done\nsince the beginning of the trial, a pallet-bed having been brought in for\nthe purpose by the King's order, and placed near his own bed. As always,\nthe wax-light in the silver basin was kept faintly burning. [Footnote:\nHerbert, 170-178; and Wood's Ath. IV. 28-31. Wood's account was derived\nfrom Herbert himself, and substantially is the same as Herbert's own in\nhis published _Memoirs_, but with additional particulars, of which\nsome are peculiarly interesting.]\n\nOf the next day, Sunday the 28th, there is nothing to record, save that\nin the morning the King opened the cabinet of jewels, and that the rest\nof the day was passed in hearing a sermon from Juxon on Romans ii. 16,\nand in private readings and devotions. Clement Walker, indeed, foists\ninto this day a myth he had heard about a certain \"paper-book\" tendered\nto the King by \"some of the grandees of the Army and Parliament,\"\noffering him his \"life and some shadow of regality\" on conditions of such\na portentous character, so \"destructive to the fundamental Government,\nReligion, Laws, Liberties, and Properties of the People,\" that his\nMajesty firmly refused them. The air was full of such myths. [Footnote:\nClement Walker's Hist. of Independency, Part II, 109, 110.]\n\nOn Monday, the 29th, the two royal children then in England, the Princess\nElizabeth, thirteen years old, and the Duke of Gloucester, a boy of\neight, came to St. James's to bid their father farewell. The Princess, as\nthe elder, and the more sensible of her father's condition, was weeping\nexcessively; the younger boy, seeing his sister weep, took the like\nimpression, and sobbed in sympathy and fright. He sat with them for some\ntime at a window, taking them on his knees and kissing them, and talking\nwith them of their duty to their mother, and to their eldest brother the\nPrince of Wales, who should be rightful King of England in long future\nyears, when they would hardly remember their dead father. He distributed\nto them most of the jewels from the recovered casket; and at last, when\nthe time allotted for the interview was over, and the door was opened\nfrom without, he rose hastily, again kissed them and blessed them, and\nthen turned about to hide his own tears, while they departed crying\nmiserably. [Footnote: Herbert, 178-180. In one particular there is a\ndiscrepancy between Herbert's account of the two days immediately\nsucceeding Charles's sentence and the account found in Rushworth and\nothers. Herbert says that on Saturday, after the sentence, Charles was\ntaken from Westminster Hall back to Whitehall, \"whence after two hours'\nspace he was removed to St. James's.\" Accordingly it is at St. James's,\nas in the text, that Herbert represents Charles as passing the Saturday\nnight and the Sunday and Monday. In Rushworth, on the other hand, the\nKing remains at Whitehall through Saturday night and Sunday; and it is\nnot till Monday that he is removed to St. James's, where he sees his\nchildren. Herbert's surely is the better authority in this matter.]\n\nAnd what of surrounding London, what of England, what of the three\nkingdoms, and the world beyond the seas? A King condemned as a Traitor\nand a Murderer by a fraction of his subjects; his children taking\nfarewell of him; his time on earth now measured by hours, and the hours\nby the ticks of a clock; the hum close at hand of carpenters at work in\nhideous, unnameable preparations! Was there then to be no arrest, might\nthere be no delay? Would not the very stones of London rise and mutiny;\nmight not the land around, even if led but by popular fury, surge in to\nthe rescue; from beyond the seas might there not come execration\nsufficient, and some foreign voice to stop?\n\nNearly eight weeks, it is to be remembered, had elapsed since the Army\nhad assumed the absolute political mastery by Pride's Purge of the\nCommons; and somewhat more than three weeks since the small stump of the\nCommons which they had fitted for their purpose had voted the Peers a\nfarce, declared all power to reside in itself, and appointed the High\nCourt of Justice for the Trial of the King. If there was to be\ninterposition for Charles, from within Great Britain or from abroad,\nthere had therefore been time for it before his Trial actually began, or\nat least before his Sentence. What had been the appearances? Among\nforeign powers and potentates a mere curious amazement, a feeling that\nthe strange Islanders had gone mad, too mad to be meddled with: in France\nperhaps, where Mazarin had his own notions, even a pleasure in the sense\nof being unable to interfere and a willingness to see the English fury\nburn itself out in its own way. The French Ambassador in England had,\nindeed, conveyed a letter from Queen Henrietta Maria, addressed to the\nSpeaker of the House of Commons; but the House had passed it by, and left\nit unanswered. Then, among the English Royalists abroad! Among\n_them,_ of course, a phrenzy unutterable,--passionate pacings of\nrooms and courtyards in the foreign towns that quartered them; wild\nclamours of grief wherever a few of them were gathered