THE HISTORY
OF
MY OWN TIME
VOL. I.
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London
HENRY FROWDE, M.A.
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE
AMEN CORNER, E.C.
New York
THE MACMILLAN CO., 66 FIFTH AVENUE
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BURNET'S
HISTORY OF MY OWN TIME
A NEW EDITION BASED ON THAT OF M. J. ROUTH, D.D.
PART I
THE REIGN OF
CHARLES THE SECOND
EDITED BY
OSMUND AIRY, M.A.
IN TWO VOLUMES: VOL. I
OXFORD
AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
M.DCCC.XCVII
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Oxford
PRINTED AT THE CLARENDON PRESS
BY HORACE HART, M.A.
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
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v
In the preparation of a new Edition of Burnet's History several points have especially demanded attention. Errors, positive or probable, required correction or suggested emendation, and omissions supplement; many statements invited illustration; it was desirable to indicate as far as possible the probable sources of Burnet's information upon matters which did not come under his personal observation; the notes of the earlier editions obviously needed revision. Finally it was necessary to provide a trustworthy text.
Probably no historian of Burnet's rank and importance has ever been so vigorously or continuously challenged on the ground of prejudice and inaccuracy. The task of meeting this challenge in any satisfactory manner is one which cannot be undertaken in a Preface, unless it is to extend to a wearisome length. But I do not hesitate to say briefly that, when it is remembered that Burnet was the first to exhibit on a large scale the picture of his time though Clarendon's Life and Continuation were composed earlier and that his narrative was drawn up almost without the aid of documentary evidence; and when it is further borne in mind that he himself played an active part in that time, that his temper was impulsive, and that the passions aroused in the varied drama which was vi acted under his eyes were strong, it will be recognized by any careful and competent investigator that his comparative freedom from grave error certainly from wilful misrepresentation is remarkable. This observation is not extended to the later portion of his work, respecting which I do not feel qualified to speak; but I am satisfied that as regards the age of Charles II, with which alone I am concerned, he is, with but few exceptions, both as to events and persons, conspicuously and honourably fair in tone, even though frequently inaccurate in detail; especially—and here I speak with still more confidence—is this the case when Scotland and Scotsmen are his theme. It is true that he was an eager and credulous listener; that he often, as indeed must be the case with any one who writes of his own time, speaks from hearsay, sometimes, as he tells us, from hearsay twice or thrice, so to speak, removed; that his information obviously takes its colour at times from his own feeling; that his character-sketches are frequently overdrawn on the bad side, and that they bear evidence of the repeated alteration mentioned by Dartmouth in his last note to Burnet's Preface—generally however by gentler strokes—according to the tone of his mind at the moment of revision or according to some fresh piece of gossip or information. There is little in all this to detract from the value of Burnet's great work, or to cause surprise. That a man should actively concern himself with public affairs in that feverish and immoral time, and should be able to hold the scales evenly, however much he might desire to do so, was absolutely impossible. But that he did desire to do so, and that through sheer honesty of purpose he has succeeded in a remarkable degree, is the opinion which prolonged attention to the subject has fixed upon my mind. Stories belonging to one set of persons or events are indeed now and then vii transferred to others; provisions of one Act of Parliament are occasionally credited to another. There are ample opportunities for corrective or illustrative criticism, but—I again limit my remark to the reign of Charles II—for destructive criticism very few; while the tone of the whole is vindicated by the results of all late research.
It is noticeable that the impression of consistency and unity in Burnet's narrative is created in spite of the fact that, except perhaps in the case of Scotland, that narrative is neither continuous nor always correct as regards chronological sequence. There is moreover no conscious artistic arrangement, or sense of proportion, or grace; the language is often inelegant and even obscure; the literary gait is often clumsy. The lacunae are numerous, and the order of events is sometimes confused. The work is a commentary upon history, a series of notes, some very detailed, some very jejune, rather than a history itself. The addition of marginal dates where necessary will, it is hoped, remove the chronological difficulties. But it has been found impossible, even where desirable, to bridge over in any satisfactory manner the wide gaps in the narrative.
As regards the insertion of notes which are merely illustrative rather than corrective or supplementary, the chief source of embarrassment, almost of despair, has been—not unnaturally, when the date of the last edition, 1833, is remembered—the overwhelming wealth of material now available. I trust that this part of the work has been kept within due limits; but even where I myself am sensible of a barrenness of illustration I fear that the opposite impression may occasionally be left on the minds of others.
The treatment of the notes to Dr. Routh's edition was the subject of much consideration. In the end it was determined to retain, as nearly as possible in the shape in which they appear there, all which seemed to possess real viii value; such are the majority of the Onslow and Dartmouth notes, dealing mainly with matters of which their authors were personally cognizant, and a considerable number of those of Dr. Routh himself. Some of the more pertinent of the contemptuous snarls of Swift have also been preserved, though I have thought it unadvisable to encumber the pages with simple terms of abuse which tend neither to edification nor to knowledge, such as 'Dunce,' 'Puppy,' 'Scotch dog,' and the like. All these earlier notes are indicated by the initial of the annotator; my own with which a few of the others are incorporated have no initial. It has occasionally been found necessary to insert a few explanatory words in the body of one of the original notes; these are indicated by square brackets.
It has been thought well to append two sets of paginal references, one to the MS. in the Bodleian Library (e.g. MS. 29), the other, in simple figures, to the folio edition. The latter are necessary, since in all works previously written on the subject, and in all quotations, the folio edition has been the common standard of reference.
One innovation, in addition to the substitution of the modern form in the spelling of all proper names, has been made in dealing with the text, which will, I hope, add to the convenience of the reader; I refer to the division into Chapters. Wherever possible this has taken place at obvious pauses in the narrative; but the absence of any intentional arrangement of the sort in Burnet's plan has made the matter one of some difficulty.
As regards the Text itself the reader is referred to the note by Mr. Macray upon his collation with the Bodleian MS., which follows this Preface.
It remains for me to express my thanks to all those who have aided me with information upon special points. The task, undertaken—perhaps presumptuously—in ix the intervals of official work, has been heavy and prolonged, and could scarcely have been performed thus far without their active and generous help. That any one who attempts to deal seriously with the history of this portion of the seventeenth century should be under deep obligations to Dr. S. R. Gardiner and Mr. C. H. Firth will be taken as a matter of course. To myself their assistance and encouragement have been lavish to a degree which makes the only fitting words of gratitude too personal for expression in this place.
To the Delegates of the Clarendon Press I desire to offer my acknowledgements of their courtesy and of their forbearance with delay.
OSMUND AIRY. Jan. 1, 1897.
The collation of the original MS. (undoubtedly the MS. promised by the original editors to be deposited in some public library, a promise never fulfilled by them) which has been made for the present edition has shown that but few noticeable variations from the text of Dr. Routh's last edition were required. But it has also shown the care with which Burnet, according to his own avowed intention in his Preface, 'over and over again retouched' his work, often softening some harsh expressions, or altering the form of sentences, or changing single words, with a view to improvement of style. All changes involving real alteration are now pointed out, but the mere substitution of one conjunction or particle for another, and the omission or insertion of small unimportant words, have been passed over.
The autograph of The History is contained in two folio volumes, now shelf-marked as 'Bodl. Add. D. 18, 19.' The text is written on one side of the leaf, and the marginal notes on the opposite blank page, where also Burnet places the numeration of the leaves : thus, 'page 1' is written on the blank page opposite the first page of the MS. and so on consecutively. This is worth pointing out, in order to obviate any possible difficulty in verification of a passage. The volumes when purchased by the Library in 1835 for £210, were entrusted to Dr. Routh for his use; and a letter from him on returning them to the Library, dated March 13, 1840, is inserted in the first volume. Unfortunately the particulars of the purchase do not appear to be now recoverable, and all that is known is that, as stated by Dr. Routh (Hist. of James II, 1852, p. 474), they had belonged 'to a family descended from the bishop.'
W. D. M.
The History of his Own Time by Bishop Burnet lays claim to our regard as an original work containing a relation of public transactions, in which either the author or his connexions were engaged. It will therefore never lose its importance; but still continue to furnish materials for other historians, and to be read by those, who wish to derive their knowledge of facts from the first sources of information.
The accuracy indeed of the author's narrative has been attacked with vehemence, and often, it must be confessed, with success; but not so often, as to overthrow the general credit of his work. On the contrary, it has in many instances been satisfactorily defended, and time has already evinced the truth of certain accounts, which rested on this single authority. It has also had the rare fortune of being illustrated by the notes of three persons of high rank, possessing in consequence of their situations means of information open to few others. That their observations on this history are now at length submitted to the public eye, is owing to the following fortunate incident.
1. A resolution having been taken by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press to reprint the work, the present Lord xi Bishop of Oxford[2] expressed his readiness to communicate to them a copy of it, in which his lordship had transcribed the marginal notes written by his ancestor the first Earl of Dartmouth. The offer was gratefully accepted, and the notes ordered to be printed with the text.
Afterwards, on an application to the Earl of Onslow, made through the late James Boswell, Esq., of the Inner Temple, his lordship was pleased to confide to the Delegates Speaker Onslow's copy of Burnet's History; in which are contained the Speaker's observations on this work, written in his own hand. Besides these remarks, there appear in the Onslow copy, in consequence of the permission of the second Earl of Hardwicke, not only the notes written by this nobleman on the second folio volume, but also the numerous passages, which were omitted in the first volume by the original editors. The notes likewise of Dean Swift are there transcribed, taken from his own copy of the history, which had come into the possession of the first Marquis of Lansdowne[3]. We shall now lay before the reader, for his greater satisfaction, a note prefixed to the Onslow copy by George, late Earl of Onslow, the son of the Speaker.
The notes in these two volumes marked H. were the notes in the present Earl of Hardwicke's copy of this work written by himself, and which he permitted me to copy into this. The earl is the son and heir of that great man the chancellor[4]. The others in the same handwriting I had also from him, and they are what are left out in the xii printed history, but are in the manuscript. All the rest of the notes are my father's own. Geo. Onslow, 1775. There are many errors of the copyist. The notes in red ink are by Dean Swift, and are copied (from an edition of this work in the Marquiss of Lansdown's library, in the margin of which they are written in the dean's own hand) by his lordship's order for myself. O. 1788.'
With respect to the notes written by the Earl of Dartmouth, it appears from Sir John Dalrymple's Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, and from Mr. Rose's Observations on Fox's History of the early part of the reign of James II, that both these writers had been favoured with the sight as well of these notes, as of a collection of letters which were sent by King James, when Duke of York, and residing in Scotland, to the first Lord of Dartmouth, the earl's father, and from which the earl has frequently inserted extracts[5]. Seven or eight only of the notes have been communicated to the public by the above-mentioned authors, and are pointed out as they occur in the following pages. All of them are now printed, with the exception of three, which contained reflections on the private character of as many individuals irrelevant to their public conduct. They have been omitted, with the approbation of the descendants of the noble writer[6].
As the Earl of Dartmouth has often treated his author with great severity, it should be remarked, that he was of a party in the state opposed to that which Bishop Burnet uniformly espoused. He appears also to have entertained a great personal dislike to the bishop. At the same time this nobleman, who was secretary of state, and afterwards xiii Lord Privy Seal in the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, never embraced, as may be collected from his notes, the absurd doctrine of non-resistance to government in all supposable cases; but was, what some have called, a moderate Tory; and like most of the leading Tories in the reign of the queen, was attached to the Hanover succession. The wiser members of this party held, that the right of the people to govern depends on the different laws and constitutions of different countries; but that their right to be well governed is indefeasible. To which should be added, that the tyranny of the many may as justly be resisted as the misgovernment of the few, or of the individual. The following character of his lordship has been transmitted to us by Swift, whilst eulogizing the chiefs of Queen Anne's last ministry, in the twenty-sixth number of the Examiner, 'My Lord Dartmouth,' he says, 'is a man of letters, full of good sense, good nature, and honour, of strict virtue and regularity in his life; but labours under one great defect, that he treats his clerks with more civility and good manners, than others in his station have done the queen.' See also Macky's Characters p. 89. His lordship's notes on this work of Burnet abound in curious and well told anecdotes.
The observations of Speaker Onslow and the Earl of Hardwicke have likewise been hitherto unpublished, except twenty of the former, printed in the twenty-seventh volume of the European Magazine. But more than half of Swift's short and cursory remarks have been already given to the public in that and the two following volumes of the same work by the person who communicated the others, yet often altered in the expression[7]. They are shrewd, caustic, xiv and apposite, but not written with the requisite decorum; of six notes omitted by us, three are worded in so light a way, that even modesty forbad their admission. The Speaker's notes, addressed more particularly to his son, contain many incidental discussions on political subjects, and are sensible and instructive. Those of the Earl of Hardwicke are so candid and judicious, that one cannot but wish them to have been more numerous. Earl Spencer, we are eager to acknowledge, condescendingly and most obligingly endeavoured to procure the copy of Burnet's History for our use, in the margin of which the notes were originally written by Lord Hardwicke, it being desirable that some doubtful passages of the transcript in the Onslow copy should have been compared with it; but unfortunately the book could nowhere be found.
The Earl of Dartmouth and Dean Swift, who although younger than Bishop Burnet, may be considered as his contemporaries, were, as we have already observed in the case of the Lord Dartmouth, opposed to him in politics : but Arthur Onslow, Speaker in five successive parliaments in the reign of George II, enjoyed the confidence of the Whigs, and with it a high reputation for integrity and moderation. The remaining annotator, Lord Hardwicke, son of the Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, and one of the authors of those elegant compositions, the Athenian Letters, always adhered to the same party. Lord Dartmouth uses strong, and Swift much ill language, on Burnet's supposed want of veracity; and the excellent Latin verses of Dean Moss on the same subject are now, we understand, in print. Yet the bishop's friends need not be apprehensive of a verdict of wilful falsehood against him in consequence of the corrections of his narrative in the subsequent annotations. Lord Dartmouth indeed, a man of honour, asserts that this author has published many things which he knew xv to be untrue. See his note at the beginning of vol. iv. His lordship, it must be allowed, had better opportunities than we have for determining what Burnet knew; but, as he has adduced little or nothing in support of this charge, we may be permitted to think, that strong prejudice, not wilful falsehood, occasioned the bishop's erroneous statements. It ought to be recollected in his favour, that he never professed a belief, either in the discoveries of Oates, or in the alleged murder of the Earl of Essex, although articles of his party's creed. And notwithstanding the idle stories told by him, on the authority of others, concerning the birth of the Prince of Wales, he nowhere, in the present work at least, explicitly avows an opinion of his illegitimacy. Nor, although an active and zealous opposer of King James's measures, does he appear to have been concerned in the other infamous falsehood imposed at the same time on the credulity of the nation; the intended massacre of the Protestants in this country by the Irish soldiery. There is a story indeed, which used to be told on the authority of the Dowager Countess of Nottingham, that Burnet, in a conversation with her lord, accused him of having professed different sentiments in the House of Peers on some subject from what he then did; and on Lord Nottingham's denying that he had so expressed himself, the bishop, as it was stated, rejoined, if his lordship had not, he ought to have done so: and that, notwithstanding this in Burnet's History of his Own Time, Lord Nottingham is represented to have said that which he denied he had said. All this may be true, and yet the bishop might not believe himself to have been mistaken. It must however be confessed, that where either party-zeal or personal resentment was concerned, this author too frequently appears to have been no patient investigator of the truth, but to have written under the influence of those xvi feelings, even whilst he was delineating the characters of some of the most virtuous persons of the age in which he lived. Amongst these are the Archbishops Sheldon and Sancroft, of whom he frequently speaks with unpardonable severity. He has also directed much indiscriminate censure against public bodies of men. In fact it appears by the preface to his work, that he himself suspected he had treated the clergy in particular with excessive harshness, irritated, he says, 'perhaps too much against them, in consequence of the peevishness, ill-nature, and ambition of many of them.' Nay, from some particulars, which will hereafter be mentioned, it may be collected, that the author actually omitted many passages of his history still more highly reflecting on his brethren.
That he was by no means acceptable to those prelates, who governed the Church of England in the reign of Charles II, seems extremely probable, when we consider that, according to his own account, he was an active opponent and open censurer of the bishops in Scotland, and a great meddler in English politics. Besides this, he professed to regard episcopacy itself as not necessary, although a preferable form of church government; and, however averse from republicanism, appears to have approved of the settlement made by the Scottish Covenanters in 1641 as the best system of civil polity for Scotland. See vol. i. pp. 396, 397, folio edit. The author also, during the reigns of William and Anne, was on very ill terms with the majority of the English clergy, whom he often accuses of inactivity, faction, and ambition. It may be urged on the other hand, in favour of his impartiality, that he does by no means spare the characters of those on his own side in politics; so little indeed, that for the credit of human nature we would hope, that he knew less of men and of business than he himself supposed.
xvii But whether his censures were just or unjust, Burnet himself, as it must be acknowledged even by his enemies, was an active and meritorious bishop, and, to the extent of his opportunities, a rewarder of merit in others. He was orthodox in points of faith, possessed superior talents, as well as very considerable learning; was an instructive and entertaining writer, in a style negligent indeed and inelegant, but almost always perspicuous; generous, open-hearted, and, in his actions, a good-natured man; and although busy and intrusive, at least as honest as the generality of partisans. It is true, that his conduct to the Duke of Lauderdale after the breach between them was, even in his own apprehension of it, objectionable; and he forfeited by it the favour of the royal brothers, Charles and James; who had before this time paid particular attention to him. His spleen and resentment against both these princes are apparent in every part of this history; except that his final portrait of the latter is less darkly shaded, than the harsh and hideous one which he has drawn of the former. It may be here observed, in contradiction to the report of Burnet and of several other writers, respecting the early reconciliation of Charles to the Church of Rome, that this event, as it appears from authentic accounts of the king's last moments, did not take place till a short time before his death.
2. Thus much concerning the notes on this work; and the accusation of wilful and deliberate falsehood brought against its author by the Lord Dartmouth and others. We proceed to give an account of the numerous passages omitted in the first folio volume by the original editors, and now restored to their proper places.
It is known to the readers of English history, that the
editors of this posthumous work, on the publication of
the first volume in 1724, promised to deposit the copy from
xviii
which it was printed in some public library; and they are
apprised, that in the beginning of the second volume,
printed in 1734, there appears the following declaration
with the signature of the bishop's youngest son, who was
afterwards Sir Thomas Burnet, and a judge. The original
manuscript of both volumes of this history will be deposited
in the Cotton library by T. Burnett.
The advertisement
in the former volume, which was the only one prefixed by
the editors to the work, is conceived in these terms. The
editors of the following history intend, for the satisfaction
of the public, to deposite the copy from which it is printed
(corrected and interlined in many places with the author's
own hand) in some public library, as soon as the second
volume shall be published.
Suspicions had very early arisen, nay, positive testimony had been adduced, that many passages of the original work were omitted by the editors in both the volumes (see note in vol. iv. p. 566); when at length, in the year 1795, the same person, who, according to our preceding statement, inserted the greater part of Swift's and a few of Speaker Onslow's notes, in the twenty-seventh volume of the European Magazine communicated together with them twelve passages of the text of Burnet, which, amongst numerous others, had been omitted by the editors of the first volume. They were, in all probability, published by him from either the Onslow or the Hardwicke copy of Burnet. He mentions the Hardwicke notes, although he has extracted none of them. It has been already stated, that the Hardwicke copy is missing, without hope it should seem of its recovery, and into this copy the Onslow notes had been transcribed, as those by the Earl of Hardwicke had been into the Onslow copy. Now apart from actual testimony, that the omissions were not confined to the first volume, it appeared extremely probable to us, that in xix proportion as the history drew nearer to their own times, the caution which dictated these omissions to the editors would acquire additional motives, and that as many, if not more, instances of suppression would be found to occur in the second volume.
