The History of England - Vols. 1 to 6 (416 page)

This artful and audacious conspirator had conducted himself in the parliament with such profound dissimulation, with such refined hypocrisy, that he had long deceived those, who, being themselves very dextrous practitioners in the same arts, should naturally have entertained the more suspicion against others. At every intelligence of disorders in the army, he was moved to the highest pitch of grief and of anger. He wept bitterly: He lamented the misfortunes of his country: He advised every violent measure for suppressing the mutiny; and by these precipitate counsels, at once seemed to evince his own sincerity, and inflamed those discontents, of which he intended to make advantage. He obtested heaven and earth, that his devoted attachment to the parliament had rendered him so odious in the army, that his life, while among them, was in the utmost danger; and he had very narrowly escaped a conspiracy, formed to assassinate him. But information being brought, that the most active officers and agitators were entirely his creatures, the parliamentary leaders secretly resolved, that, next day, when he should come to the house, an accusation should be entered against him, and he should be sent to the Tower.
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Cromwel, who, in the conduct of his desperate enterprizes, frequently approached to the very brink of destruction, knew how to make the requisite turn with proper dexterity and boldness. Being informed of this design, he hastened to the camp; where he was received with acclamations, and was instantly invested with the supreme command both of general and army.

Fairfax, having neither talents himself for cabal, nor penetration to discover the cabals of others, had given his entire confidence to Cromwel; who, by the best coloured pretences, and by the appearance of an open sincerity and a scrupulous conscience, imposed on the easy nature of this brave and virtuous man. The council of officers and the agitators were moved altogether by Cromwel’s direction, and conveyed his will to the whole army. By his profound and artful conduct, he had now attained a situation, where he could cover his enterprizes from public view; and seeming either to obey the commands of his superior officer, or yield to the movements of the soldiers, could secretly pave the way for his future greatness. While the disorders of the army were yet in their infancy, he kept at a distance; lest his counterfeit aversion might throw a damp upon them, or his secret encouragement beget suspicion in the parliament. As soon as they came to maturity, he openly joined the troops; and in the critical moment, struck that important blow of seizing the king’s person, and depriving the parliament of any resource of an accommodation with him. Though one vizor fell off, another still remained, to cover his natural countenance. Where delay was requisite, he could employ the most indefatigable patience: Where celerity was necessary, he flew to a decision. And by thus uniting in his person the most opposite talents, he was enabled to combine the most contrary interests in a subserviency to his secret purposes.

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The parliament, though at present defenceless, was possessed of The army march many resources; and time might easily enable them to resist that against the violence, with which they were threatened. Without farther

parliament.

deliberation, therefore, Cromwel advanced the army upon them, and arrived in a few days at St. Albans.

Nothing could be more popular, than this hostility, which the army commenced against the parliament. As much as that assembly was once the idol of the nation, as much was it now become the object of general hatred and aversion.

The self-denying ordinance had no longer been put in execution, than till Essex, Manchester, Waller, and the other officers of that party, had resigned their commission: Immediately after, it was laid aside by tacit consent; and the members, sharing all offices of power and profit among them, proceeded with impunity in exercising acts of oppression on the helpless nation. Though the necessity of their situation might serve as an apology for many of their measures, the people, not accustomed to such a species of government, were not disposed to make the requisite allowances.

A small supply of 100,000 pounds a year could never be obtained by former kings from the jealous humour of parliaments; and the English, of all nations in Europe, were the least accustomed to taxes: But this parliament, from the commencement of the war, according to some computations, had levied, in five years, above forty millions;
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yet were loaded with debts and incumbrances, which, during that age, were regarded as prodigious. If these computations should be thought much exaggerated, as

they probably are,a
the taxes and impositions were certainly far higher than in any former state of the English government; and such popular exaggerations are, at least, a proof of popular discontents.

But the disposal of this money was no less the object of general complaint against the parliament than the levying of it. The sum of 300,000 pounds they openly took, ’tis

affirmed,b
and divided among their own members. The committees, to whom the management of the different branches of revenue was entrusted, never brought in their accounts, and had unlimited power of secreting whatever sums they pleased from the public treasure.
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These branches were needlessly multiplied, in order to render the revenue more intricate, to share the advantages among greater numbers, and to conceal the frauds, of which they were universally suspected.
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The method of keeping accounts, practised in the exchequer, was confessedly the exactest, the most ancient, the best known, and the least liable to fraud. The exchequer was, for that reason, abolished, and the revenue put under the management of a committee, who were subject to no controul.
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The excise was an odious tax, formerly unknown to the nation; and was now extended over provisions and the common necessaries of life. Near one half of the goods and chattels, and at least one half of the lands, rents, and revenues of the kingdom, had been sequestered. To great numbers of royalists, all redress from these sequestrations was refused: To the rest, the remedy could be obtained only by paying large PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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compositions and subscribing the covenant, which they abhorred. Besides pitying the ruin and desolation of so many ancient and honourable families; indifferent spectators could not but blame the hardship of punishing with such severity, actions, which the law, in its usual and most undisputed interpretation, strictly required of every subject.