together; mingled\nsobbings, curses, prayers, gnashings of teeth, at the thought of what was\npassing in the home-island beyond their reach! But what within that\nisland itself? What of England and London? The population, as we know,\nconsisted of three sections--the numerous Independents and Sectaries; the\nmultitudinous Presbyterians; and the suppressed and all but silenced\nPrelatists, or adherents of the old Church of England, What had been the\nsigns from these three sections? Well, while petitions had come in to the\nCommons from the \"well-affected,\" _i.e._ the Independents and\nSectaries, of various counties, praying for justice on Delinquents of\nwhatever rank, and therefore virtually adhering to the Army; while the\nIndependents of the City of London itself had bestirred themselves in the\nsame sense, and, in spite of the opposition of the Lord Mayor and most of\nthe Aldermen, had carried at a Guildhall meeting an Address from the\nCommon Council to the Commons, which the Commons received with great form\nand much expression of thanks; while all this had been done in the Army's\ninterest, there had been much fainter counter-demonstrations, from either\nthe Prelatists or the Presbyterians, than might have been expected. The\nPrelatists, believing their interference would do harm, had remained in\ndumb horror: only Dr. John Gauden and Dr, Henry Hammond had ventured on\nprotestations in the King's behalf, addressed to Fairfax and the Army\nCouncil. The Presbyterians, having more liberty in the way of speech, had\ncertainly not been silent. What indignation among them, what outcries,\nduring the last seven weeks, over the suppression of all legal authority,\nand the monstrous usurpation of power by the Army-Grandees and their\nheretical adherents! Among the Presbyterian multitudes of London there\nhad been no protester in this sense more brave than Prynne. Whatever\ncould be done with pen and ink, or by vehement verbal messages, in\naddition to his published _Brief Memento_, from his durance in the\nKing's Head Tavern, he had done, and continued to do. Clement Walker was\nhardly less active. From the Presbyterian Clergy of the City also,\nnotwithstanding the exertions of Hugh Peters and others, in private\nconferences with them, to keep them from interfering, there did come\nvoices of remonstrance. The Westminster Assembly, or what of the body\nthen remained sitting, had signified their unanimous desire for the\nKing's release; and forty-seven ministers, meeting at Sion College, had\ndrawn up and signed a document, addressed to Fairfax, in which they\nprotested most earnestly, in the name of Religion and general morality,\nand also of the Solemn League and Covenant, against the usurpation of\npower by the Army and the violence intended to the King's person. There\nhad been manifestations to the same effect from Presbyterian ministers in\nvarious parts of the country, in which, it appears, even some of the\nIndependent ministers had joined. Finally, there was all Presbyterian\nScotland. What of it? The Scottish Parliament had met in Edinburgh on the\n4th of January, and had been greatly agitated by the news, received from\nthe Earl of Lothian, Sir John Chiesley, and William Glendinning, then\nacting as Scottish Commissioners in London, \"how that above 160 members\nof the House of Commons were extrudit the House by the blasphemous Army,\"\nand how there was no doubt but the King's life was in peril. There had\nbeen an express to London in consequence, with instructions to the\nCommissioners to do their best, by every form of entreaty and\nremonstrance, to avert the dreaded catastrophe. Both before and during\nthe Trial, accordingly, these Commissioners, aided by Mr. Blair and other\nCommissioners of the Scottish Kirk, had been going to and fro in London,\nreasoning, threatening, and imploring. Charles Stuart was King of\nScotland; the whole Scottish nation was loyal to Monarchy in him and in\nhis race; from all the pulpits in Scotland there were prayers for him,\nand forgiveness of his past errors in pity of his present state; would\nthe English nation dare, in defiance of all this, and in outrage of the\nLeague and Covenant, to put him to death? [Footnote: Commons Journals,\nJan. 15, 1648-9; Neal's Puritans, III. 490-6; Whitlocke Jan. 3; Walker's\nHistory of Independency, Part II. 61-87; Balfour's Annals, III. 373 _et\nseq._ Life of Robert Blair (Wodrow Society), pp. 213-215.]\n\nAll this before the King's trial had actually begun, or at least before\nhis sentence. And what now that the sentence had been pronounced, and\nCharles in St. James's was making ready for his doom? The Trial had been\nswift; hardly more than the expectation of it can have reached foreign\nshores; of the actual sentence many parts of England were yet ignorant.