We had therefore recourse to that noble repository of
literature and science, the British Museum, of which the
Cotton Library, as is generally known, forms a constituent
part. Henry Ellis, Esq., one of the librarians of that
institution, very obligingly complied with our request to
make the requisite search for this MS. and he subsequently
reported, that, after the most accurate examination, it did
not appear that it had ever been deposited in the library.
He added, that several collections of folio papers, written
in various hands, and at different times, contained an
imperfect copy of Bishop Burnet's History of his Own Times,
with many variations from the printed editions. That
some memorandums on a single sheet at the beginning of
this book, dated July 1699, are probably in the bishop's
hand, as are also many corrections in the history. Finally,
that Dr. Gififord has written several useful remarks in the
volume; among which is one, that
This
is the account with which we were favoured by Mr. Ellis.
It should be further observed, that the well-known fire, by
which the Cotton Library suffered considerable injury,
happened in 1731, three years before the promise was
publicly given of depositing the original MS. in that
library.
from many particulars
it appears, that the printed editions are not taken from
these loose papers: yet that though there is great variety
of expression, the substance is generally the same.
These circumstances considered, it is probable, that the same reasons which induced the editor or editors to omit certain passages in both volumes of the work, finally xx determined them, although pointedly expostulated with on the subject, to relinquish their purpose of placing the original MS. in an accessible library. It deserves notice, that in page 8 of the second letter addressed by Mr. Beach to Thomas Burnet, Esq., the writer asserts, that he had in his own possession an authentic and complete collection of the castrations. See Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, vol. i. p. 285. It is added by Beach, as we have been informed by a gentleman who inspected this second letter to the younger Burnet, as well as Sinclair's Remarks on the first letter, that these passages were also in the hands of several persons of distinction[8]. After all, we are induced by our recollection of the restored passages to think, that although they were unjustifiably omitted, because against the author's express injunctions in his last will, yet that it was not done by the editors through party considerations, but from a desire of abating the displeasure certain to be conceived against their father, by the friends or relations of those who suffered by the severity of his censure. The editors appear to have consulted their own feelings, in the omission of several traits in the character given by him of his uncle Warriston.
But it must not be omitted, that previously to the first publication of this work in 1724, some extracts from the former part of it, confessed to have been surreptitiously obtained during the author's life, were actually printed; none of which appear either in the edited work, or amongst the suppressed, and now restored passages of the first xxi volume[9]. In a tract found in the British Museum by a gentleman, who has done much for the literary history of this country, Dr. Philip Bliss, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, four passages are brought forward by the author of it, purporting to be extracts from Burnet's history. The title of the pamphlet is, A specimen of the Bishop of Sarum'ss Posthumous History of the Affairs of the Church and State of Great Britain during his life. By Robert Elliot, M.A., 3rd ed. London. 8vo, without date[10]. The publisher in his Preface says that he received the contents, consisting of extracts from Burnet's history, and copious remarks upon them, from Mr. Elliot, a deprived episcopal clergyman of Scotland. The extracts are asserted to have been privately made by Elliot, whilst employed together with others in transcribing a manuscript of the work lent by the author to Lord W.P. (perhaps Lord William Paulett). In support of the credibility of the account, it may be observed, that Lord Dartmouth, in a note at page 6, vol. i, mentions an offer made to himself by the author, of inspecting his history; a favour, his lordship adds, which the bishop had conferred on several others. Of these four extracts, the first is a relation of the murder of Archbishop Sharp, and although it agrees in substance with that in the edited copy, yet is much altered in point of expression. The three others contain very severe and acrimonious reflections on the English clergy.
It is observable, that in the Preface by Dr. Hickes to Three Treatises republished by him in 1709—some years before the death of Bishop Burnet—a part of the fourth xxii and last of these extracts is given in the very words produced by Elliot; and that Hickes says, he had seen a short specimen of the bishop's anecdot, perhaps communicated to him by this clergyman[11].
Dr. Bliss is of opinion, in case these extracts are authentic, that they were taken from a copy of Burnet's work in its first state, and before he altered, revised, and softened it. That they are genuine, many internal marks of authenticity lead us to suppose; over and above the circumstance, that, when Elliot, after finishing his extracts, proceeds to set down what he recollects of the substance of nine or ten other passages of the work, all that he produces has a perfect agreement with what was afterwards published as the bishop's. It is proper to remark in this place, that no additional charge of suppression or alteration can fairly be brought against the editors of Burnet's history in consequence of these extracts produced by Elliot, as they were made during the author's life, whilst he had the power of altering and revising his own work. On the other hand, against any suggestion, that the passages restored by us to the text had been in a similar way expunged or altered by the author himself, may be adduced the express testimony above referred to, that many things in the copy from which his work was printed, were omitted by the editors in both the volumes[12].
Before this account of the suppressed passages is entirely
concluded, we shall take notice, that amongst those which
are restored, there is one, in vol. i. p. 544, containing a
xxiii
severe attack on the character of King Charles I, chiefly
founded on that Prince's letters to the first Duke of
Hamilton, and on Bishop Burnet's acquaintance with the
Hamilton papers, the basis of his Memoirs of the two
dukes of that family. In favour of the king it ought first
to be stated, that the series of letters addressed to him by
the marquis, afterwards duke, of Hamilton, appears to
have formed no part of that collection of papers, Burnet
having in his Memoirs inserted few or none of them.
Again, that this nobleman so conducted himself in those
unhappy times, that he was always suspected by the
Royalists of treachery and treason against his benefactor
and sovereign; and was even charged upon oath with
having agents to raise vile reports to the dishonour of the
king and queen, and their whole court, as if it was a sink
of iniquity.
See, besides the histories of the times, two
tracts, one entitled Digitus Dei, p. 6, and the other the
Practices of the Hamiltons, p. 15, together with a note at
page 60 [ed. 1896] of this first volume of Burnet From
this source apparently originated a report unfavourable to
the character of the queen, whether true or untrue, which is
mentioned in a note by the Earl of Dartmouth, vol. i. p. 66.
Neither is any additional credit reflected on the Hamilton
papers themselves, in case they contained, according to the
assertion of some persons, the following incredible story.
That in the year 1640 the king sent a warrant to Sir William
Balfour, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, to execute
immediately the Earl of Loudon for the crime of high
treason, although, as it is well known it had formerly been
pardoned in consequence of a general act of grace; which
illegal warrant was to take effect without any previous
trial; and that Charles was diverted from insisting on
Balfour's obedience to the order, solely by the interference
of the Marquis of Hamilton. See the Conclusion of Birch's
xxiv
Inquiry into King Charles the First's Transactions with the
Earl of Glamorgan, Second Edition, where this tale is
brought forward against the king[13]. Let the Duke of
Hamilton however be heard in his own defence, and at the
same time in behalf of his royal master. In his speech
before his execution, this nobleman has the following expressions.
I take God to witness, that I have constantly
been a faithful subject and servant to his late majesty, in
spite of all malice and calumny. I have had the honour
since my childhood to attend and be near him, till now of
late, and during all that time I observed in him as eminent
virtues and as little vice, as in any man I ever knew.
Burnet's Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton, p. 398.
3. Thus much concerning the restored passages. To the notes of the Earls of Dartmouth and Hardwicke, Speaker Onslow, and Dean Swift, several others have been added, for the purpose of correction, and of fuller illustration. They are drawn principally from the professed answerers of Burnet, from the historians of particular xxv periods of our history, writers of memoirs and of scarce tracts, and occasionally from manuscript authorities. They were selected and appended to the text, whilst the press was going on, in the course of the last year; and will, it is hoped, as well as the strictures on some doctrines and opinions in the other annotations, appear to owe their situation in the following pages to a zeal for truth, sincere, at least, however mistaken. All these notes are interspersed with the others, and included within a parenthesis[14].
It is proper to apprise the reader, that Ralph's History of the three first reigns contained in Bishop Burnet's work, namely, those of Charles II, James II, and King William, was not procured for consultation before some part of the reign of James II was already printed. But this circumstance appeared afterwards to be of less consequence than the perusal of the latter part of the same history caused us to apprehend. This historian has obtained from Mr. Fox the praise of impartiality; which he well deserves[15].
It should also be here acknowledged, that a statement in Bishop Burnet's work at pp. 31, 32 of the first volume, ought to have been corrected from the Earl of Cromarty's Account of the Conspiracies of the Earls of Gowry, published before Burnet's death in the year 1713. The bishop affirms, that the last Earl of Gowry was descended through a daughter of Lord Methuen, from Margaret, daughter of xxvi King Henry the Seventh, although this king's daughter had in reality no issue, but what died in infancy, by her third husband, Henry, Lord Methuen, whom our author erroneously calls Francis Steward, father of a Lord Methuen. Gowry's grandmother was daughter of Henry, Lord Methuen, by his second wife, a daughter of the Earl of Athol, married to him after Margaret the Queen Dowager of Scotland's death. See the Earl of Cromarty's Account, pp. 8-12. As in this case the Earl of Gowry had no well-founded claim to the succession of the crown of England, if King James of Scotland were removed out of the way, he could scarcely be influenced by any such claim to attempt the assassination of that prince, according to the bishop's surmize, not sanctioned, as he himself owns, by any other historian.
On the other hand a confirmation of our author's testimony
has lately occurred, and the question, so ably discussed
by sergeant Heywood in his Vindication of Fox's Historical
Work, as to the conduct of General Monck during the
pending trial of the Marquis of Argyle, has been finally set
at rest. It now appears, on the authority of Sir George
Mackenzie, one of the assigned defenders of the marquis,
that Monck, when advertised of the scantiness of the
probation,
did actually transmit to Scotland several official
letters formerly received by him from the marquis for the
purpose of procuring that nobleman's condemnation. See
vol. i. p. 225, and Sir George Mackenzie's Memoirs of the
Affairs of Scotland, just published [1821], p. 4.
In printing the text of Burnet, the first edition has been followed, and the alterations of his style in those subsequent have been neglected. It is true, that in the title-page of the octavo edition printed in 1755, the whole work is said to have been revised and corrected by the editor, the bishop's son; but allowing this, the original MS. was still xxvii further departed from, than even in the folio edition. The few alterations which occur in the editor's Life of his father have been adopted.
The Index to the text of Burnet has been improved by Dr. Bliss, whose name we have already had occasion to mention; the other Index to the principal contents of the notes was entirely prepared by that gentleman[16].
The author finished his history of the reigns of Charles II and James II about the beginning of the eighteenth century: that of the reign of William, and of the former part of Queen Anne's reign in 1710. The continuation of the work to the conclusion of peace in 1713 was completed by him in that year; less than two years before his death. The present year 1823 is nearly the hundredth since the publication of the first volume in folio, comprising the two first reigns above mentioned, together with a summary of public affairs before the restoration. It appears to have excited more interest than the second volume, which followed in 1734, after an interval of ten years. But this is by no means to be wondered at, if besides taking into account the author's frequent relations in the subsequent volume of military and foreign affairs, amusive indeed, but brief and perfunctory, we consider the diminished influence of the good or ill qualities of individuals on the public events and transactions of this latter period.
The great influence which personal character had formerly on events, together with other causes, occasions the reign of Charles the First, in which the contest for political power commenced, to form the most interesting period of English history, whether we are disposed to triumph with the conquering party, or to espouse and commiserate the cause of high honour and suffering loyalty. The frequent xxviii and remarkable changes of government during the interregnum, as well as the singular and energetic character of the protector Cromwell, secure the attention of every reader. The disputes, which afterwards arose between an unprincipled, but good-humoured monarch, regardless alike of his own honour and the national interest, and a restless, violent, and merciless faction, are subjects of deep concern, on account of their melancholy results. At the same time, the mind feels consolation in the virtues of Ormond, Clarendon, and Southampton. And, notwithstanding the enormities of courtiers and anticourtiers, we reflect with pleasure on the freedom then first securely enjoyed, from every species of arbitrary taxation, and from extrajudicial imprisonment; on the provision made for the meeting of parliament once in three years at the least; in a word, on the possession of a constitution, which King William admired so much, that he professed himself afraid to improve it. The gloom of the next reign, ruined as its prospects were by folly and oppression, and finally closed by means of intrigue, falsehood, and intimidation, is in part enlivened by a view of the courageous and disinterested conduct of Sancroft, Hough, Dundee, Craven, and several others. Some of these persons, desirous of a parliamentary redress of grievances, thought, that instead of the force put upon the person of the king, an accommodation might and ought to have been effected with him; as he had a little before, when threatened with the just and open hostility of his subjects for his perversion of the law, and maintenance of a standing army, made very important concessions. Yet it may reasonably be doubted, whether a composition with a prince of his disposition and feeble judgement, whatever good qualities he was otherwise possessed of, would eventually have been lasting, or even reducible to practice. It was remarked, that the appeal made by him to his subjects xxix immediately after his retreat to another country, was signed by a secretary of state employed contrary to the intent at least of law.
Times had now passed, which were chequered with great virtues and great vices: but the reigns of William and Anne exhibit to the reader one uniform scene of venality and corruption; and the mind, instead of being interested, is disgusted with the contests of two parties for the government of the country, assuming, as it best suited their selfish purposes, each other's principles. The long contemplated change in the executive government was at length effected; its power being virtually transferred to combinations of persons possessed of great influence in parliamentary elections, and in parliament itself. Hence what has been called the practice of the constitution differed widely from its theory; and to this depression of the crown and of its direct power, occasioned by the almost constant sitting of parliament, were added maxims annihilating the will of the single person, and, in conjunction with other causes, finally subversive of all dutiful and affectionate attachment to authority. These maxims, not recognized as constitutional by Clarendon, Hale, or Locke, were advanced in order to colour and justify the alteration. A wider and more extensive field was now opened for the exertion of talents, contributing to the advancement of the individual, but often more hurtful than useful to the public. In these reigns also, contrary to every principle of justice, were laid the deep and broad foundations of a debt, which no other than the political system then adopted could have entailed on a nation. It ought still however to be remembered, that at, or soon after the revolution, a solemn recognition was made of the liberties of Englishmen; the power of dispensing with the laws was abrogated in all cases; the judges ceased to be dismissed at the sole xxx pleasure of the crown; a provision was made against the long continuance of parliaments; freedom of religious worship was secured to the great body of protestant dissenters; the important and necessary measure of a union with Scotland was effected; the liberty of the press established; trials for treason better regulated; and a more exact and impartial administration of justice generally introduced in the kingdom. These blessings, and all our constitutional rights, may God's providence, and a virtuous and independent spirit, preserve. Let us venerate the source of our freedom and happiness, the legal monarchy .of England, supporting it, when outraged by venal and prodigal factions, or threatened with subversion by reckless and usurping demagogues.
M.J.R.
I am now beginning to review and write over again the History of my own time, which I first undertook twenty years ago[1], and have been continuing it from year to year ever since: and I see some reason to review it all. I had while I was very young a greater knowledge of affairs than is usual at that age; for my father, who had been engaged in great friendships with men of both sides, living then retired from all business, as he took my education wholly into his own hands, so he took a sort of pleasure to relate to me the series of all public affairs. And as he was a man so eminent for probity and true piety that I had all reason to believe him, so I saw such an impartial sense of things in him, that I had as little reason to doubt his judgment as his sincerity. For though he adhered so firmly to the king and his side that he was the singular instance in Scotland of a man of some note, who, from the beginning to the end of the war, never once owned or submitted to the new forms of government set up all that xxxii while, yet he did very freely complain of the errors of the king's government, and of the bishops of Scotland. So that upon this foundation I set out first to look into the secret conduct of affairs among us.
I fell into great acquaintance and friendships with several persons who either were or had been ministers of state, from whom, when the secret of affairs was over, I studied to know as many particulars as I could draw from them[2]. I saw a great deal more among the papers of the dukes of Hamilton than was properly a part of their Memoirs, or fit to be told at that time: for when a licence was to be obtained, and a work was to be published fit for that family to own, things foreign to their ministry, or hurtful to any other families, were not to be intermixed with the account I then gave of the late wars. And now for above thirty years I have lived in such intimacy with all who have had the chief conduct of affairs, and have been so much trusted and on so many important occasions employed by them, that I have been able to penetrate far into the true secrets of and designs.
This made me twenty years ago write down a relation of all that I had known to that time: where I was in the dark, I past over all, and only opened those transactions that I had particular occasions to know. My chief design in writing was to give a true view of men and of counsels, leaving public transactions to gazettes and the public historians of the times. I writ with a design to make both my self and my readers wiser and better, and to lay open the good and the bad of all sides and parties, as clearly and impartially as I my self understood it, concealing nothing that I thought fit to be known, and representing things in their natural colours without art or disguise, without any regard to kindred or friends, to parties or interests. xxxiii
For I do solemnly say this to the world, and make my humble appeal upon it to the great God of truth, that I tell the truth on all occasions, as fully and freely as I upon my best inquiry have been able to find it out; where things appear doubtful, I deliver them with the same incertainty to the world.
Some may perhaps think, that, instead of favouring my own profession, I have been more severe upon them than was needful. But my zeal for the true interests of religion and of the clergy made me more careful to undeceive good and well meaning men of my own order and profession for the future, and to deliver them from common prejudices and mistaken notions, than to hide or excuse the faults of those who will be perhaps gone off the stage before this work appears on it. I have given the characters of men very impartially and copiously; for nothing guides one's judgment more truly in a relation of matters of fact than the knowing the tempers and principles of the chief actors[3].
If I have dwelt too long on the affairs of Scotland, some allowance is to be made to the affection all men bear to their native country[4]. I alter nothing of what I wrote in xxxiv the first draught of this work, only I have left out a great deal that was personal to my self, and to those I am descended from: so that this is upon the matter the same work, with very little change made in it.
I a look on the perfecting of this work, and the carrying it on through the remaining part of my life, as the greatest service I can do both to God and to the world; and therefore I set about it 2 with great care and caution. For I reckon a lie in history to be as much a greater sin than a lie in common discourse, as the one is like to be more lasting and more generally known than the other. I find that the long experience I have had of the baseness, the malice, and the falsehood of mankind, has inclined me to be apt to think generally the worst both of men and of parties: and indeed the peevishness, the ill nature, and the ambition of many hot clergymen, has sharpened my spirit perhaps too much against them: so I warn my reader to take all that I say on these heads with some grains of allowance, though I have watched over my self and my pen so carefully that I hope there is no great occasion for this apology.
I have shewed this history to several of my friends[5], who were either very partial to me, or they esteemed that this work (chiefly when it should be over and over again retouched and polished[6] by me,[7] which very probably I shall be doing as long as I live[8]) might prove of some use to the world. I have on design avoided all laboured periods or artificial strains, and have writ in as clear and plain a style as was possible, choosing rather a copious enlargement than a dark conciseness.
And now, O my God, the God of my life and of all my mercies, I offer up this work to Thee, to whose honour it is chiefly intended; that thereby I may awaken the world to just reflections on their own errors and follies, and call on them to acknowledge thy providence, to adore it, and ever to depend on it.