The severities, too, exercised against the episcopal clergy, naturally affected the royalists, and even all men of candor, in a sensible manner. By the most moderate

computation,f
it appears, that above one half of the established clergy had been turned out to beggary and want, for no other crime than their adhering to the civil and religious principles, in which they had been educated; and for their attachment to those laws, under whose countenance they had at first embraced that profession. To renounce episcopacy and the liturgy, and to subscribe the covenant, were the only terms, which could save them from so rigorous a fate; and if the least mark of malignancy, as it was called, or affection to the king, who so entirely loved them, had ever escaped their lips, even this hard choice was not permitted. The sacred character, which gives the priesthood such authority over mankind, becoming more venerable from the sufferings, endured, for the sake of principle, by these distressed royalists, aggravated the general indignation against their persecutors.

But what excited the most universal complaint was, the unlimited tyranny and despotic rule of the country-committees. During the war, the discretionary power of these courts was excused, from the plea of necessity: But the nation was reduced to despair, when it saw neither end put to their duration, nor bounds to their authority.

These could sequester, fine, imprison, and corporally punish, without law or remedy.

They interposed in questions of private property. Under colour of malignancy, they exercised vengeance against their private enemies. To the obnoxious, and sometimes to the innocent, they sold their protection. And instead of one star-chamber, which had been abolished, a great number were anew erected, fortified with better pretences, and armed with more unlimited authority.
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Could any thing have increased the indignation against that slavery, into which the nation, from the too eager pursuit of liberty, had fallen; it must have been the reflection on the pretences, by which the people had so long been deluded. The sanctified hypocrites, who called their oppressions the spoiling of the Egyptians, and their rigid severity the dominion of the Elect, interlarded all their iniquities with long and fervent prayers, saved themselves from blushing by their pious grimaces, and exercised, in the name of the Lord, all their cruelty on men. An undisguised violence could be forgiven: But such a mockery of the understanding, such an abuse of religion, were, with men of penetration, objects of peculiar resentment.

The parliament, conscious of their decay in popularity, seeing a formidable armed force advance upon them, were reduced to despair, and found all their resources much inferior to the present necessity. London still retained a strong attachment to presbyterianism; and its militia, which was numerous, and had acquired reputation in the wars, had, by a late ordinance, been put into hands, in whom the parliament could entirely confide. This militia was now called out, and ordered to guard the lines, which had been drawn round the city, in order to secure it against the king. A body of horse was ordered to be instantly levied. Many officers, who had been cashiered by PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011)

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the new model of the army, offered their service to the parliament. An army of 5000

men lay in the north under the command of general Pointz, who was of the presbyterian faction; but these were too distant to be employed in so urgent a necessity. The forces, destined for Ireland, were quartered in the west; and, though deemed faithful to the parliament, they also lay at a distance. Many inland garrisons were commanded by officers of the same party; but their troops, being so much dispersed, could, at present, be of no manner of service. The Scots were faithful friends and zealous for presbytery and the covenant; but a long time was required, ere they could collect their forces, and march to the assistance of the parliament.

In this situation it was thought more prudent to submit, and by compliance to stop the fury of the enraged army.

The declaration, by which the military petitioners had been voted 8th June.

public enemies, was recalled, and erazed from the journal-book.
h

This was the first symptom, which the parliament gave of submission; and the army, hoping, by terror alone, to effect all their purposes, stopped at St. Albans, and entered into negociation with their masters.

Here commenced the encroachments of the military upon the civil authority. The army, in their usurpations on the parliament, copied exactly the model, which the parliament itself had set them, in their recent usurpations on the crown.

Every day, they rose in their demands. If one claim was granted, they had another ready, still more enormous and exorbitant; and were determined never to be satisfied.

At first, they pretended only to petition for what concerned themselves as soldiers: Next, they must have a vindication of their character: Then, it was necessary, that

their enemies be punished:i
At last, they claimed a right of modelling the whole government, and settling the nation.
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They preserved, in words, all deference and respect to the parliament; but in reality, insulted them and tyrannized over them. That assembly, they pretended not to accuse: It was only evil counsellors, who seduced and betrayed it.

They proceeded so far as to name eleven members, whom, in

16th June.

general terms, they charged with high treason, as enemies to the army and evil counsellors to the parliament. Their names were Hollis, Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir William Lewis, Sir John Clotworthy, Sir William Waller, Sir John Maynard, Massey, Glyn, Long, Harley, and Nichols.
l
These were the very leaders of the presbyterian party.

They insisted that these members should immediately be sequestered from parliament, and be thrown into prison.
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The commons replied, that they could not, upon a general charge, proceed so far.
n
The army observed to them, that the cases of

Strafford and Laud were direct precedents for that purpose.o
At last, the eleven members themselves, not to give occasion for discord, begged leave to retire from the house; and the army, for the present, seemed satisfied with this mark of submission.
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Pretending, that the parliament intended to levy war upon them, and to involve the nation again in blood and confusion, they required, that all new levies should be stopped. The parliament complied with this demand.
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There being no signs of resistance, the army, in order to save appearances, removed, at the desire of the parliament, to a greater distance from London, and fixed their head quarters at Reading. They carried the king along with them in all their marches.

That prince now found himself in a better situation than at Holdenby, and had attained some greater degree of freedom, as well as of consideration with both parties.

All his friends had access to his presence: His correspondence with the queen was not interrupted: His chaplains were restored to him, and he was allowed the use of the liturgy: His children were once allowed to visit him, and they passed a few days at Caversham, where he then resided.
r
He had not seen the duke of Gloucester, his youngest son, and the princess Elizabeth, since he left London, at the commencement