\nOnly at the centre, only in London itself, could there be interference at\nthis last moment. To the last there were some efforts. After the sentence\nthe pleadings and protests of the Scottish Commissioners became nearly\nfrantic in their vehemence, the Presbyterianism of London too numb for\nfarther expression itself, but speaking through the Scots. All to no\neffect. Nor was greater attention paid to the intercession of the only\nforeign Power that then made an effort to save Charles. The States-\nGeneral of Holland had sent over a special embassy for the purpose; but,\nthough the Ambassadors were in London on the 29th and were received that\nday with most ceremonious respect by the Commons as well as by the Lords,\nthey knew that they had come on a vain errand.\n\nWhy was all in vain? For one very simple and yet very sufficient reason.\nAt the centre of England was a will that had made itself adamant, by\nexpress vow and deliberation beforehand, for the very hour which had now\narrived, and that, amid all entreaties and pleadings of men, women,\nclasses, corporations, and nations, would go through with the business\nthat had been begun. Relentings there were near the centre, but not at\nthe very centre. Fairfax had relented; Pennington had relented; others\nwho had taken part in the Trial had relented; Vane, St. John, Skippon,\nFiennes, leaders hitherto, had withdrawn from the work, and were looking\non moodily; there was an agony over what was coming among many that had\nhelped to bring it to pass. Only some fifty or sixty governing\nEnglishmen, with OLIVER CROMWELL in the midst of them, were prepared for\nevery responsibility, and stood inexorably to their task. _They_\nwere the will of England now, and they had the Army with them. What\nproportion of England besides went with them it might be difficult to\nestimate. One private Londoner, at all events, can be named, who approved\nthoroughly of their policy, and was ready to testify the same. While the\nsentenced King was at St. James's there were lying on Milton's writing-\ntable in his house in High Holborn at least the beginnings of a pamphlet\non which he had been engaged during the King's Trial, and in which, in\nvehement answer to the outcry of the Presbyterians generally, but with\nparticular references also to the printed protests of Prynne, the appeals\nof the Prelatists Hammond and Gauden, and the interferences of the Scots\nand the Dutch, he was to defend all the recent acts of the Army, Pride's\nPurge included, justify the existing government of the Army-chiefs and\nthe fragment of Parliament that assisted them, inculcate Republican\nbeliefs on his countrymen, and prove to them above all this proposition:\n\"_That it is lawful, and hath been held so through all ages, for any\nwho have the power, to call to account a Tyrant, or wicked King, and,\nafter due conviction, to depose and put him to death, if the ordinary\nMagistrate have neglected or denied to do it!_\" The pamphlet was not\nto come out in time to bear practically on the deed which it justified;\nbut, while the King was yet alive, it was planned, sketched, and in part\nwritten. [Footnote: Commons Journals, Jan, 22 and 29; Lords Journals,\nJan. 29; Rushworth, VII. 1426-7; Milton's _Tenure of Kings and\nMagistrates_, and his _Def. Sec_.--That Milton's _Tenure of\nKings and Magistrates_, though not published till after the King's\ndeath, had been on hand before, if not completed, might be inferred from\nthe pamphlet itself, the language and _tense_ of some parts of which\nare scarcely explicable otherwise. But see his account of the composition\nof the pamphlet in his _Def. Sec_. He there says that the book did\nnot come out till after the King's death, and consequently had no direct\ninfluence in bringing about that fact; but this very statement, and the\nsentences which precede it, confirm what is said in the text as to the\ntime when the pamphlet was schemed and begun.]\n\nActually on Monday, Jan. 29, while the Dutch Ambassadors were having\ntheir audiences with the two Houses, the Death-Warrant was out, as\nfollows:--\n\n\"At the High Court of Justice for the Trying and Judging of Charles\nStuart, King of England, January XXIXth, Anno Dom. 1648.\n\n\"Whereas Charles Stuart, King of England, is and standeth convicted,\nattainted, and condemned of High Treason and other high Crimes, and\nsentence upon Saturday last was pronounced upon him by this Court to be\nput to death by the severing of his head from his body; of which sentence\nexecution yet remaineth to be done: These are therefore to will and\nrequire you to see the said sentence executed in the open street before\nWhitehall upon the morrow, being the Thirtieth day of this instant month\nof January, between the hours of Ten in the morning and Five in the\nafternoon of the said day, with full effect. And for so doing this shall\nbe your sufficient warrant. And these are to require all Officers and\nSoldiers and other the good people of this Nation to be assisting unto\nyou in this service. Given under our hands and seals:--\n\n\"Jo. Bradshawe          Ri. Deane                Thos. Horton\nTho. Grey               Robert Tichborne         J. Jones\nO. Cromwell             H. Edwardes              John Moore\nEdw. Whalley            Daniel Blagrave          Gilb. Millington\nM. Livesey              Owen Rowe                G. Fleetwood\nJohn Okey               William Perfoy           