1The mischiefs of civil wars are so great and lasting, and the effects of ours branching themselves out by many accidents that were not thought on at first, much less intended, into such mischievous consequences, [that] I have thought it an enquiry that might be of great use both to prince and people, to look carefully into the first beginnings and occasions of them, to observe their progress, and the errors of both hands, the provocations that were given, and the jealousies that were raised by these, together with the excesses into which both sides have run by turns. And though the wars be over long ago, yet since they have left among us so many seeds of lasting feuds and animosities, which upon every turn are apt to ferment and to break out anew, it will be an useful as well as a pleasant enquiry 4 to look back to the first original of them, and to observe by what degrees and accidents they gathered strength, and at last broke forth into such a flame.
The Reformation of Scotland was popular and parliamentary: the crown was during that time either on the head of a queen that was absent, or of a king that was an infant. During his minority matters were carried on by the several regents, so as was most agreeable to the prevailing humour of the nation. But when king James grew to be of age, he found two parties in the kingdom: the one was of those who wished well to the interests of the queen his mother, then a prisoner in England; these were either professed papists, or men believed to be indifferent as to all religions: the rest were her inveterate enemies, zealous for the Reformation, and fixed in a dependence on the crown of England and a jealousy of France. When that king saw that those who were most in his interests were likewise jealous of his authority, and apt to encroach upon it , he hearkened first to the insinuations of his mother's party, who were always infusing in him a jealousy of these his friends, and saying, that by ruining his mother and setting him in her room while a year old, they had ruined monarchy, and made the crown subject and precarious, and had put him in a very unnatural posture of being seised of his mother's crown while she was in exile and a prisoner; adding, that he was but a king in name, the power being in the hands of those who were under the management of the queen of England.
Their insinuations would have been of less force if the House of Guise[2] who were his cosin-germans, had not been then engaged in great designs, of transferring the crown of France from the House of Bourbon to themselves; in order to which it was necessary to embroil England, and to draw the king of Scotland into their interests. So under the pretence of keeping up the old alliances between 5 France and Scotland, they sent creatures of their own to be ambassadors there; and they also sent a graceful young man[3], who, as he was the king's nearest kinsman by his father, was of so agreeable a temper that he became his favourite, and was made by him duke of Lennox. He was known to be a papist, though he pretended he changed his religion, and became in profession a protestant.
3 The court of England discovered all these artifices of the Guisians, who were then the most implacable enemies of the Reformation, and were managing all that train of plots against queen Elizabeth that in conclusion proved fatal to the queen of Scots. And when the English ministers saw the inclinations of the young king lay so strongly that way that all their applications to gain him were ineffectual, they infused such a jealousy of him into all their party in Scotland, that both nobility and clergy were much alarmed at it. 6
But king James learnt early that piece of kingcraft[4], of disguising, or at least denying, every thing that was observed in his behaviour that gave offence.
The main instance in which the French management appeared was, that he could not be prevailed on to enter into any treaty of marriage. It was not safe to talk of marrying a papist; and as long as the duke of Guise lived, the king, though then three and twenty, and the only person of his family, would hearken to no proposition for marrying a protestant.
But when the duke of Guise was killed at Blois, and that Henry the third was murdered soon after, so that Henry the fourth came in his room, king James was no more in a French management: so presently after he married a daughter of Denmark, and ever after that he was wholly managed by queen Elizabeth and her ministers[5]. I have seen many letters among Walsingham's papers that discover the commerce between the House of Guise and him [king James]; but the most valuable of these is a long paper of instructions to one sir Richard Wigmore[6], a great man for hunting and for all such sports, to which king James was out of measure addicted 3[7]. The queen affronted him publicly, upon which he pretended he could live no 7 longer in England, and therefore withdrew to Scotland. But all this was a contrivance of Walsingham's, who thought him a fit person to get into that king's favour: so that affront was designed to give him the more credit. He was very particularly instructed in all the proper methods to gain upon the king's confidence, and to observe and give an account of all he saw in him: which he did very faithfully. By these instructions it appears that Walsingham thought that king was either inclined to turn papist or to be of no religion. And when the court of England saw that they could not depend on him, they raised all possible opposition to him in Scotland, infusing strong jealousies into those who were enough inclined to receive them.
This is the great defect that runs through archbishop Spotswood's history[8], where much of the rude opposition that king met with, particularly from the assemblies of the Kirk, is set forth; but the true ground of all the jealousies they were possessed with is suppressed by him. After his marriage the king studied to remove these suspicions all that was possible; and he granted the Kirk all the laws they desired, and got his temporal authority to be better established than it was before: yet as the jealousies of his fickleness in religion were never quite removed, so the party gave him many new disgusts: this wrought in him a most inveterate hatred of presbytery and of the power of the Kirk; and he, fearing an opposition in his succeeding to the crown of England from the popish party, which, though it had little strength in the House of Commons, yet was very great in the House of Lords, and was very considerable in all the northern parts, and among the body of the people, employed several persons who were known to 8 be papists, though they complied outwardly. The chief of these were Elphinstone, secretary of state, whom he made lord Balmerino, and Seaton, afterwards chancellor and earl of Dunfermline; by their means he studied to assure the papists that he would connive at them. A letter was also writ to the pope by him, giving him assurance of this, which when it came to be published by Bellarmine, upon the prosecution of the recusants after the discovery of the gunpowder plot, Balmerino did affirm that he out of zeal to the king's service got his hand to it, having put it in a the bundle a of papers that were signed in course, without the king's knowing any thing of it[9]. Yet when that discovery drew no other severity on the secretary, but the turning him out of office, and the passing a sentence condemning him to die for it (which was presently pardoned, and he was after a short confinement restored to his liberty), all men believed that the king knew of the letter, and that the pretended confession of the secretary was only collusion to lay the jealousies of the king's favouring popery, which still hung upon him, notwithstanding his writing on the Revelation, and his affecting to enter on all occasions into controversy, asserting in particular that the pope was antichrist.
As he took these methods to manage the popish party, he was much more careful to secure to himself the body of the English nation. Cecil, afterwards earl of Salisbury, secretary to queen Elizabeth, entered into a particular confidence with him: and this was managed by his ambassador Bruce[10], a younger brother of a noble family in Scotland, 9 who carried 4 the matter with such address and secrecy, that all the great men of England, without knowing of one another's doing it, and without the queen's suspecting any thing concerning it, signed in writing an engagement to assert and stand by the king of Scots right of succession. This great service was rewarded by making him Master of the Rolls, and a peer of Scotland: and as the king did raise Cecil and his friends to the greatest posts and dignities, so he raised Bruce's family here in England[11].
When that king came to the crown of England he discovered his inveterate hatred to the Scottish Kirk on many occasions, in which he gratified his resentment without consulting his interests[12]. He ought to have put his utmost strength to the finishing what he did but faintly begin for the union of both kingdoms, which was lost by his unreasonable partiality in pretending that Scotland ought to be considered in this union as the third part of the isle of Great Britain, if not more[13]: so high a demand ruined the design. 10 But when that failed him, he should then have studied to keep the affections of that nation firm to him: and certainly his being secured of that kingdom might have been so managed as to have prevented that disjointing which happened afterwards both in his own reign, and more tragically in his son's. He thought to effect this by his profuse bounty to many of the nobility of that kingdom, and to his domestic servants: but as most of these settling in England were of no further use to him in that design, so his setting up episcopacy in Scotland, and his constant aversion to the Kirk, how right soever it might be in itself, was a great error in policy; for the poorer that kingdom was, it was both the more easy to gain them, and the more dangerous to offend them. So the terror which the affections of the Scotch nation might have justly given the English was soon lost, by his engaging his whole government to support that which was then very contrary to the bent and genius of the nation.
But though he set up bishops, he had no revenues to give them but what he was to purchase for them. During his minority, all the tithes and the church lands were vested in the crown: but this was only in order to the granting them away to the men that bore the chief sway[14]. It is true, when he came of age, he, according to the law of Scotland, past a general revocation of all that had been done in his infancy: and by this he could have resumed all those grants. He, and after him his son, succeeded in one part of his design: for by Act of Parliament[15] a court was erected that was to examine the state of the tithes in every parish, and to make a competent provision out of a third part to those who served the cure; which had been reserved in the great alienation for the service of the church. 11 This was carried at first to a proportion of about thirty pound a year, and was afterwards in his son's time raised to about fifty pound a year; which, considering the plenty, and way of living in that country, is a very liberal provision, and is equal in value to thrice that sum in the southern parts of England. In this he had both the clergy and the body of the people on his side; but he could not so easily provide for the bishops. They were at first forced to hold their former cures, with some small addition.
But as they assumed at their first setting out little more authority than that of a constant president of the presbyters, so they met with much rough opposition. The king intended to carry on a conformity in matters of religion with England, and he began to buy in from the grantees many of the estates that belonged to the bishoprics. It was also enacted that a form of prayer should be drawn for Scotland: and the king was authorized to appoint the habits in which the divine offices were to be performed. Some of the chief holydays were ordered to be observed; the sacrament was to be received kneeling, and to be given to the sick. Confirmation was enacted; as also the use of the cross in baptism. These things[15a] were first past in General Assemblies, which were composed of bishops and the deputies chosen by the clergy, who sat all in one house: and in it they reckoned the bishops only as single votes. Great opposition was made to all these steps: and the whole force of the government was strained to carry elections to those meetings, or to take off those who were chosen; in which it was thought that no sort of practice was omitted. It was pretended that some were frighted, and others were corrupted.
The bishops themselves did their part very ill[16]. They generally grew haughty: they neglected their functions, and 12 were often at court, and lost all esteem with the people. Some few that were stricter and more learned did lean so grossly to popery, that the heat and violence of the Reformation became the main subject of their sermons and discourses. King James grew weary of this opposition, or was so 5 apprehensive of the ill effects that it might have, that, what through sloth or fear, and what by reason of the great disorder into which his ill conduct brought his affairs in England in his latter years, he went no further in his designs on Scotland.
He had three children. His eldest, prince Henry, was a prince of great hopes; but so very little like his father, that he was rather feared than loved by him. He was so zealous a protestant, that, when his father was entertaining propositions of marrying him to popish princesses[17], once to the archduchess, and at another time to a daughter of Savoy, he in a letter that he wrote to the king on the twenty-second of that October in which he died (the original of which sir William Cook shewed me), desired that if his father married him that way, it might be with the youngest person of the two, of whose conversion he might have hope, and that any liberty she might be allowed for her religion might be in the privatest manner possible. Whether this aversion to popery hastened his death or not, I cannot tell. Colonel Titus[18] assured me that he had it from 13 king Charles the first's own mouth, that he was well assured of it that he was poisoned by the earl of Somerset's means. It is certain that from the time of the gunpowder plot king James was so struck with the terror of that danger he was then so near, that ever after he had no mind to provoke the Jesuits; for he saw what they were capable of.
And since I name that conspiracy which the papists in our days have had the impudence to deny[19], and to pretend it was an artifice of Cecil's to engage some desperate men into a plot, which he managed so that he could discover it when he pleased, I will mention what I my self saw, and had for some time in my possession. Sir Everard Digby suffered for that conspiracy: he was the father of the famous sir Kenelm Digby. The family being ruined upon the death of sir Kenelm's son, when the executors were looking out for writings to make out the title of the estates they were to sell[20], and were directed by an old servant to a cupboard that was very artificially hid, in which some papers lay, that she had observed sir Kenelm was oft reading, they, looking into it, found a velvet bag, within which there were two other silk bags: (so carefully were those relics kept:) and there was within these a collection of all the letters that sir Everard writ during his imprisonment. In these he expresses great trouble, because he heard some of their friends blamed their undertaking: he highly magnifies it; and says, if he had many lives, he would willingly have sacrificed them all in carrying it on. In one paper he says, they had taken that care that there 14 were not above two or three worth saving to whom they had not given notice to keep out of the way: and in none of those papers does he express any sort of remorse for that which he had been engaged in, and for which he suffered.
Upon the discovery of that plot, there was a general prosecution of all papists set on foot: but king James was very uneasy at it: which was much increased by what sir Dudley Carleton told him upon his return from Spain, where he had been ambassador[21]; which I had from the lord Holles, who said to me that Carleton told it to himself, and was much troubled when he saw it had an effect contrary to what he had intended. When he came home, he found the king at Theobald's hunting in a very careless and unguarded manner: and upon that, in order to the putting him on a more careful looking to himself, he told the king he must either give over that way of hunting, or stop another hunting that he was engaged in, which was priest hunting: for he had intelligence in Spain that the priests were comforting themselves with this, that if he went on 15 against them they would soon get rid of him. Queen Elizabeth was a woman of form, and was always so well attended. that all their plots against her failed, and were never brought to any effect: but a prince who was always in woods or forests would be easily overtaken. The king sent for him in private to inquire more particularly into this: and he saw it had made a great impression on him, but wrought otherwise than as he intended. For the king, resolving to gratify his humour in hunting, and in a careless and irregular way of life, did immediately order all that prosecution to be let fall. I have the minutes of the council books of the year 1606, which are full of orders to discharge and transport priests, sometimes ten in a day. From thence to his dying day he continued always writing and talking against popery, but acting for it. He married his only daughter to a protestant prince, one of the most zealous and sincerest, but one of the weakest, of them all, the elector palatine; upon which a great revolution happened in the affairs of Germany. The eldest branch of the house of Austria retained some of the impressions that their father Maximilian the second studied to infuse into them, who, as he was certainly one of the best and wisest princes of these latter ages, so he was unalterably fixed in 6 his opinion against persecution for matters of conscience: his own sentiments were so very favourable to the protestant doctrine that he was thought inwardly theirs. His brother Charles of Gratz was on the other hand wholly managed by the Jesuits, was a zealous patron of theirs, and as zealously supported by them. Rodolph and Matthias[22] reigned one after another, but without issue; their brother Albert was then dying in Flanders: so Spain with the whole popish interest joined to advance Ferdinand, the son of Charles of Gratz: and he forced Matthias to resign the crown of Bohemia to him, and got himself to be elected king. But his government became quickly severe: he resolved to extirpate the protestants, and began to 16 break through the privileges that were secured to them by the laws of that kingdom.
This occasioned a general insurrection, which was followed by an assembly of the states, who, together with those of Silesia, Moravia, and Lusatia, joined in deposing Ferdinand: and they offered their crown first to the duke of Saxony, who refused it, and then to the elector palatine, who accepted of it, being encouraged to it by his two uncles, Maurice prince of Orange, and the duke of Bouillon. But he did not ask the advice of king James: he only gave him notice of it when he had accepted the offer. Here was the probablest occasion that has been offered since the Reformation for its full establishment.
The English nation was much inclined to support it: and it was expected that so near a conjunction might have prevailed on the king: but he had an invincible aversion to war; and was so possessed of the opinion of a divine right in all kings that he could not bear that even an elective and limited king should be called in question by his subjects: so he would never acknowledge his son-in-law king, nor give him any assistance for the support of his new dignity[23]. And though it was also reckoned on, that France would enter into any design that should bring down the house of Austria, and Spain by consequence, yet even that was diverted by the means of De Luines[24]; a worthless but absolute favourite, whom the archduchess Isabella, princess of the Spanish Netherlands, gained to oblige the king [of France] into a neutrality by giving him the richest heiress then in Flanders, the daughter of Pecquigny, left to her disposal, whom he married to his brother. 17 Thus poor Frederick was left without any assistance. The jealousy that the Lutherans had of the ascendant that the Calvinists might gain by this accession had an unhappy share in the coldness which all the princes of that confession shewed towards him. Saxony only declared for Ferdinand, who likewise engaged the duke of Bavaria[25] at the head of a catholic league to maintain his interests. Maurice prince of Orange had embroiled Holland by the espousing the controversy about the decrees of God in opposition to the Arminian party, and by erecting a new and illegal court by the authority of the States General to judge of the affairs of the province of Holland; which was plainly contrary to their constitution, by which every province is an entire sovereignty within itself, not at all subordinate to the States General, who act only as the plenipotentiaries of the several provinces to maintain their union and their common concerns by that assembly. Barneveldt was condemned and executed: Grotius and others were condemned to perpetual imprisonment: and an assembly of the ministers of the several provinces met at Dort by the same authority, and condemned and deprived the Arminians[26]. Maurice his enemies gave out that he managed all this on design to make himself master of the provinces, and to put those who were like to oppose him out of the way. But though this seems a wild and groundless imagination, and not possible to be compassed, yet it is certain that he looked on Barneveldt and his party as men who were so jealous of him and of a military power, that as they had forced the truce with Spain, so they would be very unwilling to begin a new war; though the dispute about 18 Juliers and Cleves had almost engaged them, and the truce was now near expiring; at the end of which he hoped, if delivered from the opposition that he might look [for] from that party, to begin the war anew. By these means there was a great fermentation over all the provinces, so that Maurice was not then in condition to give the elected king any considerable assistance; though indeed he needed it much, for his conduct was very weak. He affected the grandeur of a regal court and the magnificence of a crowned head too early: and his queen set up some of the gay diversions that she had been accustomed to in her father's court, such as balls and masks, which very much disgusted the good Bohemians, who thought that a revolution made on the account of religion ought to have put on a greater appearance of seriousness and simplicity. 7. These particulars I had from the children of some who belonged to that court. The elected king was quickly overthrown, and driven not only out of those his new dominions but likewise out of his hereditary countries. He fled to Holland, where he ended his days. I will go no further in a matter so well known as king James's ill conduct in the whole series of that war, and that unheard-of practice of sending his only son through France into Spain, of which the relations we have are so full that I can add nothing to them.
I will only here tell some particulars with relation to Germany that Fabricius, the wisest divine I knew among them, told me he had from Charles Lewis[27] the elector palatine's own mouth. He said, Frederic the 2d. who first reformed the palatinate, whose life is so curiously writ by Thomas Hubert of Liège[28], was resolved to shake off popery, and to set up Lutheranism in his country: but 19 a counsellor of his laid before him, that the Lutherans would always depend chiefly on the house of Saxony: so it would not become him who was the first elector to be only the second in the party. It was more for his dignity to become Calvinist: he would be the head of that party: it would give him a great interest in Switzerland, and make the Huguenots of France and in the Netherlands depend on him. He was by that determined to declare for the Helvetian confession. But upon the ruin of their family the duke of Neuburg had an interview with the elector of Brandenburg about their concerns in Juliers and Cleves: and he persuaded that elector to turn Calvinist; for since their family was fallen, nothing would more contribute to raise the other than the espousing that side, which would naturally come under his protection: but he added, that for himself he had turned papist, since his little principality lay so near both Austria and Bavaria[29]. This that elector told with a sort of pleasure, when he made it appear that other princes had no more sense of religion than he himself had.