J. Alured\nJ. Danvers              Ad. Scrope               Rob. Lilburne\nJo. Bourchier           James Temple             Will. Say\nH. Ireton               A. Garland               Anth. Stapley\nTho. Mauleverer         Edm. Ludlowe             Gre. Norton\nHar. Waller             Henry Marten             Tho. Challoner\nJohn Blakiston          Vint. Potter             Thomas Wogan\nJ. Hutchinson           Wm. Constable            John Venn\nWilli. Goffe            Rich. Ingoldesby         Gregory Clements\nTho. Pride              Will. Cawley             Jo. Downes\nPe. Temple              J. Barkestead            Tho. Wayte\nT. Harrison             Isaa. Ewer               Tho. Scot\nJ. Hewson               John Dixwell             Jo. Carew\nHen. Smyth              Valentine Wauton         Miles Corbet.\nPer. Pelham             Simon Mayne\n\n\"To Colonel Francis Hacker, Colonel Huncks, and Lieutenant-Colonel\nPhayre; and to every of them.\" [Footnote: The original of this Warrant, a\nparchment eighteen inches wide and ten inches deep, is in the possession\nof the House of Lords, having been produced before that body by Colonel\nHacker in 1660, and then retained. Mr. William J. Thorns, who has\nminutely inspected it, made it the subject of a curious and interesting\ninquiry in _Notes and Queries_, July 6 and July 13, 1872. He observes\nthat the date of the Warrant itself, and the words \"upon Saturday last\"\nfor the day of the sentence, are written over erasures and in a different\nhand from the rest, and that the word \"Thirtieth\" for the day of\nexecution is inserted in a space too large for it; and, for this and\nother reasons, he arrives at the conclusion that we see the document now\nin its second state, and that a good number of the signatures were not\nattached to it on the 29th, but had been attached to it on an earlier day\nwhen it was in its first state. His conjecture, on the whole, is that it\nhad been expected, at the private meeting of the Court on Friday the\n2eth, when the sentence was _agreed upon,_ that it might be _pronounced_\nthat same day, and _executed_ the next day (Saturday the 27th), and that\na warrant to that effect had then been drawn up and signed; but that,\nthis idea having been abandoned, for whatever reason, and the Sentence\nnot having been pronounced till Saturday, it was thought better, at the\nmeeting on Monday the 29th, still to use the first Warrant with its\nsignatures, only with the dates altered, and with additional signatures\nthen obtained, than to write out a fresh warrant and apply for second\nsignatures from absentees who had signed the first.--It is noteworthy\nthat, though sixty-seven of the Commissioners had, as we have seen,\nvirtually constituted themselves \"the Regicides\" by being present in\nWestminster Hall on Saturday when the Sentence was pronounced, and then\nstanding up in assent to it, nine of these did not attach their names to\nthe Warrant. They were Francis Allen, Thomas Andrews, General Hammond,\nEdmund Harvey, William Heveningham, Cornelius Holland, John Lisle,\nNicholas Love, and Colonel Matthew Tomlinson. Subtract these _nine_ from\nthe _sixty-seven,_ and the number of the signers to the Warrant ought to\nbe _fifty-eight._ But they are _fifty-nine_. Who, then, is the _fifty-\nninth_? Cromwell's young kinsman, Colonel Richard Ingoldsby, who, though\na member of the Court, had attended none of its meetings till precisely\nthat of the 29th, the date of the Warrant. Here comes in Clarendon's\nfamous story, a distortion of some convenient rigmarole of Ingoldsby's\nown in later times. Ingoldsby, says Clarendon, \"always abhorring the\naction in his heart,\" had purposely kept away from every meeting of the\nCourt, till, chancing to look into the Painted Chamber on the fatal 29th,\nhe was clutched by Cromwell, dragged to the table on which the Warrant\nlay, and compelled to sign it, Cromwell forcibly holding his hand and\ntracing the letters for him, with loud laughter at the joke! More by\ntoken, as Clarendon reports him, if his name on the Warrant \"were\ncompared with what he had ever writ himself,\" the difference would be\nseen! Unfortunately, Mr. Thoms, who has made this comparison, vouches\nthat no difference can be detected, and that the name \"Rich. Ingoldsby\"\nin the Warrant \"is as bold and free as signature can be,\" and could never\nhave been written by a hand held by another's. _Ex uno omnes_. In the\nhard straits that were coming eleven years hence, there were to be others\nof the signers of the Warrant, besides Ingoldsby, who were to aver that\nthey did it under compulsion, Cromwell and Henry Marten sitting beside\neach other, smearing each other's faces with ink in their fun, and\noverbearing the scrupulous with jeers or threats. The simple fact I\nbelieve to be (and this I do believe) that Cromwell was anxious that the\nWarrant should be well signed, and reasoned, or perhaps remonstrated,\nwith some waverers, as he had done with young Hammond of the Isle of\nWight in a similar case two months before. Cromwell was now in his\nfiftieth year.]