Other circumstances concurred to make king James's reign so inglorious. The States having borrowed great sums of money of queen Elizabeth, they gave her the Brill and Flushing, with some other places of less note, as pawns, till the money should be repaid. Soon after his coming to the crown of England he entered into secret treaties with Spain[30], in order to the forcing the States to a peace: one article was, that if they were obstinate he would deliver up 20 these places to the Spaniards. When the truce was made, Barneveldt, though he had promoted it, yet knowing this secret article, he saw they were very unsafe while the keys of Holland and Zealand were in the hands of a prince who might perhaps sell them or make an ill use of them: so he persuaded the States to redeem the mortgage by repaying the money that England had lent, for which these places were put in their hands: and he came over himself to treat about it. King James, who was profuse upon his favourites and servants, was delighted with the prospect of so much money; and immediately, without calling a parliament to advise with them about it, he did yield to the proposition. So the money was paid, and the places were evacuated; an action more to be commended for its honesty than wisdom. But his profuseness drew two other things upon him, which broke the whole authority of the crown, and the dependence of the nation upon it. The crown had a great estate over all England, which was all let out upon leases for years, and a small rent was reserved. So most of the great families of the nation were the tenants of the crown, and a great many boroughs were depending on the estates so held. The renewal of these leases brought in fines both to the crown and to the great officers: besides that the fear of being denied a renewal kept all in dependence on the court. King James obtained of his parliament a power of granting, that is selling, those estates for ever, with the reserve of the old quit-rent[31]: and all the money raised by this was profusely squandered away. Another main part of the regal authority was the wards, which anciently the crown took into their own management. Our kings were, according to the first institution, the 21 guardians of these wards[32]: they bred them up in their court, and disposed of them in marriage as they thought fit. Afterwards they compounded or forgave them, or gave them to some branches of the family, or to provide the younger children. But they proceeded in this very gently: and the chief care after the reformation was to breed the wards protestants. Still all were under a great dependence by this means; much money was not raised this way, but families were often at mercy, and were used according to their behaviour. 8 King James granted these generally to his servants and favourites, and they made the most of them. So that what was before a dependence on the crown, and was moderately compounded for, became then a most exacting oppression, by which several families were ruined. This went on in king Charles's time in the same method. Our kings thought they gave little when they disposed of a ward, because they made little of these. All this raised such an outcry, that Mr. Pierpoint at the Restoration gathered so many instances of these and represented them so effectually to that house of commons that called home king Charles the second, that he persuaded them to redeem themselves by an offer of excise, which produces indeed a much greater revenue, but took away the dependence in which all families were held by the dread of leaving their heirs exposed to so great a danger. Pierpoint valued himself to me upon this service he did his country, at a time when the thing was so little considered on either hand, that the court did not seem to apprehend the value of that they parted with, nor the country the value of that they purchased[33]. 22
Besides these public actings, king James suffered much in the opinion of all people by his strange way of using one of the greatest men of that age, sir Walter Raleigh; 1618. against whom the proceeding at first was much censured, but the last part of them was thought both barbarous and illegal. The whole business of Somerset's rise and fall, the matter of the countess of Essex and Overbury, the putting the inferior persons to death for that infamous poisoning and the sparing the principals, both Somerset and his lady, were so odious and inhuman, that it quite sunk the reputation of a reign that on many other accounts was already much exposed to contempt and censure, which was the more sensible because it succeeded such a glorious and happy one[34]. In the end of James's reign he was become 23 weary of the duke of Buckingham, who treated him with such an air of insolent contempt that he seemed at last resolved to throw it off, but could not think of taking the load of government on himself, and so resolved to bring in the earl of Somerset again into favour, as that lord himself reported it to some from whom I had it. He met him in the night in the gardens at Theobald's: two bed-chamber men were only in the secret. The king embraced him tenderly, and with many tears[35] complained how ill he was used. The earl of Somerset believed the secret was not well kept; for soon after the king was taken with some fits of an ague, and died of it.. My father was then in London, and did very much suspect an ill practice in the matter: but perhaps doctor Craig, my mother's uncle, d who was one of the king's physicians, possessed him with these apprehensions; for he was disgraced for saying he believed the king was poisoned. It is certain no king could die less lamented or less esteemed than he was. This sunk the credit of the bishops of Scotland, who, as they were his creatures, so they were obliged to a great dependence on him, and were thought guilty of gross and abject flattery towards him. His reign in England was a continued course of mean practices. The first condemnation of sir W. Raleigh, one of the greatest men of the age, was very black: but the executing him after so many years, and after an employment that had been given him, was counted a barbarous sacrificing him to the Spaniards. The rise and fall of the earl of Somerset, and the swift progress 24 of the duke of Buckingham's greatness, were things that exposed him to the censures of all the world. I have seen the originals of about twenty letters that he wrote to the prince and that duke while they were in Spain, which shew a meanness as well as a fondness that render him very contemptible. The great figure the crown of England had made in queen Elizabeth's time, who had rendered herself the arbiter of Christendom and the wonder of the age, was so much eclipsed, if not quite darkened, during this reign, that king James was become the scorn of the age; and while hungry writers flattered him out of measure at home, he was despised by all abroad as a pedant without true judgment, courage, or steadiness, subject to his favourites, and delivered up to the counsels, or rather the corruption, of Spain[36].
The puritans gained credit as the king and the bishops lost it[37]. They put on external appearance of great strictness and gravity: they took more pains in their parishes than those who adhered to the bishops, and were often preaching against the vices of the court; for which they were sometimes punished, though very gently, which raised their reputation, and drew presents to them that made up their sufferings abundantly. They began some particular methods of getting their people to meet privately with them: and in these meetings they gave great vent to extemporary prayer, which was looked on as a sort of inspiration: and by these means they grew very popular. They were very factious and insolent; and both in their sermons and prayers were always mixing severe reflections on their enemies. Some of them boldly gave out very many predictions; particularly two of them who were held 25 prophets, Davison and Bruce[38]. Some of the things that they foretold came to pass: but my father, who knew them both, told me of many of their predictions that he himself heard them throw out, which had no effect: but all these were forgot, and if some more probable guessings which they delivered as prophecies were accomplished, these were much magnified. They were very spiteful against all those who differed from them; and were wanting in no methods that could procure them either good usage or good presents. Of this my father had great occasion to see many instances: for my great grandmother, 9 who was a very rich woman, and much engaged to them, was most obsequiously courted by them. Bruce lived concealed in her house for some years: and they all found such advantages in their submissions to her, that she was counted for many years the chief support of the party: her name was Rachel Arnot. She was daughter to sir John Arnot, a man in great favour, and lord treasurer depute. Her husband Johnston was the greatest merchant at that time; and left her an estate of 2000l. a year, to be disposed of among his children as she pleased: and my father marrying her eldest grandchild saw a great way into all the methods of the puritans.
Cowrie's conspiracy was by them charged on the king, as a contrivance of his to get rid of that earl, who was then held in great esteem: but my father, who had taken great pains to inquire into all the particulars of that matter, did always believe it was a real conspiracy[39]. One thing, 26 which none of the historians have taken any notice of, might have induced the earl of Gowrie to put king James out of the way, but in such a disguised manner that he should seem rather to have escaped out of a snare than to have laid one for the king. Upon the king's death he stood next to the succession to the crown of England[40]; for king Henry the seventh's daughter that was married to king James the fourth did after his death marry Douglas earl of Angus: but they could not agree: so a precontract was proved against him, upon which, by a sentence from Rome, the marriage was voided, with a clause in favour of the issue, since born under a marriage de facto and bona fide. Lady Margaret Douglas was the child so provided for. I did peruse the original bull confirming the divorce. After that, the queen dowager married one Francis Stewart, and had by him a son made lord Methven by king James the fifth. In the patent he is called frater noster uterinus. He had only a daughter, who was mother or grandmother to this earl of Gowrie: so that by this he might be glad to put the king out of the way, that so he might stand next to the succession of the crown of England. He had a brother then a child, who when he grew up and found he could not carry the name of Ruthven, which by an act of parliament made after this conspiracy none might carry, he went and lived beyond sea; and it was given out that he had the philosopher's stone. He had two sons, who died without issue; and one daughter, married to 27 sir Anthony Vandyke the famous picture drawer[41], who according to this pedigree stood very near the succession of the crown. It was not easy to persuade the nation of the truth of that conspiracy: for eight years before that time king James, on a secret jealousy of the earl of Murray, then esteemed the handsomest man of Scotland, set on the marquis of Huntly, who was his mortal enemy, to murder him; and by a writing[42], all in his own hand, he promised to save him harmless for it. He set the house in which he was on fire: and the earl flying away was followed and murdered, and Huntly sent Gordon of Buckey with the news to the king. All who were concerned in that vile fact were pardoned, which laid the king open to much censure. And this made the matter of Gowrie to be the less believed.
When king Charles succeeded to the crown, he was at first thought favourable to the puritans; for his tutor and all his court were of that way[1]: and Dr. Preston, then 28 the head of the party, came up in the coach from Theobald's to London with the king and the duke of Buckingham; which being against the rules of the court gave great offence: but it was said, the king was so overcharged with grief that he wanted the comfort of so wise and so great a man. It was also given out that the duke of Buckingham offered Preston the great seal: but he was wiser than to accept of it[2]. I will go no further into the beginning of that reign with relation to English affairs, which are fully opened by others; only I will tell one particular which I had from the earl of Lothian[3], who was bred up in this court, and whose father, the earl of Ancram, was gentleman of the bedchamber, though he himself was ever much hated by the king. He told me, that king Charles was much offended with king James's light and familiar way, which was the effect of hunting and drinking, on which occasions he was very apt to forget his dignity, and to break out into great indecencies: on the other hand the solemn gravity of the court of Spain was more suited to his own temper, which was sullen even to a moroseness 29 This led him to a grave reserved deportment, in which he forgot the civilities and the affability that the nation naturally loved, and to which they had been long accustomed: nor did he in his outward deportment take 10 any pains to oblige any persons whatsoever: so far from that, he had such an ungracious way of shewing favour that the manner of bestowing it was almost as mortifying as the favour was obliging. I turn now to the affairs of Scotland, which are but little known[4].
The king resolved to carry on the two designs that his father had set on foot, but had let the prosecution of them fall in the last years of his reign. The first of these was about the recovery of the tithes and church lands. He resolved to prosecute his father's revocation, and to void all the grants made in his minority[5]; and to create titular abbots as lords of parliament, but lords as bishops only for life . And that the two great families of Hamilton and Lennox might be good examples to the rest of the nation, he, by a secret purchase and with English money, bought the abbey of Aberbroth of the former, and the lordship of Glasgow of the latter, and gave these to the two archbishoprics. These lords made a shew of zeal after a good bargain, and surrendered them to the king[6]. He also 30 purchased several estates of less value to the several sees; and all men who pretended to favour at court offered their church lands to sale at low rates.
In the third year of his reign the earl of Nithisdale[7], then believed a papist, which he afterwards professed, having married a niece of the duke of Buckingham's, was sent down with a power to take the surrenders of all church lands, and to assure all who did readily surrender that the king would take it kindly, and use them all very well, but that he would proceed with all rigour against those who would not submit their rights to his disposal. Upon his coming down, those who were most concerned in those grants met at Edinburgh, and agreed that when they were called together, if no other argument did prevail to make the earl of Nithisdale desist, they would fall upon him and all his party in the old Scotch manner, and knock them on the head. Primrose[8] told me one of these lords, Belhaven, of the name of Douglas, who was blind, bid them set him by one of the party, and he should make sure of one[9]. So 31 he was set next the earl of Dumfries: he was all the while holding him fast: and when the other asked him what he meant by that, he said, ever since the blindness was come on him he was in such fear of falling, that he could not help the holding fast to those who were next him: he had all the while a poinard in his other hand, with which he had certainly stabbed Dumfries, if any disorder had happened. The appearance at that time was so great, and so much heat was raised upon it, that the earl of Nithisdale would not open all his instructions, but came back to court, looking on the service as desperate. So a stop was put to it for some time. In the year 1633 the king came down in person to be crowned. In some conventions of the states that had been held before that, all the money that the king had asked was given; and some petitions were offered setting forth grievances, which those whom the king employed had assured them should be redressed: but nothing was done, and all was put off till the king should come down in person. His entry and coronation were managed with such magnificence, that the country suffered much by it: all was entertainment and shew[10]. When the parliament sat, the lords of the articles[11] prepared an act declaring the royal prerogative as it had been asserted by law in the year 1606; to which an addition was made of another act passed in the year 1609, by which king James was impowered to prescribe apparel to churchmen with their own consent. This was a personal thing to king James, in consideration of his great learning and experience, of which he had made no use during the rest of his reign. And in the year 1617, when he held a parliament there in person, an act was 32 prepared by the lords of the articles, authorizing all things that should thereafter be determined in ecclesiastical affairs by his majesty, with consent of a competent number of the clergy, to have the strength and power of a law. But the king either apprehended that great opposition would be made to the passing the act, or that great trouble would follow on the execution of it: so when the rubric of the act was read, he ordered it to be suppressed, though passed in the articles. In this act of 1633 these acts of 1606 and 1609 were drawn into one. To this great opposition was made by the earl of Rothes, who desired the acts might be divided: but the king said it was now one act, and he must either vote for it or against it. He said he was for the prerogative as much as any man, but that addition was contrary to the liberties of the church, and he thought no determination ought to be made in such matters without the consent of the clergy, at least without their being heard. The king bid him argue no more, but give his vote: so he voted not content. Some few lords offered to argue: but the king stopped them[12], and commanded them to vote. Almost the whole commons voted in the negative: so that the act was indeed rejected by the majority: which the 11 king knew, for he had called for a list of the numbers, and with his own pen had marked every man's vote: yet the clerk of register, who gathers and declares the votes, said it was carried in the affirmative. Rothes affirmed it went for the negative: so the king said, the clerk of register's declaration must be held good, unless Rothes would go to the bar, and accuse him of falsifying the record of parliament, which was capital: and in that case, if he should fail in the proof, he was liable to the same punishment. But the earl of Rothes would not venture on that. Thus the act was published, though in truth it was rejected. 33 The king expressed a high displeasure at all who had concurred in that opposition. Upon that the lords had many meetings: they reckoned that now all their liberties were gone, and a parliament was but a piece of pageantry, if the clerk of register might declare as he pleased how the vote went, and that no scrutiny were allowed. Upon that, Haig[13], the king's solicitor, a zealous man of that party, drew a petition to be signed by the lords, and to be offered by them to the king, setting forth all their grievances, and praying redress: he shewed this to some of them, and among others to the lord Balmerino[14], who liked the main of it, but was for altering it in some particulars: he spoke of it to Rothes in the presence of the earl of Cassillis and some others: none of them approved of it. Rothes carried it to the king; and told him, that there was a design to offer a petition in order to the explaining and justifying their proceedings, and that he had a copy to shew him : but the king would not look upon it, and ordered him to put a stop to it, for he would receive no such petition. Rothes told this to Balmerino: so the thing was laid aside: only he kept a copy of it, and interlined it in some places with his own hand. While the king was in Scotland he erected a new bishopric at Edinburgh, and made one Forbes bishop, who was a very learned and pious man: he had a strange faculty of preaching five or six hours at a time: his way of life and devotion was thought monastic, and his learning lay in antiquity: he studied to be a reconciler between papist and protestant, leaning rather to the first, as appears by his Considerationes modestæ: he was a very simple man, and knew little of the world: so he fell into several errors in conduct, but died soon after suspected 34 of popery[15], which suspicion was increased by his son's turning papist. The king left Scotland much discontented, but resolved to prosecute the design of recovering the church lands: and sir Thomas Hope, a subtle lawyer, who was believed to understand that matter beyond all the men of his profession, though in all respects he was a zealous puritan, was made king's advocate, upon his undertaking to bring all the church lands back to the crown[16]: yet he proceeded in that matter so slowly that it was believed he acted in concert with the party that opposed it. Enough was already a done to alarm all that were possessed of the church lands: and they, to engage the whole country in their quarrel, took care to infuse it into all people, but chiefly into the preachers, that all was done to make way for popery. The winter after the king was in Scotland, Balmerino was thinking how to make the petition more acceptable: and in order to that he shewed it to one Dunmoor, a lawyer in whom he trusted and desired his opinion of it, and suffered him to carry it home with him, but charged him to shew it to no person, and to take no copy of it: yet he took a copy of it, and shewed it under a promise of secrecy to one Hay of Naughton, and told him from whom he had it. Hay looking on the paper, and 35 seeing it a matter of some consequence, carried it to Spottiswoode, archbishop of St. Andrews; who, apprehending it was going about for hands, was alarmed at it, and went immediately to London, beginning his journey, as he often a did, on a Sunday, which was a very odious thing in that country. There are laws in Scotland very loosely worded, that make it capital to spread lies of the king or his government, or to alienate his subjects from him[17]. It was also made capital to know of any that do it, and not discover them: but this last was never once put in execution. The petition was thought within this act: so an order was sent down for committing Balmerino, the reason of it being for some time kept secret; so it was thought done because of his vote in parliament. But after some consultation, a special commission was sent down for his trial. In Scotland there is a court for the trial of peers distinct from the jury, who are to be fifteen, and the majority determine the verdict, the fact being only 12 referred to the jury or assize, as they call it, and the law is judged by the court: and if the majority of the jury are peers, the rest may be gentlemen. At this time a private gentleman of the name of Stewart was become so considerable that he was raised by several degrees to be made earl of Traquair and lord treasurer, and was in high favour[18]; but suffered afterwards such a reverse of fortune that I saw him so low that he wanted bread, and was forced to beg, and it was believed he died of hunger. He was a man of great parts, but of too much craft: he was thought the capablest man for business, and the best speaker in that kingdom. So he was 36 charged with the care of the lord a Balmerino's trial: but when the ground of the prosecution was known, Haig, who drew the petition, writ a letter to the lord Balmerino, in which he owned that he drew the petition without any direction or assistance from him: and upon that he went over to Holland. The court was created by a special commission: in the naming of judges there appeared too visibly a design to have that lord's life, for they were either very weak or very poor[19]. Much pains was taken to have a jury; in which so great partiality appeared that when the lord Balmerino was upon his challenges, and excepted to the earl of Dumfries for his having said, that if he were of his jury though he were as innocent as St. Paul he would find him guilty, some of the judges said that was only a rash word: yet the king's advocate allowed the challenge if proved, which could not be done. The next called on was the earl of Lauderdale, father to the duke of that title: with him the lord Balmerino had been long in enmity: yet instead of challenging him, he said he was omni exceptione major. It was long considered upon what the prisoner should be tried: for his hand interlining the paper, which did plainly soften it, was not thought evidence that he drew it, or that he was accessory to it: and they had no other proof against him: nor could they from that infer that he was the divulger, since it appeared it was only shewed by him to a lawyer for counsel. So it was settled on to insist only on this, that the paper tended to alienate the subjects from their duty to the king, and that he, knowing who was the author of it, did not discover him; which by law was capital. The court judged the paper to be seditious, and to be a lie of the king and of his government: the other point was clear, that he knowing the author did not discover him. He 37 pleaded for himself, that the statute for discovery had never been put in execution; that it could never be meant but of matters that were notoriously seditious; that till the court judged so of this, he did not take this paper to be of that nature, but considered it as a paper full of duty, designed to set himself and some others right in the king's opinion; that upon the first sight of it, though he approved of the main yet he disliked some expressions in it; that he communicated the matter to the earl of Rothes, who told the king of the design; and that upon the king's saying he would receive no such petition it was quite laid aside. This was attested by the earl of Rothes. A long debate had been much insisted on, whether the earl of Traquair or the king's ministers might be of the jury or not: but the court gave it in their favour. When the jury was shut up, Gordon of Buckey, who was one of them, being then very ancient, who forty-three years before had assisted in the murder of the earl of Murray, and was thought upon this occasion a sure man, spoke first of all, excusing his presumption in being the first that broke the silence. He desired they would all consider what they were about: it was a matter of blood, and they would feel the weight of that as long as they lived: he had in his youth been drawn in to shed blood, for which he had the king's pardon, but it cost him more to obtain God's pardon: it had given him many sorrowful hours both day and night: and as he spoke this, the tears run over his face[20]. This struck a damp on them all. But the earl of Traquair took up the argument; and said they had it not before them whether the law was a hard law or not, nor had they the nature of the paper before them, which was judged by the court to be leasing-making; they were only to consider whether the prisoner had discovered the contriver of the paper or not. 38 Upon this the earl of a Lauderdale took up the argument against him, and urged that severe laws never executed were looked on as made only to terrify people; that though now, the court having judged the paper to be seditious, after that it would be capital to conceal the author, yet before such judgment the thing could not be thought so evident that he was bound to reveal it. Upon these heads those lords argued the matter many hours: but when it went to the vote, seven acquitted, but eight cast him: so sentence was given. Upon this many meetings were held: and it was resolved either to force the prison and to set him at liberty, or, if that failed, to revenge his death both on the court and on the eight jurors; some undertaking to kill them, and others to burn their houses. When 13 the earl of Traquair understood this, he went to court, and told the king that the lord Balmerino's life was now in his hands, but the execution was in no sort advisable: so he procured his pardon, with which he was often reproached for his ingratitude: but he thought he had been so much wronged in the prosecution, and so little regarded in the pardon, that he never looked on himself as under any obligation on that account[21]. My father knew the whole steps of this matter, having been the earl of Lauderdale's most particular friend: he often told me that the ruin of the king's affairs in Scotland was in a great measure owing to that prosecution; and he carefully preserved the petition itself, and the papers relating to the trial, of which I never saw any copy besides that which I have. And that raised in me a desire of seeing the whole record, which was copied out for me, and is now in my hands. It is a little volume, and contains, according to the Scotch method, the whole abstract 39 of all the pleadings and all the evidence that was given; and is indeed a very noble piece, full of curious matter.