\n\nIn the King's last hours he had offers of the spiritual services of\nMessrs. Calamy, Vines, Caryl, Dell, and other Presbyterian ministers, and\nhardly had these gone when Mr. John Goodwin of Coleman Street came to St.\nJames's, all by himself, with the like offer. They were all dismissed\nwith thanks, the King intimating that he desired no other attendance than\nthat of Bishop Juxon. Late into the night of the 29th, accordingly, the\nBishop remained with the King in private. After he had gone, Charles\nspent about two hours more in reading and praying, and then lay down to\nsleep, Mr. Herbert lying on the pallet-bed close to his. For about four\nhours he slept soundly; but very early in the morning, when it was still\ndark, he awoke, opened the curtain of his bed, and called Mr. Herbert.\nThe call disturbed Herbert suddenly from a dreamy doze into which he had\nfallen after a very restless night; and, when he got up and was assisting\nthe King to dress by the light of the wax-cake that had been kept burning\nin the chamber as usual, the King observed a peculiarly scared look on\nhis face. Herbert, on being asked the cause, told his Majesty he had had\nan extraordinary dream. The King desiring to know what it was, Herbert\nrelated it. In his doze, he said, he had heard some one knock at the\nchamber-door. Thinking it might be Colonel Hacker, and not willing to\ndisturb the King till he himself heard the knock, he had lain still. A\nsecond time, however, the knock came; and this time, he thought, his\nMajesty had heard the knock, and told him to open the door and see who it\nwas.  He did go to the door, and, on opening it, was surprised to see a\nfigure standing there in pontifical habits whom he knew to be the late\nLord Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Laud. He knew him well, having often\nseen him in his life. The figure said he had something to say to the\nKing, and desired to enter. Then, as Herbert thought, the King having\nbeen told who it was, and having given permission, the Archbishop had\nentered, making a profound obeisance to the King in the middle of the\nroom, a second on coming nearer, and at last falling on his knees as the\nKing gave him his hand to kiss. Then the King raised him, and the two\nwent to the window together, and discoursed there, Herbert keeping at a\ndistance, and not knowing of what they talked, save that he noticed the\nKing's face to be very pensive, and heard the Archbishop give a deep\nsigh. After a little they ceased to talk, and the Archbishop, again\nkissing the King's hand, retired slowly, with his face still to the King,\nmaking three reverences as before. The third reverence was so low that,\nas Herbert thought, the Archbishop had fallen prostrate on his face, and\nhe had been in the act of stepping to help him up when he had been\nawakened by the King's call. The impression had been so lively that he\nhad still looked about the room as if all had been real.--Herbert having\nthus told his dream, the King said it was remarkable, the rather because,\nif Laud had been alive, and they had been talking together as in the\ndream, it was very likely, albeit he loved the Archbishop well, he might\nhave said something to him that would have occasioned his sigh. There was\nyet more conversation between the King and Herbert by themselves, the\nKing selecting with some care the dress he was to wear, and especially\nrequiring an extra under-garment because of the sharpness of the weather,\nlest he should shake from cold, and people should attribute it to fear.\nWhile they were still conversing, poor Herbert in such anguish as may be\nimagined, Dr. Juxon arrived, at the precise hour the King had appointed\nthe night before.\n\nAn hour or two still had to elapse before the last scene. Charles\narranged with Herbert about the distribution of some of his favourite\nbooks, with some trinkets. His Bible, with annotations in his own hand,\nand some special accompanying instructions, was to be kept for the Prince\nof Wales; a large silver ring-sundial of curious device was to go to the\nDuke of York; a copy of King James's Works, with another book, was left\nfor the Duke of Gloucester; for the Princess Elizabeth Hooker's\nEcclesiastical Polity, Bishop Andrewes's Sermons, and some other things.\nThese arrangements made, the King was for an hour alone with Juxon,\nduring which time he received the Communion. Then, Herbert having been\nre-admitted, the Bishop again went to prayer, and read the 27th chapter\nof Matthew; which, by a coincidence in which the King found comfort,\nchanced to be one of the lessons in the Rubric for that day. While they\nwere yet thus religiously engaged, there came Colonel Hacker's knock.\nThey allowed him to knock twice before admitting him; and then, entering\nwith some trepidation, he announced that it was time to go to Whitehall.\nThe King told him to go forth, and he would follow presently.\n\nIt was about ten o'clock in the morning (Tuesday, Jan. 30) when the\nprocession was formed, from St. James's, through the Park, to Whitehall.\nWith Bishop Juxon on his right hand, Colonel Tomlinson on his left,\nHerbert following close, and a guard of halberdiers in front and behind,\nthe King walked, at his usual very fast pace, through the Park, soldiers\nlining the whole way, with colours flying and drums beating, and such a\nnoise rising from the gathered crowd that it was hardly possible for any\ntwo in the procession to hear each other speak. Herbert had been told to\nbring with him the silver clock or watch that hung usually by the King's\nbedside, and on their way through the Park the King asked what o'clock it\nwas and gave Herbert the watch to keep. A rude fellow from the mob kept\nabreast with the King for some time, staring at his face as if in wonder,\ntill the Bishop had him turned away. There is a tradition that, when the\nprocession came to the end of the Park, near the present passage from\nSpring Gardens, the King pointed to a tree, and said that tree had been\nplanted by his brother Henry. Arrived at last at the stairs leading into\nWhitehall, he was taken, through the galleries of the Palace, to the bed-\nchamber he had usually occupied while residing there; and here he had\nsome farther time allowed him for rest and devotion with Juxon alone.\nHaving sent Herbert for some bread and wine, he ate a mouthful of the\nbread and drank a small glass of claret. Here Herbert broke down so\ncompletely that he felt he could not accompany the King to the scaffold,\nand Juxon had to take from him the white satin cap he had brought by the\nKing's orders to be put on at the fatal moment. At last, a little after\ntwelve o'clock, Hacker's signal was heard outside, and Juxon and Herbert\nwent on their knees, affectionately kissing the King's hands. Juxon being\nold and feeble, the King helped him to rise, and then, commanding the\ndoor to be opened, followed Hacker. With soldiers for his guard, he was\nconveyed, along some of the galleries of the old Palace, now no longer\nextant, to the New Banqueting Hall, which Inigo Jones had built, and\nwhich still exists. Besides the soldiers, many men and women had crowded\ninto the Hall, from whom, as his Majesty passed on, there was heard a\ngeneral murmur of commiseration and prayer, the soldiers themselves not\nobjecting, but appearing grave and respectful.\n\nThrough a passage broken in the wall of the Banqueting Hall, or more\nprobably through one of the windows dismantled for the purpose, Charles\nemerged on the scaffold, in the open street, fronting the site of the\npresent Horse Guards. The scaffold was hung with black, and carpeted with\nblack, the block and the axe in the middle; a number of persons already\nstood upon it, among whom were several men with black masks concealing\ntheir faces; in the street in front, all round the scaffold, were\ncompanies of foot and horse; and beyond these, as far as the eye could\nreach, towards Charing Cross on the one side and Westminster Abbey on the\nother, was a closely-packed multitude of spectators. The King, walking on\nthe scaffold, looked earnestly at the block, and said something to Hacker\nas if he thought it were too low; after which, taking out a small piece\nof paper, on which he had jotted some notes, he proceeded to address\nthose standing near him. What he said may have taken about ten minutes or\na quarter of an hour to deliver, and appears, from the short-hand report\nof it which has been preserved, to have been rather incoherent. \"Now,\nSirs,\" he said at one point, \"I must show you both how you are out of the\nway, and I will put you in the way. First, you are out of the way; for\ncertainly all the way you ever have had yet, as I could find by anything,\nis in the way of conquest. Certainly this is an ill way; for conquest,\nSirs, in my opinion, is never just, except there be a good just cause,\neither for matter of wrong, or just title; and then, if you go beyond it,\nthe first quarrel that you have to it, _that_ makes it unjust at the\nend that was just at first.\" A little farther on, when he had begun a\nsentence, \"For the King indeed I will not,\" a gentleman chanced to touch\nthe axe. \"Hurt not the axe,\" he interrupted; \"_that_ may hurt me,\"\nand then resumed. \"As for the King, the Laws of the Land will clearly\ninstruct you for that; therefore, because it concerns my own particular,\nI only give you a touch of it. For the People: and truly I desire their\nliberty and freedom as much as anybody whomsoever; but I must tell you\nthat their liberty and freedom consists in having of Government those\nlaws by which their life and their goods may be most their own. It is not\nhaving _share_ in Government, Sirs; that is nothing pertaining to\nthem. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things; and\ntherefore, until they do that--I mean, that you put the People in that\nliberty, as I say--certainly they will never enjoy themselves.