While the design of recovering the tithes went on, though but slowly, another design made a greater progress. The bishops of Scotland fell on the framing a liturgy and a body of canons for the worship and government of that church[22]. These were never examined in any public assembly of the clergy: all was managed by three or four aspiring bishops, Maxwell, Sydserfe, Whitford, and Banantyne, the bishops of Ross, Galloway, Dumblane, and Aberdeen[23]. Maxwell did also accuse the earl of Traquair, as cold in the king's service, and as managing the treasury deceitfully; and he was aspiring to that office. Spottiswoode, archbishop of St. Andrews, being then lord chancellor, was a prudent and mild man, but of no great decency in his course of life; for he was a frequent player at cards, and used to eat often in taverns[24]: besides that, all his livings were scandalously exposed to sale by his servants. The earl of 40 Traquair, seeing himself so pushed at, was more earnest than the bishops themselves in promoting the new models of worship and discipline; and by that he recovered the ground he had lost with the king, and with archbishop Laud. He also assisted the bishops in obtaining commissions, subaltern to the high commission court, in their several dioceses, which were thought little different from the courts of inquisition. Sydserfe set this up in Galloway: and a complaint being made in council of his proceedings, he gave the earl of Argyll the lie in full council. He was after all a very learned and good man. but strangely heated in those matters. And they all were so lifted up with the king's zeal, and so encouraged by archbishop Laud, that they lost all temper[25]; of which I knew Sydserfe make great acknowledgments in his old age.
The most unaccountable part of the king's proceedings was, that all this while, when he was endeavouring to recover so great a part of the property of Scotland as the church lands and tithes were from men that were not like to part with them willingly, and was going to change the whole constitution of that church and kingdom, he raised no force to maintain what he was about to do, but trusted the whole management to the civil execution. By this means all people saw the weakness of the government, at the same time that they complained of its rigour. All that came down from court complained of the king's inexorable stiffness, and of the progress popery was making, of the queen's power with the king, of the favour shewed the pope's nuntios, and of the many proselytes who were daily falling off to the church of Rome. Traquair infused this more effectually, though more covertly, than any other man could do: and when the country formed the first opposition they made to the king's proclamations, and 41 protested against them, he drew the first protestation, as Primrose assured me[26]; though he designed no more than to put a stop to the credit the bishops had, and to the fury of their proceedings: but the matter went much further than he seemed to intend: and he himself was fatally caught in the snare he laid for others. A troop of horse and a regiment of foot had prevented all that followed, or, rather, had by all appearance established an arbitrary government in that kingdom[27]: but, to speak in the language of a great man, those who conducted matters at that time had as little of the prudence of the serpent as of the innocence of the dove: and, as my father often told me, he and many others, who adhered in the sequel firmly to the king's interest, were then much troubled at the whole conduct of affairs, as being neither wise, legal, nor just. I will go no further in opening the beginnings of the troubles of Scotland: of these a full account will be found in the memoirs of the dukes of Hamilton[28]: of which I will take the boldness to set down the character which sir Robert Moray[29], who had a great share in the affairs of that time, and knew the whole secret of them, gave, after he read it in manuscript, that he did not think there was a truer history writ since the apostles' days[30]. The violence with which that kingdom did almost unanimously engage against the administration, may easily convince one that the provocation must 14 have been very great, to draw in such an entire and vehement concurrence against it[31]. 42 After the first pacification, upon the new disputes that arose, when the earls of a Loudoun and Dunfermline[32] were sent up with the petition from the Covenanters, the lord Savile came to them, and informed them of many particulars, by which they saw the king was highly irritated against them: he took great pains to persuade them to come with their army into England. They very unwillingly hearkened to that proposition, and looked on it as a design from the court to ensnare them by making the Scots invade England, by which this nation might have been provoked to assist the king to conquer Scotland. It is true, he hated the earl of Strafford so much, that they saw no cause to suspect him[33]: so they entered into a treaty with him about it. The lord Savile assured them, he spake to them in the name of the most considerable men in England: and he shewed them an engagement under their hands to join with them, if they would come into England, and refuse any treaty but what should be confirmed by a parliament of England. They desired leave to send this paper to Scotland; to which, after much seeming difficulty, he consented: so a cane was hollowed, and this was put within it; and one Frost, afterwards secretary to the committee of both kingdoms, was sent down with it as a poor traveller. It was to be communicated only to three persons, the earls of Rothes and Argyll and to Warriston, the three chief confidents of the covenanters. The earl of Rothes was 43 a man of pleasure, but of a most obliging temper: his affairs were low. Spottiswoode had once made the bargain between the king and him before the troubles, but the earl of Traquair broke it, seeing he was to be raised above himself. The earl of Rothes had all the arts of making himself popular; only there was too much levity in his temper, and too much liberty in his course of life. The earl of Argyll was a more solemn sort of a man, grave and sober, free of all scandalous vices[34], of an invincible calmness of temper, and a pretender to high degrees of piety: but he was a deep dissembler, and great oppressor in all his private dealings, and he was noted for a defect in his courage on all occasions where danger met him. This had one of its usual effects on him, for he was cruel in cold blood: he was much set on raising his own family to be a sort of king in the Highlands.
Warriston was my own uncle[35]: but I will not be more tender in giving his character, for all that nearness in blood. He was a man of great application, could seldom sleep above three hours in the twenty-four. He had studied the law carefully, and had a great quickness of thought, with an extraordinary memory. He went into very high notions of lengthened devotions, in which he continued many hours a day. He would often pray in his family two hours at a time, and had an unexhausted copiousness that way. He was a deep enthusiast, for what thought soever struck his fancy during those effusions, he looked on it as an answer of prayer, and was wholly determined by it. He looked on the Covenant as the setting of Christ on his throne, and so was out of measure zealous in it; and he had an unrelenting severity of temper against all that opposed it. He had no regard to the raising himself 44 or his family, though he had thirteen children: but presbytery was to him more than all the world. He had a readiness and vehemence of speaking, that made him very considerable in public assemblies; but he had no clear nor settled judgment, yet that was supplied by. And he had a fruitful invention, so that he was at all times furnished with expedients. And though he was a very honest man in his private dealings, yet he could make great stretches, when the cause seemed to require it. To these three only this paper was to be shewed upon an oath of secrecy[36]: and it was to be deposited in Warriston's hands. They were only allowed to publish to the nation that they were sure of a very great and unexpected assistance, which, though it was then to be kept secret, would appear in due time. This they published: and it was looked on as an artifice to draw in the nation: but it was afterwards found to be a cheat indeed, but a cheat of Savile's, who had forged all these subscriptions. 45
The Scots marched with a very sorry equipage[37]: every soldier carried a week's provision of oatmeal; and they had a drove of cattle with them for their food. They had also an invention of guns of white iron, tinned and done about with leather, and corded: so that they could serve for two or three discharges. These were light, and were carried on horses: and when they came to Newburn, the English army that defended the ford was surprised with a discharge of artillery: some thought it magic, and all 15 were put in such disorder, that the whole army did run with so great precipitation, that sir Thomas Fairfax, who had a command in it, did not stick to own that till he passed the Tees his legs trembled under him[38]. This struck many of the enthusiasts of the king's side as much as it exalted the Scots; who were next day possessed of Newcastle, and so were masters, not only of Northumberland and the bishopric of Durham, but of the coaleries; by which, if they had not been in a good understanding with the city of London, they could have distressed them extremely: but all the use the city made of this was, to raise a great outcry, and to complain of the war, since it was now in the power of the Scots to starve them. Upon that, petitions were sent from the city and from some counties, to the king, praying a treaty with the Scots. The lord Wharton and the lord Howard of Escrick undertook to deliver some of these; which they did, and were clapt up upon it[39]. A council 46 of war was held; and it was resolved on, as the lord Wharton told me, to shoot them at the head of the army, as movers of sedition. This was chiefly pressed by the earl of Strafford. Duke Hamilton spoke nothing till the council rose; and then he asked Strafford, if he was sure of the army, who seemed surprised at the question: but he upon inquiry understood that very probably a general mutiny, if not a total revolt, would have followed, if any such execution had been attempted. This success of the Scots ruined the king's affairs. And by it the necessity of the union of the two kingdoms may appear very evident: for nothing but a superior army able to beat the Scots can hinder their doing this at any time: and the seizing the coaleries must immediately bring the city of London into great distress. Two armies were now in the north as a load on the king, besides all the other grievances. The lord Savile's forgery came to be discovered. The king knew it; and yet he was brought afterwards to trust him, and to advance him to be earl of Sussex. The king pressed my uncle to deliver him the letter, who excused himself upon his oath; and not knowing what use might be made of it, he cut out every subscription, and sent it to the person for whom it was forged. The imitation was so exact, that every man, as soon as he saw his hand simply by itself, acknowledged that he could not have denied it. so The king was now in great straits: he had laid up seven hundred thousand pounds before the troubles in Scotland began; and yet had raised no guards nor force in England, but trusted a very illegal administration to a legal execution. His treasure was now exhausted; his subjects were highly irritated; the ministry were all frighted, being exposed to the anger and justice of the parliament: so 47 that he had brought himself into great distress, but had not the dexterity to extricate himself out of it. He loved high and rough methods, but had neither the skill to conduct them, nor the height of genius necessary to manage them. He hated all that offered prudent and moderate counsels: he thought it flowed from a meanness of spirit, and a care to preserve themselves by sacrificing his authority, or from republican principles: and even when he saw it was necessary to follow such advices, yet he hated those that gave them. His heart was wholly turned to the gaining the two armies. In order to that, he gained Rothes entirely[40], who hoped by the king's mediation to have married the countess of Devonshire, a rich and magnificent lady, that lived long in the greatest state of any in that age. He also gained the earl of Montrose, who was a young man well learned, who had travelled, but had taken upon him the port of a hero too much, and lived as in a romance; for his whole manner was stately to affectation. When he was beyond seas, he travelled with the earl of Denbigh, and they consulted all the astrologers they could hear of[41]. I plainly saw the earl of Denbigh relied on what had then been told him, to his dying day; and the rather because the earl of Montrose was promised a glorious fortune for some time, but all was to be overthrown in conclusion. When the earl of Montrose returned from his travels, he was not considered by the king as he thought he deserved: so he studied to render himself popular in Scotland; and being vain and forward, he was the first and fiercest man in the opposition they made during the first war. He both advised and drew the letter to the king of France, for which the lord Loudoun, who signed it, was imprisoned in the tower of London[42]. But the earl of 48 Lauderdale, as he himself told me, when it came to his turn to sign that letter, found false French in it; for instead of rayon de soleil, he had writ raye de soleil, which in French signifies a sort of fish; and so the matter went no further at that time; and the treaty came on so soon after that it was never again taken up. The earl of Montrose was gained by the king at Berwick, and undertook to do great services: he made the king fancy, that he could turn the whole kingdom: yet indeed he could do nothing. He was again trying to make a new party: and he kept a correspondence with the king when he lay at Newcastle; 16 and was pretending he had a great interest among the covenanters, whereas he had none at all at that time. All these little plottings came to be either known or at least suspected. The queen was a woman of great vivacity in conversation, and loved all her life long to be in intrigues of all sorts, but was not so secret in them as such times and such affairs required. She was a woman of no manner of judgment: she was bad at contrivance, but much worse in the execution: but by the liveliness of her discourse she made always a great impression on the king: and to her little practices, as well as to the king's own temper, the sequel of all his misfortunes was owing. I know it was a maxim infused into 49 his sons, which I have often heard from king James, that he was undone by his concessions. This is true in some respect: for his passing the act that the parliament should sit during pleasure, was indeed his ruin, which he was drawn to by the queen[43]. But if he had not made great concessions, he had sunk without being able to make a struggle for it[44]; and could not have divided the nation, or engaged so many to have stood by him: since by the concessions that he made, especially that of the triennial parliament, the honest and quiet part of the nation was satisfied, and thought their religion and liberties were secured: so they broke off from those violenter propositions that occasioned the war.
The truth was, the king did not come into those concessions seasonably, nor with a good grace: all appeared to be extorted from him. There were also grounds, whether true or plausible, to make it to be believed that he intended not to stand to them longer than as he lay under that force that visibly drew them from him contrary to his own inclinations. The proofs that appeared of some particulars, that made this seem true, made other things that were only whispered to be more readily believed: for in all critical times there are deceitful people of both sides, that pretend to merit by making discoveries, on condition that no use shall be made of them as witnesses; which is one of the most pestiferous ways of calumny possible. Almost the whole court had been concerned in one illegal grant or another: so these courtiers, to get their faults passed over, were as so many 50 spies upon the king and queen: they told all they heard, and perhaps not without large additions, to the leading men in the house of commons. This inflamed the jealousy, and put them on to the making still new demands. One eminent passage was told me by the lord Holles:
The earl of Strafford had married his sister[45]: so, though in that parliament he was one of the hottest men of the party, yet when that matter was before them he always withdrew. When the bill of attainder was passed, the king sent for him to know what he could do to save the earl of Strafford. Holles answered, that if the king pleased, since the execution of the law was in him, he might legally grant him a reprieve, which must be good in law; but he would not advise it. That which he proposed was. that Strafford should send him a petition for a short respite, to settle his affairs, and to prepare for death; upon which he[46] advised the king to come next day with the petition d in his hand, and lay it before the two houses, with a speech which he drew for the king; and Holles said to him, he would try his interest among his friends to get them to consent to it. He prepared a great many by assuring them, that if they would save lord Strafford, he would become wholly theirs, in consequence of his first principles: and that he might do them much more service by being preserved, than he could do, if made an example of upon such new and doubtful points. In this he had wrought on so many, that he believed if the king's party had struck into it, he might have saved him. It was carried to the queen, as if Holles had engaged that the earl of Strafford would accuse her, and discover all he 51 knew: so the queen not only diverted the king from going to the parliament, changing the speech into a message all writ with the king's own hand, and sent to the house of lords by the prince of Wales: which Holles said, would have perhaps done as well, the king being apt to spoil things by an unacceptable manner: but to the wonder of the whole world, the queen prevailed with him to add that mean postscript, If he must die, it were charity to reprieve him to Saturday: which was a very unhandsome giving up of the whole message[47]. When it was communicated to both houses, the whole court party were plainly against it: and so he fell, truly by the queen's means[48]. 52
The mentioning this makes me add one particular concerning archbishop Laud: when his impeachment was brought to the lords' bar, he, apprehending how it would end, sent over Warner, bishop of Rochester, with the keys of his closet and cabinets, that he might destroy, or put out of the way. all papers that might either hurt himself or any body else. He was at that work for three hours, till, upon 17 Laud's being committed to the black rod, a messenger went over to seal up his closet, who came after all was withdrawn. Among the writings which he took away, it is believed the original Magna Carta[49], passed by king John in the mead near Staines, was one. This was found among his papers by his executor, Dr. Lee: and that descended to his son and executor, colonel Lee, who gave it to me. So it is now in my hands; and it came very fairly to me[50]. For this conveyance of it we have nothing but conjecture.
53I do not intend to prosecute the history of the wars. I have told a great deal relating to them in the Memoirs of the dukes of Hamilton. Rushworth's collections contain many excellent materials: and now the first volume of the earl of Clarendon's history gives a faithful representation of the beginnings of the troubles, though writ in favour of the court, and full of the best excuses that such ill things were capable of. I shall therefore only set out what I had particular reason to know, and that is not to be met with in books.
The kirk was now settled in Scotland with a new mixture of ruling elders, which, though they were taken from the Geneva pattern, to assist, or rather to be a check on, the minister in the managing the parochial discipline, yet these never came to their assemblies till the year 1638, that they thought it necessary to make them first go and carry all the elections of the ministers at the several presbyteries, and next come themselves and sit in the assembly. The nobility and chief gentry offered themselves upon that occasion: and the ministers, since they saw they were like to act in opposition to the king's orders, were glad to have so great a support. But the elders that now came to assist them, beginning to take, as the ministers thought, too much on them, they grew weary 54 of such imperious masters: so they studied to work up the inferior people to much zeal: and as they wrought any up to some measure of heat and knowledge, they brought them into their eldership; and so got a majority of hot zealots who depended on them. One out of these was deputed to attend on the judicatories. They had synods of all the clergy, in one or more counties, who met twice a year: and a general assembly that met once a year: and at parting that body named some, called the Commission of the Kirk, who were to sit in the intervals, to prepare matters for the next assembly, and to look to all the concerns of the church, to give warning of dangers, and to inspect all the proceedings of the state, as far as they related to the matters of religion: by these means they became terrible to all their enemies. In their sermons, and chiefly in their prayers, all that passed in the state was canvassed: men were as good as named, and either recommended or complained of to God as they were acceptable or odious to them. This grew up in time to an insufferable degree of boldness. The way that was given to it, when the king and the bishops were their common themes, made that afterwards the humour could not be restrained when it grew so petulant that the pulpit was a scene of noise and passion. For some years this was managed with great appearances of fervour by men of age and some authority: but when the younger and hotter zealots took it up, it became odious to almost all sorts of people, except some sour enthusiasts, who thought all their impertinence was zeal, and an effect of inspiration; which flowed naturally from the conceit of extemporary prayers being praying by the Spirit[1]. 55
Henderson, a minister of Edinburgh, was by much the wisest and gravest of them all: but as all his performances that I have seen are flat and heavy, so he found it was an easier thing to raise a flame than to quench it. He studied to keep his party to him, yet he found he could not moderate the heat of some fiery spirits: so when he saw he could follow them no more, but that they had got the people out of his hands, he sunk both in body and mind, and died soon after the papers had passed between the king and him at Newcastle[2]. The person next him was Douglas, believed to be descended from the royal family, though the wrong way: for he was, as was said, the bastard of a bastard of queen Mary of Scotland, by a child that she secretly bare to Douglas, who was half brother to the earl of Murray, the regent, and had the keeping of her in the castle of Lochleven trusted to him; from whence he helped to make her escape on that consideration. There was an air of greatness in Douglas, that made all that saw him inclined enough to believe he was of no ordinary descent. He was a reserved man: he had the Scriptures by heart, to the exactness of a Jew; for he was as a concordance: he was too calm and grave for the furious men, 56 but yet he was much depended on for his prudence. I knew him in his old age: and saw plainly he was a slave to his popularity, and durst not own the free thoughts he had of some things for fear of offending the people[3].
I will not run out in giving the characters of the other leading preachers among them, such 18 as Dickson, Blair, Rutherford, Baillie, Cant, and the two Gillespies[4]. They were men all of a sort: affected great sublimities in devotion: they poured themselves out in their prayers with loud voice, and often with many tears. They had but an ordinary proportion of learning among them; something of Hebrew, very little Greek: books of controversy with the Papists, but above all with the Arminians, was the height of their study. A dull way of preaching by doctrine, reason, and use, was that they set up on: and some of them affected a strain of stating cases of conscience, not with relation to moral actions, but to some reflexions on their condition and temper, that was occasioned chiefly by their conceit of praying by the Spirit, which every one could not attain to, or keep up to the same heat in it at all 57 times. The learning they recommended to their young divines was some German systems, some commentators on the Scripture, books of controversy, and practical books. They were so careful to oblige them to make their round in these, that if they had no men of great learning among them, yet none were very ignorant: as if they had thought an equality in learning was necessary to keep up the parity of their government. None could be suffered to preach as expectants, as they called them, but after a trial or two in private before the ministers alone: then two or three sermons were to be preached in public, some more learnedly, some more practically: then a head in divinity was to be commonplaced in Latin., and the person was to maintain theses upon it: he was to be also tried in Greek and Hebrew, and in Scripture chronology. The questionary trial came last; every minister asking such questions as he pleased. When any had passed through all these with approbation, which was done in a course of three or four months, he was allowed to preach when invited, and if he was presented or called to a church, he was to pass through a new set of the same trials[5]. This made that there was a small circle of knowledge in which they were generally well instructed. True morality was little studied or esteemed by them. They were generally proud and passionate, insolent and covetous; yet they took much pains among their people to maintain their authority. They affected all the ways of familiarity that were like to gain on them: even in sacred matters they got into a set of very indecent phrases. 58
They forced all people to sign the covenant[6]: and the greatest part of the episcopal clergy, among whom there were two a bishops, came to them, and renounced their former principles, and desired to be received into their body. At first they received all that offered themselves: but afterwards they repented of this, and the violent men among them were ever pressing the purging the Kirk, as they called it, that is, the ejecting all the episcopal clergy. Then they took up the wicked term of malignants, by which all who differed from them were distinguished: but the strictness of piety and good life, which had gained them so much reputation before the war, began to wear off; and instead of that, a fierceness of temper, and a copiousness of many long sermons, and much longer prayers, came to be the distinction of the party. This they carried even to the saying grace before and after meat sometimes to the length of a whole hour. But as every new war broke out, there was a visible abatement of even the outward shews of piety. Thus the war corrupted both sides. When the war broke out in England, the Scots had a great mind to go into it. The decayed nobility, the military men, and the ministers, were violently set on it. They saw what good quarters they had in the north of England; and they hoped the umpirage of the war would fall into their hands. The division appearing so near an equality in England, they reckoned they should turn the scales, and so be courted of both sides: and they did not doubt to draw great advantages from it, both for the nation in general and 59 themselves in particular. Duke Hamilton was trusted by the king with the management of his affairs in that kingdom[7], and had powers to offer, (but so secretly that if discovered it could not be proved, for fear of disgusting the English), that if they would engage in the king's side he would consent to the uniting Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland, to Scotland[8], and that Newcastle should be the seat of the government; that the prince of Wales should hold his court always among them; that every third year the king should go among them; and every office in the king's household should in the third turn be given to a Scotchman. This I found not among duke Hamilton's papers, but the earl of Lauderdale assured me of it, and that at the Isle of Wight they had all the engagements from the king to make it good upon their success that he could then give[9]. Duke Hamilton quickly saw it was a vain imagination to hope that kingdom could be brought to espouse the king's quarrel; the inclination ran strong the other way: all 19 he hoped to succeed in was to keep them neuter for some time: and this he saw could not hold long: so after he had kept off their engaging 60 with England all the year 1643, he and his friends saw it was in vain to struggle any longer. The course they all resolved on was, that the nobility should fall in heartily with the inclinations of the nation to join with England, that they might procure to themselves and their friends the chief commands in the army: and then when they were in England, and that their army was as a distinct body separated from the rest of the kingdom, it might be much easier to gain them to the king's service than it was at that time to work on the whole nation[10].
This was not a very sincere way of proceeding, but it
was intended for the king's service, and would very probably
have had the effect designed by it if some accidents had
not happened that changed the face of affairs, which are
not rightly understood: and therefore I will open them
61
clearly. The earl of Montrose and a party of high royalists
were for entering into an open breach with the country in
the beginning of the year 1643, but offered no probable
methods of managing it; nor could they reckon themselves
assured of any considerable party[11]. They were full of big
words and bold undertakings: but when they were pressed
to shew what concurrence might be depended on, nothing
was offered but from the Highlanders: and on this wise
men could not rely: so duke Hamilton would not expose
the king's affairs by such a desperate way of proceeding.
Upon this they went to Oxford, and filled all people there
with complaints of the treachery of the Hamiltons; and
they pretended they could have secured Scotland if their
propositions had been entertained. This was but too
suitable to the king's own inclinations, and to the humour
that was then prevailing at Oxford. So when the two
Hamiltons came up, they were not admitted to speak with
the king: and it was believed if the younger brother had
not made his escape that both would have suffered; for
when the queen heard of his escape, she with great commotion
said, Abercorn has missed a dukedom
; for that
earl was a papist, and next to the two brothers[12]. They
could have demonstrated, if heard, that they were sure of
above two parts in three of the officers of the army; and
62
in. did not doubt to have engaged the army into the king's
cause. But the failing in this was not all. The earl, then
made marquis of Montrose, had powers given him such as
he desired, and was sent down with them: but he could do
nothing till the end of the year. A great body of the
Macdonalds, commanded by one Collkitoch [i.e. Colquhitto][13]
came over from Ireland to recover Cantyre, the best country
of all the Highlands, out of which they had been driven by
Argyll's family, who had possessed their country about fifty
years. The head of these was the earl of Antrim[14], who
had married the duke of Buckingham's widow: and being
a papist, and having a great command in Ulster, was much
relied on by the queen. He was the main person in the
first rebellion, and was the most engaged in the bloodshed
of any in the north: yet he continued to correspond with
the queen to the great prejudice of the king's affairs[15].
When the marquis of Montrose heard they were in Argyllshire,
he went to them, and told them, if they would let
him lead them he would carry them into the heart of the
kingdom, and procure them better quarters and good pay:
so he led them down into Perthshire. The Scots had at
that time an army in England, and another in Ireland: yet
they did not think it necessary to call home any part of
either; but, despising the Irish and the Highlanders, they
raised a tumultuary army, and put it under the command
of some lords noted for want of courage[16], and of others who
63
wished well to the other side. The marquis of Montrose's
men were desperate, and met with a feeble resistance: so
that small body of the covenanters' army was routed[17].
And
here Montrose got horses and ammunition, having but three
horses before, and powder only for one charge. Then he
became considerable: and he marched through the northern
parts by Aberdeen. The marquis of Huntly was in the
king's interests; but he would not join with him, though
his sons did[18]. Astrology ruined him: he believed the stars,
and they deceived him[19]: he said often, that neither
the king, nor the Hamiltons, nor Montrose would prosper:
he believed he should outlive them all, and escape at last;
as it happened in conclusion as to his outliving the others.
He was naturally a gallant man: but the stars had so
subdued him, that he made a poor figure during the whole
course of the wars[20].
64
The marquis of Montrose's success was very mischievous, and proved the ruin of the king's affairs: on which I should not have depended entirely if I had had this only from the earl of Lauderdale[21], who was indeed my first author, but it was fully confirmed by the lord Holles[22], who had gone in with great heat into the beginnings of the war: but he soon saw the ill consequences it already had, and the worse that were like to grow with the progress of the war. He had in the beginning of the year 43, when he was sent to Oxford with the propositions, taken great pains on all about the king to convince them of the necessity of their yielding in time, since the longer they stood out the conditions would be harder: and when he was sent by the parliament, in the end of the year 44, with other propositions, he and Whitelocke entered into secret conferences with the king, of which some account is given by Whitelocke in his Memoirs[23]. They, with other commissioners that were sent to Oxford, possessed the king, and all that were in great credit with him, with this, that it was absolutely necessary the king should put an end to the war by a treaty: a new party of hot men was springing up, that were plainly for changing the government: they were growing much in the army, but were yet far from carrying any thing in the House: 20. they had gained much strength this summer, and they might make a great progress by the accidents that another year might produce: the Scottish army was entirely in the interests of those who wished for a peace. They confessed there were many things hard to be digested, that must be done in order to a peace: they asked things that were 65 unreasonable: but they were forced to consent to those demands, otherwise they would have lost their credit with the city and the people; the absence of the courts and the progress of the war had inflamed the people, who could not be satisfied without a very entire security and a full satisfaction: but the extremity to which matters might be carried otherwise made it necessary to come to a peace on any terms whatsoever, since no terms could be so bad as the continuance of the war: the king must trust them, though they were not at that time disposed to trust him so much as were to be wished. They said farther, that if a peace should follow, it would be a much easier thing to get any hard laws now moved for to be repealed, than it was now to hinder their being insisted on. With these things Holles told me that the king and many of his counsellors, who saw how his affairs declined, and with what difficulty they could hope to continue the war another year, were satisfied. The king more particularly began to feel the insolence of the military men, and of those who were daily reproaching him with their services; so that they were become as uneasy to him as those of Westminster had been formerly. Holles told me he left Oxford not doubting but a peace would have followed. But some came up in the interval from Montrose with such an account of what he had done, of the strength he had, and of his hopes next summer, that the king was by that prevailed on to believe his affairs would mend, and that he might afterwards treat on better terms. This unhappily wrought so far, that the limitations he put on those whom he sent to treat at Uxbridge made the whole design miscarry. That raised the spirits of those that were already but too much exasperated. The marquis of Montrose made a great progress the next year: but he laid no lasting foundation, for he did not make himself master of the strong places or passes of the kingdom. After his last and greatest victory at Kilsyth, he 66 was lifted up out of measure. The Macdonalds were every where fierce masters and ravenous plunderers: and the other Highlanders, who did not such military execution, yet were good at robbing: and when they had got as much as they could carry home on their backs, they deserted. The Macdonalds also left him to go and execute their revenge on Argyll's country. Montrose thought he was now master, but had no scheme how to fix his conquests: he wasted the estates of his enemies, chiefly the Hamiltons[24]; and went towards the borders of England, though he had but a small force left about him: but he thought his name carried terror with it. So he writ to the king, that he had gone over the land from Dan to Beersheba: he prayed the king to come down in these words, Come thou, and take the city, lest I take it, and it be called by my name. This letter was writ, but never sent; for he was routed, and his papers taken, before he had despatched the courier[25]. [In his defeat, he took too much care of himself; for he was never willing to expose himself much.] When his papers were taken, many letters of the king, and of others at Oxford, to him were found, as the earl of Crawford, one appointed to read them, told me; which increased the disgust: but these were not published. Upon this occasion the marquis of Argyll and the preachers shewed a very bloody temper; many prisoners that had quarters given them were murdered in cold blood[26]: and as they sent them to some towns that 67 had been ill used by Montrose's army, the people in revenge fell on them, and knocked them in the head. Several persons of quality were condemned for being with him: and these were proceeded against both with severity and with many indignities. The preachers thundered in their pulpits against all that did the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cried out against all that were for moderate proceedings, as guilty of the blood that had been shed. Thine eye shall not pity, and thou shalt not spare, were often inculcated; and after every execution they triumphed with so little decency, that it gave all people very ill impressions of them. But this was not the worst effect of Montrose's expedition. It lost the opportunity at Uxbridge: it alienated the Scots much from the king: it exalted all that were enemies to peace. For now they seemed to have some colour for all those aspersions they had cast on the king, as if he had been in a correspondence with the Irish rebels, when the worst tribe of them was thus employed by him[27]. His affairs declined totally in England that summer, and Holles said to me. all was owing to Montrose's unhappy successes.
Upon this occasion I will relate somewhat concerning Antrim[28]. I had in my hand several of his letters to the king in the year 1646, writ in a very confident style: for he was a very arrogant, as well as a very weak, man. One was somewhat particular: he in a postscript desired the king to send the inclosed to the good woman, without making any excuse for the presumption; by which, as follows in the postscript, he meant his wife, the duchess of Buckingham. This made me more easy to believe a story 68 that the earl of Essex told me he had from the earl of Northumberland: 21 upon the restoration, in the year 1660, Antrim was thought guilty of so much bloodshed, that it was taken for granted he could not be included in the indemnity that was to pass in Ireland. Upon this he seeing the duke of Ormond set against him, came over to London, and was lodged at Somerset House: and it was believed that, having no children, he settled his estate on Jermyn, then earl of St. Albans: but before he came over, he had made a prior settlement in favour of his brother[29]. He petitioned the king to order a committee of council to examine the warrants that he had acted upon. The earl of Clarendon was for rejecting the petition, as containing a high indignity to the memory of king Charles the first: and said plainly at council table, that if any person had pretended to affirm such a thing while they were at Oxford, he would either have been very severely punished for it, or the king would soon have had a very thin court. But it seemed just to see what he had to say for himself: so a committee was named, of which the earl of Northumberland was the chief. He produced to them some of the king's letters: but they did not come to a full proof. In one of them the king wrote that he had not then leisure, but referred himself to the queen's letter; and said, that was all one as if he writ himself. Upon this foundation he produced a series of letters writ by himself to the queen, in which he gave her an account of every one of the particulars that were laid to his charge, and shewed the grounds he went on, and desired her directions; and to every one of these he had answers ordering him to do as he did. This 69 the queen-mother espoused with great zeal, and said she was bound in honour to save him. I saw a great deal of that management, for I was then at court[30]. But it was generally believed, that this train of letters was made up at that time in a collusion between the queen and him. So a report was prepared to be signed by the committee, setting forth that he had so fully justified himself in every thing that had been objected to him, that he ought not to be excepted out of the indemnity. This was brought first to the earl of Northumberland to be signed by him: but he refused it, and said he was sorry he had produced such warrants, but he did not think they could serve his turn; for he did not believe any warrant from the king or queen could justify so much bloodshed in so many black instances as were laid against him. Upon his refusal, the rest of the committee did not think fit to sign the report: so it was let fall: and the king was prevailed on to write to the duke of Ormond, telling him that he had so vindicated himself, that he must endeavour to get him included in the indemnity. That was done; and was no small reproach to the king, that did thus sacrifice his father's honour to his mother's importunity. Upon this the earl of Essex told me, he had taken all the pains he could to inquire into the original of the Irish massacre, but could never see any reason to believe the king had any accession to it[31]. He did indeed believe that the queen hearkened to propositions made by the Irish, who undertook to take the government of Ireland into their hands, which they thought they could easily perform: and then, they said, they would assist the king to 70 subdue the hot spirits at Westminster. With this the plot of the insurrection began: and all the Irish believed the queen encouraged it. But in the first design there was no thought of a massacre: that came in head as they were laying the methods of executing it, which, as they were managed by the priests, so they were the chief men that set on the Irish to all the blood and cruelty that followed.
I know nothing particular of the sequel of the war, nor of all the confusions that happened till the murder of king Charles the first: only one passage I had from lieutenant general Drummond, afterwards lord Strathallan[32]. He served on the king's side, but had many friends among those who were for the covenant: so, the king's affairs being now ruined, he was recommended to Cromwell, being then in a treaty with the Spanish ambassador, who was negociating for some regiments to be levied and sent over from Scotland to Flanders. He happened to be with Cromwell when the commissioners, sent from Scotland to protest against the putting the king to death, came to argue the matter with him. Cromwell bade Drummond stay and hear their conference, which he did. They began in a heavy languid way to lay indeed great load on the king: but they still insisted on that clause in the covenant, by which they swore they would be faithful in the preservation of his Majesty's person: and with this they shewed upon what terms Scotland, as well as the two Houses, had engaged in the war, and what solemn declarations of their zeal and duty to the king they all along published; which would now appear, to the scandal and reproach of the Christian name, to have been false pretences, if when the king was in their power they should proceed to extremities. Upon this, Cromwell entered into a long 71 discourse of the nature of the regal power, according to the principles of Mariana and Buchanan[33]: he thought a breach of trust in a king ought to be punished more than any other crime whatsoever. He said, as to their covenant, they 22 swore to the preservation of the king's person in the defence of the true religion: if then it appeared that the settlement of the true religion was obstructed only by the king, so that they could not come at it but by putting him out of the way, then their oath could not bind them to the preserving him any longer. He said also, their covenant did bind them to bring all malignants, incendiaries, and enemies to the cause, to condign punishment: and was not this to be executed impartially? What were all those on whom public justice had been done, especially those who suffered for joining with Montrose, but small offenders acting by commission from the king, who was therefore the principal, and so the most guilty? Drummond said Cromwell had plainly the better of them at their own weapon, and upon their own principles[34]. At this time presbytery was in its height in Scotland. 72
In summer 1648, when the parliament declared they would engage to rescue the king from his imprisonment, and the parliament of England from the force it was put under by the army, the nobility went into the design, all except six or eight. b The king had signed an engagement to make good his offers to the nation of the northern counties, with the other conditions formerly mentioned: and particular favours were promised to every one that concurred in it[35]. The marquis of Argyll gave it out that the Hamiltons, let them pretend what they would, had no sincere intentions to their cause, but had engaged to serve the king on his own terms: he filled the preachers with such jealousies of this, that though all the demands that they made for the security of their cause, and in declaring the grounds of the war, were complied with, yet they could not be satisfied, but still said the Hamiltons were in a confederacy with the malignants in England, and did not intend to stand to what was then promised. The general assembly declared against it, as an unlawful confederacy with the .enemies of God; and called it the unlawful Engagement, which came to be the name commonly given to it in all their pulpits. They every where preached against it, and opposed the levies all they could, by solemn denunciations of the wrath and curse of God on all concerned in them. This was a strange piece of opposition to the state, little inferior to what was pretended or put in practice by the church of Rome.