\" In\nconclusion he said he would have liked to have a little more time, so as\nto have put what he meant to say \"in a little more order and a little\nbetter digested,\" and gave the paper containing the heads of his speech\nto Juxon. As he had said nothing specially about Religion, Juxon reminded\nhim of the omission. \"I thank you very heartily, my Lord,\" said Charles,\n\"for that I had almost forgotten it. In truth, Sirs, my conscience in\nReligion, I think it very well known to the world; and therefore I\ndeclare before you all that I die a Christian, according to the\nprofession of the Church of England as I found it left me by my father;\nand this honest man (the Bishop) I think will witness it.\" There were\nsome more words, addressed particularly to Hacker and the other officers;\nand once more, seeing a gentleman go too near the axe, he called out,\n\"Take heed of the axe; pray, take heed of the axe.\" Then, taking the\nwhite satin cap from Juxon, he put it on, and, with the assistance of\nJuxon and the chief executioner, pushed his hair all within it. Some\nfinal sentences of pious import then passed between the King and Juxon,\nand the King, having taken off his cloak and George, and given the latter\nto Juxon, with the word \"Remember,\" knelt down, and put his neck on the\nblock. After a second or two he stretched out his hands, and the axe\ndescended, severing the head from the body at one blow. There was a vast\nshudder through the mob, and then a universal groan. [Footnote: Herbert's\nMemoirs, 183--194; Wood's Ath. (repeating Herbert), IV. 32--36;\nRushworth, VJI 1428-1431; Fuller's Church Hist. (ed. 1842) TTI. 500, 501;\nDisraeli's Charts J. (ed. 1831) V. 449-50; Cunningham's London,\n_Whitehall_. Herbert only mentions the fact of his dream in the body\nof his Memoir; but the detailed account of it in his own words, written\nin 1680, is given in the Appendix, 217-222, and in a note in Wood's Ath.\nas above.--The coherance of Charles's last speech seems to have struck\nFuller, who says that, \"though taken in shorthand by one eminent\ntherein,\" it is done defectively. I rather think it is punctually\nliteral. I find in the Stationers' Registers this entry, under date Jan.\n31, 1648-9: \"Peter Cole entered for his copy, under the hand of Mr.\nMabbott, King Charles his Speech upon the Scaffold, with the manner of\nhis Suffering, on Jan. 30, 1648.\" I suppose this is the Report afterwards\nrepeated by Rushworth, though objected to by Fuller. Was Rush worth the\nreporter?]\n\nImmediately after the execution Juxon and the sorrowing Herbert were\nallowed to take charge of the corpse. Embalmed, coffined in wood and\nlead, and covered with a velvet pall, it lay for some days in St. James's\nPalace, where crowds came to see it. There was some difficulty about the\nplace of burial. Charles himself having left no directions on the\nsubject, Juxon and Herbert thought that the fittest place would be King\nHenry the Seventh's Chapel, in Westminster Abbey, containing as it did\nthe tombs of his four immediate predecessors, and those of his\ngrandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, and his brother Prince Henry. The\nauthorities, however, considering that this place was too public and\nwould attract inconvenient crowds, Juxon and Herbert next proposed the\nRoyal Chapel in Windsor, where some of his earlier predecessors had been\nburied, and among them Henry VIII. To this no objection was made, and on\nthe 7th of February the body was conveyed from St. James's to Windsor in\na hearse drawn by six horses, and followed by four mourning coaches.\nColonel Whichcot, the Governor of the Castle, having been shown the\norder, allowed Herbert and those with him to select whatever spot they\nchose. They thought first of what was called \"the tomb-house,\" built by\nCardinal Wolsey, and intended by him as a splendid sepulchre for his\nmaster, Henry VIII.; but they decided against it, partly because it was\nnot within the Royal Chapel, but only adjoining it, and partly because\nthey were uncertain whether Henry VIII. (of whose exact place of burial\nthe tradition had been lost) might not actually have been buried in the\n\"tomb-house,\" and they recollected that this particular predecessor of\nCharles was not one of his favourites. He had been heard, in occasional\ndiscourses, to express dislike of Henry's conduct in appropriating Church\nrevenues and demolishing religious edifices. They therefore fixed on the\nvault where Edward IV. was interred, on the north side of the choir, near\nthe altar. The vault was opened for the purpose, and preparations for the\ninterment there were going on, when (Feb. 8) the Duke of Richmond, the\nMarquis of Hertford, and the Earls of Southampton and Lindsey, with Dr.