The south-west counties of Scotland have seldom corn enough to serve them round the year: and the northern parts producing more than they need, these of the west usually came in the summer to buy at Leith the stores that come from the north: and from a word whiggam, used in driving their horses, all that drove was called the whiggamors, and 73 shorter the whiggs[36]. Now in that year, after the news came down of duke Hamilton's defeat, the ministers animated their people to rise, and march to Edinburgh: and they came up marching on the head of the parishes, with an unheard-of fury, praying and preaching all the way as they came. The marquis of Argyll and his party came and headed them, they being about 6000. And this was called the whiggamors' inroad: and ever after that all that opposed the court came in contempt to be called whiggs: and from Scotland the word was brought into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms of distinction[37].
The Committee of Estates, with the force that they had in their hands, could easily have dissipated this undisciplined herd; but they, knowing their own weakness, had sent to Cromwell, desiring his assistance. Upon that, the committee saw they could not stand before him: so they came to a treaty, and delivered up the government to this new body; and upon their assuming it, they declared all who had served or assisted towards the Engagement incapable of any employment, till they had first satisfied the kirk of the truth of their repentance, and made public profession of it. All churches were upon that full of mock penitents, some making their acknowledgments all in tears, to gain more credit with the new party. The earl of Loudoun, that was chancellor[38], had entered into solemn promises both to the king and the Hamiltons: but when 74 he came to Scotland, his wife[39], a fierce covenanter, and an heiress by whom he had both honour and estate, threatened him, if he went on that way, with a process of adultery, in which it was believed she could have had very copious proofs: he durst not stand against this, and so compounded the matter by deserting his friends, and turning over to the other side: of which he made public profession in the church of Edinburgh with many tears, confessing his weakness in yielding to the temptation of what had a shew of honour and loyalty, for which he expressed a hearty sorrow. Those that came in early, with great shews of compunction, got easier off: but those who stood out long found it a harder matter to make their peace. Cromwell came down to Scotland, and saw the new model fully settled.
During his absence from the scene, the treaty of the isle of Wight was set on foot by the parliament, that, seeing the army at such a distance, took this occasion of 1648. treating with the king. Sir Harry Vane, and others who were for a change of government, had no mind to treat any more; but both city and country were so desirous of a personal treaty, that it could not be resisted[40]. Vane, Pierpoint, and some others, went to the treaty on purpose to delay matters till the army could be brought up to London. All that wished well to the treaty prayed the king, at their first coming, 23 to dispatch the business with all possible haste, and to grant the first day all that he could bring himself to grant on the last[41]. Holles and Grimston told me, they both on their knees begged this 75 of the king. They said, they knew Vane would study to draw out the treaty to a great length: and he, who declared for an unbounded liberty of conscience, would try to gain on the king s party by the offer of a toleration for the common prayer and the episcopal clergy[42]. His design in that was to gain time, till Cromwell should settle Scotland and the north. But they said, if the king would frankly come in, without the formality of papers backward and forward, and send them back next day with the concessions that were absolutely necessary, they did not doubt but he should in a very few days be brought up with honour, freedom, and safety to the parliament, and that matters should be brought to a present settlement[43]. Titus, who was then much trusted by the king, 76 and employed in a negociation with the presbyterian party, told me that he had spoke often and earnestly to him in the same strain[44]: but the a king could not come to a resolution: and he still fancied that in the struggle between the house of commons and the army, both saw they needed him so much to give them the superior strength, therefore he imagined that by balancing them he would bring both sides into a greater dependence on himself, and force them to better terms. In this Vane flattered the episcopal party, to the king's ruin as well as their own. But they still hated the presbyterians as the first authors of the war; and seemed unwilling to think well of them, or to be beholding to them. Thus the 77 treaty went on with a fatal slowness: and by the time it was come to some maturity, Cromwell came up with his army, and overturned all.
Upon this I will set down what sir Harbottle Grimston told me a few weeks before his death: but whether it was done at this time, or the year before, I cannot tell: I rather believe the latter. When the house of commons and the army were a quarrelling, at a meeting of the officers it was proposed to purge the army better, that they might know whom to depend on[45]. Cromwell upon that said, he was sure of the army; but there was another body that had more need of purging, naming the house of commons, and he thought the army only could do that. Two officers that were present brought an account of this to Grimston, who carried them with him to the lobby of the house of commons, they being resolved to justify it to the house. There was another debate then on foot: but Grimston diverted it, and said he had a matter of privilege of the highest sort to lay before them: it was about the being and freedom of the house itself. So he charged Cromwell with the design of putting a force on the house: he had his witnesses at the door, and desired they might be examined. They were brought to the bar, and justified all that they had said, and gave a full relation of all that had passed at their meetings. When they withdrew, Cromwell fell down on his knees, and made a solemn prayer to God, attesting his innocence, and his zeal for the service of the house: he submitted himself to the providence of God, who it seems thought fit to exercise him with calumny and slander, but he committed his cause to him. This he did with great vehemence, and with many tears. After this strange and bold preamble, he made so long a speech, justifying both himself and the rest of the officers, except a few that seemed inclined to return back to Egypt, that he wearied out the house, and wrought so much on his party, that what the 78 witnesses had said was so little believed, that, had it been moved, Grimston thought that both he and they would have been sent to the Tower[46]. But whether their guilt made them modest, or that they had no mind to have the matter much talked of, they let it fall: and there was no strength in the other side to carry it farther. To complete this scene, as soon as ever Cromwell got out of the house, he resolved to trust himself no more among them; but went to the army, and in a few days he brought them up, and forced a great many from the house[47].
I had much discourse with one who knew Cromwell well, and all that set of men, on this head, and asked him how they could excuse all the prevarications, and other ill things, of which they were visibly guilty in the conduct of their affairs. He told me, they believed there were great occasions in which some men were called to great services, in the doing of which they were excused from the common rules of morality: such were the practices of Ehud and Jael, Samson and David: and by this they fancied they had a privilege from observing the standing rules. It is very obvious how far this principle may be carried, and how all justice and mercy may be laid aside on this pretence by every bold enthusiast. Ludlow, in his Memoirs, justifies this force put on the parliament, as much as he condemns the force that Cromwell and the army afterwards put on the house: and he seems to lay this down for a maxim, that the military power ought always to be subject to the civil: 24 and yet, without any sort of resentment for what he had done, he owns the share he had in the force put on the parliament at this time[48]. The plain reconciling of this is, that he thought 79 when the army judged the parliament was in the wrong, they might use violence, but not otherwise: which gives the army a superior authority, and inspection into the proceedings of the parliament. This shews how impossible it is to set up a commonwealth in England: for that cannot be brought about but by a military force: and they will ever keep the parliament in subjection to them, and so keep up their own authority[49].
I leave all that relates to the king's trial and death to common historians, knowing nothing that is particular of that great transaction, which was certainly one of the most amazing scenes in history. Ireton was the person that drove it on: for Cromwell was all the while in some suspense about it. Ireton had the principles and the temper of a Cassius in him: he stuck at nothing that might have turned England to a commonwealth: and he found out Cook[50] and Bradshaw, two bold lawyers, as proper instruments for managing it. Fairfax was much distracted in his mind, and changed purpose often every day. The presbyterians and the body of the city were much against it, and were everywhere fasting and praying for the king's preservation. There were not above 8000 of the army about the town: but these were selected out of the whole army, as the most engaged in enthusiasm: and they were kept at prayer in their way almost day and night, except when they were upon duty: so that they 80 were wrought up to a pitch of fury, that struck a terror into all people. On the other hand, the king's party were without spirit: and, as many of themselves have said to me, they could never believe his death was really intended till it was too late. They thought all was a pageantry to strike a terror, and to force the king to such concessions as they had a mind to extort from him.
The king himself shewed a calm and a composed firmness which amazed all people: and that so much the more, because that was not natural to him[51]. It was imputed to a very extraordinary measure of supernatural assistance. Bishop Juxon did the duty of his function honestly, but with a dry coldness that could not much raise the king's thoughts: so it was owing wholly to somewhat within himself that he went through so many indignities with so much true greatness, without disorder or any sort of affectation. Thus he died greater than he had lived; and shewed that which has been often observed of the whole race of the Stewarts, that they bore misfortunes much better than prosperity. His reign, both in peace and war, was a continued series of errors: so that it does not appear that he had a true judgment of things. He was out of measure set on following his humour, but unreasonably feeble to those whom he trusted, chiefly to the queen. He had too high a notion of the regal power, and thought that every opposition to it was rebellion. He minded little things too much, and was more concerned in the drawing 81 of a paper than in fighting a battle. He had a firm aversion to popery, but was much inclined to a middle way between protestants and papists, by which he lost the one without gaining the other[52]. His engaging the duke of Rohan in the war of the Rochelle, and then assisting him so poorly, and forsaking him at last, gave an ill character of him to all the protestants abroad. The earl of Lauderdale told me, the duke of Rohan was at Geneva, where he himself was, when he received a very long letter, or rather a little book, from my father, which gave him a copious account of the beginning of the troubles in Scotland: he translated it to the duke of Rohan, who expressed a vehement indignation at the court of England for their usage of him: of which this was the account he then gave[53].
The duke of Buckingham had a secret conversation with the queen of France, of which the queen-mother was very 82 jealous, and possessed the king with such a sense of it, that he was ordered immediately to leave the court. Upon his return to England under this affront, he possessed the king with such a hatred of that court, that the queen was ill used on her coming over, and all her servants were sent back[54]. He also told him the protestants were so ill used, and yet so strong, that if he would protect them, they would involve that kingdom into new wars; which he represented as so glorious a beginning of his reign, that the king, without weighing the consequence of it, sent one to treat with the duke of Rohan about it[55]. Great assistance was promised by sea: so a war was resolved on, in which the share that our court had is well enough known. But the infamous part was, that Richelieu got the king of France to make his queen write an obliging letter to the duke of Buckingham, assuring him that, if he would let the Rochelle fall without, assisting it, he should have leave to come over, and should settle the whole matter of the religion according to their 25. edicts. This was a strange proceeding: but cardinal Richelieu could turn that weak king as he pleased. Upon this the duke made that shameful campaign of the isle of Rhé. But finding next winter that he was not to be suffered to go over into France, and that he was abused into a false hope, he resolved to have followed that matter with more vigour, when he was stabbed by Felton[56].
There is another story told of the king's conduct during 83 the peaceable part of his reign, which I had from Halewyn of Dort[57], who was one of the judges in the court of Holland, and was the wisest and greatest man I knew among them. He told me he had it from his father, who, being then the chief man of Dort, was of the states, and had the secret communicated to him. When Isabella Clara Eugenia[58] grew old, and began to decline, a great many of her council, apprehending what miseries they would fall under when they should be again in the hands of the Spaniards, formed a design of making themselves a free commonwealth, that, in imitation of the union among the cantons of Switzerland that were of both religions, should be in a perpetual confederacy with the states of the seven provinces. This they communicated to Henry Frederick prince of Orange, and to some of the states, who approved of it, but thought it necessary to engage the king of England into it. The prince of Orange told the English ambassador, that there was a matter of great consequence that was fit to be laid before the king; but it was of such a nature, and such persons were concerned in it, that it could not be communicated, unless the king would be pleased to promise absolute secrecy for the present. This the king did: and then the prince of Orange sent him the whole scheme. The secret was ill kept: either the king trusted it to some who discovered it, or the paper was stolen from him; for it was sent over to the court at Brussells: one of the ministry lost his head for it: and some took the alarm so quick that they got to Holland and out of danger. After this the prince of Orange had no more commerce with our court, and often lamented that so great a design was so unhappily lost[59]. He had as ill an opinion of the king's 84 conduct of the war; for when the queen came over, and brought some of the generals with her, the prince said, after he had talked with them, (as the late king told me,) he did not wonder to see the affairs of England decline as they did, since he had talked with the king's generals.
I will not enter farther into the military part: for I remember an advice of the Marshal Schomberg; never to meddle in the relation of military matters[60]. He said, some affected to relate those affairs in all the terms of war, in which they committed errors that exposed them to the scorn of all commanders, who must despise relations that pretend to an exactness when there were great errors in every part of them.
In the king's death the very ill effect of extreme violent counsels discovered itself. Ireton hoped that by this all men concerned in it would become irreconcileable to monarchy, and would act as desperate men, and destroy all that might revenge that blood. But this had a very different effect. Something of the same nature had happened in lower instances before: but they were not the 85 wiser for it. The earl of Strafford's death made all his former errors be forgot: it raised his character, and cast a lasting odium on that way of proceeding; whereas he had sunk in his credit by any censure lower than death, and had been little pitied, if not thought justly punished. The like effect followed upon archbishop Laud's death. He was a learned, a sincere, and zealous man, regular in his own life, and humble in his private deportment; but was a hot, indiscreet man, eagerly pursuing some matters that were either very inconsiderable or mischievous; such as setting the communion table by the east wall of churches, bowing to it; and calling it the altar; the suppressing the Walloons' privileges, the breaking of lectures, the encouraging sports on the Lord's day, with some other things that were of no value: and yet all the heat and zeal of that time was laid out on these[61]. His severity in the Star-chamber and in the high commission court, but above all his violence, and indeed inexcusable injustice, in the prosecution of bishop Williams, were such visible blemishes, that nothing but the putting him to death in so unjust a manner could have raised his character; which indeed it did to a degree of setting him up as a pattern, and the establishing all his notions as standards by which judgments are to be made of men, whether they are true to the church or not. His diary, though it was a base thing to publish it[62], represents him as an abject fawner on the duke of Buckingham, and 86 as a superstitious regarder of dreams: his defence of himself, writ with so much care when he was in the Tower, is a very mean performance. He intended in that to make an appeal to the world. In most particulars he excuses himself by this, that he was but one of many, who either in 26. council, star-chamber, or high commission, voted illegal things. Now though this was true, yet a chief minister, and one in high favour, determines the rest so much, that they are generally little better than machines acted by him. On other occasions he says, the thing was proved but by one witness. Now, how strong soever this defence may be in law, it is of no force in an appeal to the world; for if a thing is true, it is no matter how full or how defective the proof is. The thing that gave me the strongest prejudice against him in that book is, that after he had seen the ill effects of his violent counsels, and had been so long shut up, and so long at leisure to reflect on what had passed in the hurry of passion, or the exaltation of his prosperity, he does not, in any one part of that great work, acknowledge his own errors, nor mix in it any wise or pious reflections, on the ill usage he met with, or on the unhappy steps he had made: so that while his enemies did really magnify him by their inhuman prosecution, his friends Heylin and Wharton have as much lessened him, the one by writing his life, and the other by publishing his vindication of himself[63].
But the recoiling of cruel counsels on the authors of them never appeared more eminently than in the death of king Charles the first, whose serious and Christian deportment in it made all his former errors be entirely forgot, and raised a compassionate regard to him, that drew a lasting hatred on the actors, and was the true occasion of the great turn 87 of the nation in the year 1660. This was much heightened by the publishing of his Εικων Βασιλικυ, which was universally believed to be his: and that coming out soon after his death had the greatest run in many impressions that any book has had in our age. There was in it a nobleness and a justness of thought, with a greatness of style, that made it to be looked on as the best writ book in the English language: and the piety of the prayers made all people cry out against the murder of a prince, who thought so seriously of all his affairs in his secret meditations before God. I was bred up with a high veneration of this book: and I remember that, when I heard how some denied it to be his, I asked the earl of Lothian about it, who both knew that king very well, and loved him little: he seemed confident it was his own work; for he said, he had heard him say a great many of those very periods that he found in that book. Being thus confirmed in that persuasion, I was not a little surprised, when in the year 1673, in which I had a great share of favour and free conversation with the then duke of York, afterwards king James the second, he suffered me to talk very freely to him about matters of religion; and when I was urging him with somewhat out of his father's book, he told me that book was not of his writing, and that the letter to the prince of Wales was never brought to him[64]. He said Dr. Gauden writ it: and after the restoration he brought the duke of Somerset and the earl of Southampton both to the king and to himself, who affirmed that they knew it was his writing; and that it was carried down by Southampton, and shewed the king during the treaty of Newport, who read it, and approved of it, as containing his sense of things. Upon this he told me, that though Sheldon and the other bishops opposed Gauden's promotion, because he had taken the covenant, yet the merit of that service carried it for him, notwithstanding the opposition made to it. There has been a great deal of disputing 88 about this book: some are so zealous for maintaining it to be the king's, that they think a man false to the church that doubts it to be his: yet the evidence since that time brought to the contrary has been so strong that I must leave it under the same uncertainty under which I found it: only this is certain, that Gauden never writ any thing with that force, his other writings being such that no man, from a likeness of style, would think him capable of writing so extraordinary a book as that is[65].
Upon the king's death the Scots proclaimed his son king, and sent over sir George Winram, that married my great aunt, to treat with him while he was in the isle of Jersey[1]. 89 The king entered into a negociation with him, and sent him back with general assurances of consenting to every reasonable proposition that they should send him. He named the Hague for the place of treaty, he being to go thither in a few days. So the Scots sent over commissioners, the chief of whom were the earls of Cassillis[2] and Lothian, the former of these was my first wife's father, a man of great virtue and of a considerable degree of good understanding, had he not spoiled it with many affectations, and an obstinate stiffness in almost every thing that he did. He was so sincere that he would suffer no man to take his words in any other sense than as he meant them. He adhered firmly to his instructions, but with so much candour, 27. that king Charles retained very kind impressions of it to his life's end. The man then in the greatest favour with the king was the duke of Buckingham: he was wholly 90 turned to mirth and pleasure: he had the art of treating persons or things in a ridiculous manner beyond any man of the age: he possessed the young king with very ill principles, both as to religion and morality, and with a very mean opinion of his father, whose stiffness was a frequent subject of his raillery. He prevailed with the king to enter into a treaty with the Scots, though that was vehemently opposed by almost all the rest that were about him, who pressed him to adhere steadily to his father's maxims and example[3].