\nJuxon, arrived from London, specially authorized by the House of Commons\nto attend the funeral, and the Duke empowered to arrange all wholly as he\nthought fit. Herbert and those with him having then resigned the duty\ninto the hands of these great persons, there was a new inquiry as to the\nbest spot for the grave. The \"tomb-house\" was again looked at, and the\nchoir of the Chapel diligently re-investigated. At length, a spot in the\nchoir having been detected where the pavement sounded hollow when struck-\n-\"being about the middle of the choir, over against the eleventh seat on\nthe Sovereign's side\"--the stones and earth were removed, and a vault was\ndisclosed; in which there were two leaden coffins close together, one\nvery large and the other small. From the velvet palls covering them, some\nportions in their original purple colour, and others turned into fox-\ntawny or coal-black by the damp, there was no doubt that they were the\ncoffins of Henry VIII. and his third wife, Lady Jane Seymour. As there\nwas just room for one coffin more in the vault, it was determined that\nthe fact of its being the vault of Henry VIII, now accidentally\ndiscovered after so long a time, should be no bar to the burial of\nCharles in the otherwise suitable vacancy. Accordingly, on Friday the 9th\nof February, the body was brought from the royal bed-chamber, where it\nhad been meanwhile lying, to St. George's Hall, and thence, with slow and\nsolemn pace, to the Chapel. It was borne on the shoulders of some\ngentlemen in mourning; the noblemen in mourning held up the pall; and\nColonel Whichcot, with several gentlemen, officers, and attendants,\nfollowed. As they were moving from the Hall to the Chapel, the sky, which\nhad been previously clear, darkened with snow, which fell so fast that,\nbefore they reached the Chapel, the black velvet pall was white with the\nflakes. The coffin having been set down near the vault, ex-Bishop Juxon\nwould have read the burial-service over it according to the form of the\nBook of Common Prayer; but, though permission to do so seemed to be\nimplied in the wording of the order granted to the Duke of Richmond by\nthe House of Commons, and though the noblemen present were desirous that\nit should be done, Colonel Whichcot did not think himself entitled to\nallow any service except that of the new Presbyterian Directory. Without\nany service at all, therefore, save what may have been rendered by the\ntears and muttered words of those who stood by, the coffin was deposited,\nabout three o'clock in the afternoon, in the vacant space in the vault. A\nkind of scarf or scroll of lead, about five inches broad, had been\nsoldered to it, bearing this inscription in capital letters: \"KING\nCHARLES, 1648.\" At the time of his death, King Charles was forty-eight\nyears, two months, and eleven days old, and he had reigned twenty-three\nyears and ten months. [Footnote: Herbert's Memoirs, 194-216; Commons\nJournals, Feb. 8; Fuller's, Church Hist,. III. 501-4.--In March 1813 some\nworkmen, employed in making a passage from under the choir of the Royal\nChapel at Windsor to a mausoleum erected by George III. in the \"tomb-\nhouse\" described in the text, accidentally broke into the vault\ncontaining the bodies of Charles I., Henry VIII., and Queen Jane Seymour.\nThe fact having been reported to the Prince Regent, a careful examination\nwas ordered. It was made April 1, 1813, in the presence of the Prince\nRegent himself, the Duke of Cumberland, Count Munster, the Dean of\nWindsor, Sir Henry Halford (Physician to the King and the Prince Regent),\nand Mr. B. C. Stevenson. The coffin of Charles I. was examined with great\nminuteness, and corresponded in every particular with the account given\nby Herbert. When the black velvet pall had been removed, the coffin was\nfound to be of plain lead, with the leaden scroll encircling it, bearing\nthe inscription \"KING CHARLES, 1648,\" in large legible characters. A\nsquare opening was then cut in the upper lid, so that the contents might\nbe clearly seen. An internal wooden coffin was found to be very much\ndecayed, and the body was found to be carefully wrapped up in cerecloth,\ninto the folds of which there had been poured abundantly some unctuous\nsubstance mixed with resin. With considerable difficulty the cerecloth\nwas removed from the face, and then, despite the discolouring and the\ndecay of some parts, the features of Charles I., as represented in coins\nand busts, and especially in Vandyke's portraits of him, could be\ndistinctly recognised. There was the oval face, with the peaked beard.\nWhen, by farther removal of the cerecloth, they had disengaged the entire\nhead, they found it to be loose from the body. On taking it out, they saw\nthat \"the muscles of the neck had evidently retracted themselves\nconsiderably, and the fourth cervical vertebra was found to be cut\nthrough its substance transversely, leaving the surfaces of the divided\nportions perfectly smooth and even--an appearance which could have been\nproduced only by a heavy blow indicted by a very sharp instrument.\" The\nhair, which was thick at the back, looked nearly black; but, when a\nportion of it was afterwards cleaned and dried, the colour was found to\nbe a beautiful dark brown,--that of the beard a redder brown. The body\nwas not examined below the neck; and, the head having been replaced, the\ncoffin was soldered up again and the vault closed. (See account by Sir\nHenry Halford, quoted by Bliss in his edition of Wood's Ath. IV. 39-42.)]","title":"The Life of John Milton Volume 3 1643-1649: Narrated in Connexion with the Political, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of His Time","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":284183}