When the king came to the Hague, William duke of Hamilton, and the earl of Lauderdale, who had left Scotland, entered into a great measure of favour and confidence with him[4]. The marquis of Montrose came likewise to him, 91 and undertook, if he would follow his counsels, to restore him to his kingdoms by main force: but when the king desired the prince of Orange to examine the methods which he proposed, he entertained him with a recital of his own performances, and of the credit he was in among the people, and said, the whole nation would rise, if he went over though accompanied only with a page. The queen-mother hated him mortally[5]; for when he came over from Scotland to Paris, upon the king's requiring him to lay down arms, she received him with such extraordinary favour as his services did deserve, and gave him a large supply in money and in jewels, considering the straits to which she was then reduced. But she heard that he had talked very indecently of her favours to him; which she herself told to lady Susanna Hamilton, a daughter of duke Hamilton's[6], from whom I had it. So she sent him word to leave Paris, and would see him no more. He had wandered about the courts of Germany, but was not so much esteemed as he thought he deserved. He desired of the king nothing but power to act in his name, with a supply in money, and a letter recommending him to the king of Denmark for a ship to carry him over, and for such arms as he could spare him. With that the king gave him the garter. He got first to Orkney, and from thence into the Highlands of Scotland; but could perform nothing of what he had 92 undertaken. At last he was betrayed by one of those to whom he trusted himself, Macleod of Assynt, and was brought over a prisoner to Edinburgh[7]. He was carried through the streets with all the infamy that brutal malice could contrive, and in a few days he was hanged on a very high gibbet, and his head and quarters were set up in divers places of the kingdom. His behaviour under all that barbarous usage was as great and firm to the last, looking on all that was done to him with a noble scorn, as the fury of his enemies was black and universally detested. This raised a horror in all sober people against those who could insult over such a man in misfortune. The triumph that the preachers made on this occasion rendered them odious, and made lord Montrose to be both much pitied and lamented. This happened while the Scots commissioners were treating with the king at the Hague. The violent party in Scotland were for breaking off the treaty upon it, though by the date of Montrose's commission it appeared to have been granted before the treaty was begun[8]: but it was carried not to recall their commissioners. Nor could the king on the other hand be prevailed on by his own court to send them away upon this cruelty to a man who had acted by his commission, and yet was so used. The 93 treaty was quickly concluded. The king was in no condition to struggle with them, but yielded to all their demands, of taking the covenant, and suffering none to be about him but such as took it[9]. He sailed home to Scotland in some Dutch men of war with which the prince of Orange furnished him, with all the stock of money and arms that his credit could raise. That indeed would not have been very great if the prince of Orange had not joined his own to it. The duke of Hamilton and the earl of Lauderdale were suffered to go home with him: but soon after his landing an order came to put them from him. The king complained of this: but duke Hamilton at parting told him, he must prepare himself for things of a harder digestion: he said, at present he could do him no service: the marquis of Argyll was then in absolute credit: therefore he desired that he would study to gain him entirely, and give him no cause of jealousy on his account. This king Charles told myself, as a part of duke Hamilton's character. The duke of Buckingham took all the ways possible to gain Argyll and the ministers[10]: only his dissolute course of life was excessive scandalous; which to their great reproach they connived at, because he advised the king to put himself wholly in their hands. The king wrought himself into as grave a deportment as he could: he heard many prayers and sermons, some of a great length. I remember on one fast day there were six sermons preached without intermission. I was there my self, and not a little weary of so tedious a service[11]. The king was not allowed so much as to walk abroad on 28 Sundays: and if at any 94 time there had been any gaiety at court, such as dancing or playing at cards, he was severely reproved for it. This was managed with so much rigour and so little discretion, that it contributed not a little to beget in him an aversion to all sort of strictness in religion. All that had acted on his father's side were ordered to keep at a great distance from him: and because the common people shewed such affection to the king, the crowds that pressed to see him were also kept off from coming about him. Cromwell was not idle: but seeing the Scots were calling home their king, and knowing that from thence he might expect an invasion into England, he resolved to prevent them, and so marched into Scotland with his army. The Scots brought together a very good army. The king was suffered to come once and see it, but not to stay in it; for they were afraid he might gain too much upon the soldiers: so he was sent away[12].
The army was indeed one of the best that ever Scotland had brought together, but it was ill commanded: for all that had made defection from their cause, or that were thought indifferent as to either side, which they called detestable neutrality, were put out of commission. The preachers thought it an army of saints, and seemed well assured of success[13]. They drew near Cromwell, who being pressed by them retired towards Dunbar, where his ships and provisions lay. The Scots followed him, and were posted on a hill about a mile from thence, where there was no attacking them. Cromwell was then in great distress, and looked on himself as undone. There was no marching towards Berwick, the ground was too narrow: nor could he come back into the country without being separated from his ships, and starving his army. The least evil seemed to be to kill his horses, and put his army on board, 95 and sail back to Newcastle; which, in the disposition that England was in at that time, would have been all their destruction, for it would have occasioned an universal insurrection for the king. They had not above three days' forage for their horses. So Cromwell called his officers to a day of seeking the Lord, in their style. He loved to talk much of that matter all his life long afterwards: he said, he felt such an enlargement of heart in prayer, and such quiet upon it, that he bade all about him take heart, for God had certainly heard them, and would appear for them. After prayer they walked in the earl of Roxburgh's gardens, that lie under the hill: and by prospective glasses they discerned a great motion in the Scotish camp: upon which Cromwell said, God is delivering them into our hands, they are coming down to us[14]. Leslie was in the chief command: but he had a committee of the states with him to give him his orders, among whom Warriston was one[15]. 96 These were weary of lying in the fields, and thought that Leslie made not haste enough a to destroy those sectaries; for so they loved to call them. He told them, by lying there all was sure, but that by engaging into action with gallant and desperate men all might be lost: yet they still called on him to fall on. Many have thought that all this was treachery, done on design to deliver up our army to Cromwell; some laying it upon Leslie, and others upon my uncle. I am persuaded there was no treachery in it: only Warriston was too hot, and Leslie was too cold, and yielded too easily to their humours, which he ought not to have done. They were all the night employed in coming down the hill: and in the morning, before they were put in order, Cromwell fell upon them. Two regiments stood their ground, and were almost all killed in their ranks: the rest did run in a most shameful manner: so that both their artillery and baggage, and with these a great many prisoners, were taken, some thousands in all. Cromwell upon this advanced to Edinburgh, where he was received without any opposition; and the castle, that might have made a long resistance, did capitulate. So all the southern part of Scotland came under contribution to Cromwell. Stirling was the advanced garrison on the king's side; he himself retired to St. Johnston[16]. A parliament was called that sat for some time at Stirling, and for some time at St. Johnston, in which a full indemnity was passed, not in the language of a pardon, but of an act of approbation: all that joined with Cromwell were declared traitors. But now the ways of raising a new army were to be thought on. 97
A question had been proposed both to the committee of states and to the commissioners of the kirk, whether in this extremity those who had made defection, or had been hitherto backward in the work, might not upon the profession of their repentance be received into public trusts, and admitted to serve in the defence of their country[17]. To this, answers were distinctly given by two resolutions: the one was, that they ought to be admitted to make profession of their repentance: and the other was, that after such profession made they might be received to defend and serve their country.
Upon this, a great division followed in the kirk: those who adhered to these resolutions were called the Public Resolutioners: but against these some of those bodies protested, and they, together with those who adhered to them, were called the Protesters. On the one hand it was said, that every government might call out all that were under its protection to its defence: this seemed founded on the law of nature and of nations: and if men had been misled, it was a strange cruelty to deny room for repentance: this was contrary to the nature of God and the gospel, and was a likely mean to drive them to despair: therefore, after two years' time, it seemed reasonable to 29 allow them to serve according to their birthright in parliament, or in other hereditary offices, or in the army; from all which they had been excluded by an act made in the year 1649, that ranged them in different classes, and was from thence called the Act of Classes. But the Protesters objected against all this, that to take in men of known enmity to the cause was a sort of betraying it, because it was the 98 putting it in their power to betray it; that to admit them to a profession of repentance was a profanation, and a mocking of God[18]: it was visible they were willing to comply with these terms, though against their conscience, only to get into the army: nor could they expect a blessing from God on an army so constituted. And as to this particular they had great advantage; for this mock penitence was indeed matter of great scandal. When these resolutions were passed with this protestation, a great many of the five western counties, Clydesdale, Renfrew, Ayr, Galloway, and Nithisdale, met, and formed an association apart, both against the army of sectaries, and against this new defection in the kirk party[19]. They drew a remonstrance against all the proceedings in the treaty with the king, when, as they said, it was visible by the commission that he granted to Montrose that his heart was not sincere: and they were also against the tendering him the covenant, when they had reason to believe he took it not with a resolution to maintain it, since his whole deportment and private conversation shewed a secret enmity to the work of God: and, after an invidious enumeration of many 99 particulars, they imputed the shameful defeat at Dunbar to their prevaricating in these things; and concluded with a desire, that the king might be excluded from any share in the administration of the government, and that his cause might be put out of the state of the quarrel with the army of the sectaries. This was brought to the committee of estates at St. Johnston, and was severely inveighed against by sir Thomas Nicolson, the king's advocate or attorney general there, who had been till then a zealous man of their party: but he had lately married my sister, and my father had great influence on him. He prevailed, and the remonstrance was condemned as divisive, factious, and scandalous[20]: but that the people might not be too much moved with these things, a declaration was prepared to be set out by the king for the satisfying of them. In it there were many hard things[21]. The king owned the sin of his father's marrying into an idolatrous family: he acknowledged the bloodshed in the late wars lay at his father's door: he expressed a deep sense of his own ill education, and the prejudices he had drunk in against the cause, of which he was now very sensible: he confessed all the former part of 100 his life to have been a course of enmity to the work of God: he repented of his commission to Montrose, and of every thing he had done that gave offence: and with solemn protestations he affirmed, that he was now sincere in his declaration, and that he would adhere to it to the end of his life both in Scotland, England, and Ireland.
The king was very uneasy when this was brought to him He said, he could never look his mother in the face if he passed it. But when he was told it was necessary for his affairs, he resolved to swallow the pill without farther chewing it. So it was published, but had no good effect: for neither side believed him sincere in it[22]. It was thought a strange imposition to make him load his father's memory in such a manner. But, while the king was thus beset with the high and more moderate kirk parties, the old cavaliers sent to him, offering that if he would cast himself into their hands they would meet him near Dundee with a great body. Upon this the king, growing weary of the sad life he led, made his escape in the night, and came to the place appointed: but it was a vain undertaking, for he was met by a very inconsiderable body at Clova, the place of rendezvous. Those at St. Johnston being troubled at this, sent colonel Montgomery after him, who came up, and pressed him to return very rudely: so the king came back[23]. But this had a very good effect. The government saw now the danger of using him ill, which might provoke him to desperate courses: after that, he was used as well 101 as that kingdom, in so ill a state, was capable of. He saw the necessity of courting the marquis of Argyll, and therefore he made him great offers: at last he talked of marrying his daughter[24]. Argyll was cold and backward: he saw the king's heart lay not to him: so he looked on all offers but as so many snares. His son, the lord Lorn, was captain of the guards: and he made his court more dexterously; for he brought all persons that the king had a mind to speak with at all hours to him, and was in all 102 respects not only faithful but zealous. Yet this was suspected as a collusion between the father and the son[25]. The king was crowned on the first of January[26]: and there he again renewed the covenant: and now all people were admitted to come to him, and to serve in the army. The two armies lay peaceably in their winter quarters; but when the summer came on, a body of the English passed the Frith, and landed in Fife. So the king, having got up all the force he had expected, resolved on a march into England. Scotland could not maintain another year's war. This was a desperate resolution: but there was nothing else to be done[27].
I will not pursue the 30 relation of the march to Worcester, nor the total defeat given the king's army on the same day in which Dunbar fight had been fought the year before, on the 3rd of September. These things are so well known, as is also the king's escape, that I can add nothing to the common relations that have been over and over again made of them. At the same time that Cromwell followed the king into England, he left Monk in Scotland, with an army sufficient to reduce the rest of the kingdom. The town of Dundee made a rash and ill considered resistance: it was after a few days' siege taken by storm: much blood was shed, and the town was severely plundered. No other place made any resistance[28]. I remember well of 103 the coming of three regiments to Aberdeen. There was an order and discipline, and a face of gravity and piety among them, that amazed all people. Most of them were independents and anabaptists: they were all gifted men, and preached as they were moved; but they never disturbed the public assemblies in the churches but once. They came and reproached the preachers for laying things to their charge that were false. I was then present: the debate grew very fierce: at last they drew their swords, but there was no hurt done: yet Cromwell displaced the governor for not punishing this.
When the low countries in Scotland were thus reduced, some of the more zealous of the nobility went to the Highlands in the year 1653. The earl of Glencairn, a grave and sober man, but vain and haughty, got the tribe of the Macdonalds to declare for the king[29]. To these the lord Lorn came with about a thousand men: but the jealousy of the father made the son be suspected. The marquis of Argyll had retired into his country when the king marched into England, and did not submit to Monk till the year '52[30]. Then he received a garrison: but lord Lorn surprised a ship that was sent about with provisions to it, which helped to support their little ill-formed army. Many gentlemen came to them: and almost all the good horses of the kingdom were stolen, and carried up to them. They made a body of about 3,000: of these they had about 500 horse. They endured great hardships; for those parts were not fit to entertain men that had been accustomed to live softly. The earl of Glencairn's pride had almost spoiled all: for he took much upon him, and upon some 104 suspicion he a ordered lord Lorn to be clapt up, who had notice of it, and prevented it by an escape: otherwise they had fallen to cut one another's throats, instead of marching against the enemy[31]. The earl of Balcarres, a virtuous and knowing man but somewhat morose in his humour, went also among them[32]. They differed in their counsels: Glencairn was for falling into the low country, and he began to fancy he should be another Montrose. Balcarres, on the other hand, was for their keeping in their fastnesses, that made a shew of a body for the king, which they were to keep up in some reputation as long as they could, till they could see what assistance the king might be able to procure them from beyond sea, of men, money, and arms: whereas if they went out of those fast grounds, they could not hope to stand long before such a veteran and well disciplined army as Monk had; and if they met with the least check, their tumultuary body would soon melt away.
Among others, one sir Robert Moray, that had married the earl of Balcarres's sister[33], came among them. He had served in France, where he had got into such a degree of favour with cardinal Richelieu, that few strangers were ever so much considered by him as he was[34]. He was raised to 105 be a colonel there, and came over for recruits when the king was with the Scots' army at Newcastle. There he grew into high favour with the king, and had laid a design for his escape, of which I have given an account in duke Hamilton's memoirs: he was the most universally beloved and esteemed by men of all sides and sorts, of any man I have ever known in my whole life. He was a pious man, and in the midst of armies and courts he spent many hours a day in a devotion which was of a most elevating strain. He had gone through the easy parts of mathematics, and knew the history of nature beyond any man I ever yet knew. He had a genius much like Peiresk's, as he is described by Gassendi[35]. He was afterwards the first former of the Royal Society, and its first president; and while he lived, he was the life and soul of that body[36]. He had an equality of temper in him that nothing could alter, and was in practice the only stoic I ever knew. He had a great tincture of one of their principles, for he was much for absolute decrees. He had a most diffused love to all 106 mankind, and he delighted in every occasion of doing good, which he managed with great discretion and zeal. He had a superiority of genius and comprehension to most men: and had the plainest, but withal the softest, way of reproving, chiefly young people, for their faults, that I ever met with. And upon this account, as well as upon all the care and affection he expressed to me, I have ever reckoned that, next to my father, I owed more to him, than to any other man. Therefore I have enlarged upon his character; and yet I am sure I have rather said too little than too much.
31 Sir Robert Moray was in such credit in that little army, that lord Glencairn took a strange course to break it, and to ruin him. A letter was pretended to be found at Antwerp, as writ by him to William Murray of the bedchamber, that had been whipping-boy to king Charles the first, and upon that had grown up to a degree of favour and confidence that was very particular, and, as many thought, was as ill used, as it was little deserved[37]. He had a lewd creature there,, whom he turned off: and she, to be revenged on him, framed this plot against him. This ill-forged letter gave an account of a bargain sir Robert had made with Monk for killing the king, which was to be executed by a Mr. Murray: so he prayed him in his letter to make haste and dispatch it. This was brought to the earl of Glencairn: so sir Robert was severely questioned upon it, and put in arrest: and it was spread about through a rude army that he intended to kill the king, hoping, it seems, that upon that some of these wild people, believing it, would have fallen upon him without using any forms. But upon this occasion sir Robert practised in a very eminent manner his true Christian philosophy, without shewing so much as a cloud in his whole behaviour. 107
The earl of Balcarres left the Highlands, and went to the king, and shewed him the necessity of sending a military man to command that body, to whom they would submit more willingly than to any of the nobility. Middleton was sent over, who was a gallant man, and a good officer. He had first served on the parliament side: but he turned over to the king, and was taken at Worcester fight, but he made his escape out of the Tower[38]. He, upon his coming over, did for some time lay the heats that were among the Highlanders, and made as much of that face of an army for another year as was possible.
Drummond[39] was sent by him to Paris with an invitation to the king to come among them: for they had assurances sent them that the whole nation was in a disposition to rise with them: and England was beginning to grow weary of their new government, the army and the parliament being 108 on ill terms. The English were also engaged in a war with the States, who upon that account might be inclined to assist the king to give a diversion to their enemies' forces. Drummond told me, that upon his coming to Paris he was called to the little council that was then about the king: and when he had delivered his message, chancellor Hyde[40] asked him how the king would be accommodated if he came among them? He answered, not so well as was fitting, but they would all take care of him to furnish him with every thing that was necessary[41]. He wondered that the king did not check the chancellor in this demand: for he said, it looked strange to him, that when they were all hazarding their lives to help him to a crown, he should be concerned for accommodation. He was sent back with good words and a few kind letters. In the end of the year 1654 Morgan marched into the Highlands, and had a small engagement with Middleton[42], which broke that whole matter, of which all people were grown weary; for they had no prospect of success, and the low countries were so overrun with robberies on the pretence of going to assist the Highlanders, that there was an universal joy at the dispersing of that little unruly army. After this the country was kept in great order: some castles in the Highlands had garrisons put in them, that were so careful in their discipline, and so exact as to their rules, that in no time the Highlands were kept in better order than during the usurpation. There was a considerable force of about seven or eight thousand men kept in Scotland: these were paid exactly, and strictly disciplined. The pay of the army brought so much money 109 into the kingdom, that it continued all that while in a very flourishing state. Cromwell built three citadels, at Leith, Ayr, and Inverness, besides many lesser forts. There was good justice done, and vice was suppressed and punished[43]; so that we always reckon those eight years of usurpation a time of great peace and prosperity[44]. There was also a sort of union of the three kingdoms in one parliament, 110 where Scotland had its representatives. The marquis of Argyll went up one of our commissioners[45].
The next scene I must open relates to the church, and the heats raised in it by the Public Resolutions and the Protestation made against them. New occasions of dispute arose. A general assembly was in course to 32 meet, and sit at St. Andrews: so the Commission of the Kirk writ a circular letter to all the presbyteries, setting forth all the grounds of their Resolutions, and complaining of those who had protested against them; upon which they desired that they would choose none of those who adhered to that Protestation to represent them in the next Assembly. This was only an advice, and had been frequently practised in the former years: but now it was highly complained of, as a limitation on the freedom of elections, which inferred a nullity on all their proceedings: so the Protesters renewed their protestation against this meeting upon a higher point, disowning that authority which hitherto they had magnified as the highest tribunal in the church, in which they thought Christ was on his throne. Upon this a great debate followed, and many books were written in the course of several years. The public men said, this was the destroying of presbytery, if the lesser number did not submit to the greater: it was a sort of prelacy, if it was pretended that votes ought rather to be weighed than counted: parity was the essence of their constitution: and in this all people saw they had clearly the better of the argument. The Protesters urged for themselves, that, since all protestants rejected the pretence of infallibility, the major part of the church might fall into error, in which case the lesser number could not be bound to submit to them: they complained of the many corrupt clergymen who were yet among them, who were leavened with the old leaven, and did on all occasions shew what was still at heart, notwithstanding all 111 their outward compliance: for the episcopal clergy, that had gone into the covenant and presbytery to hold their livings, struck in with great heat to inflame the controversy: and it appeared very visibly, that presbytery, if not held in order by the civil power, could not be long kept in quiet. If in the supreme court of judicature the majority did not conclude the matter, it was not possible to keep up their beloved parity. It was confessed that in doctrinal points the lesser number was not bound to submit to the greater: but in the matters of mere government it was impossible to maintain the presbyterian form on any other bottom.
As this debate grew hot, and they were ready to break out into censures on both sides, some were sent down from the commonwealth of England to settle Scotland: of these sir Henry Vane was one[46]. The Resolutioners were known to have been more in the king's interests: so they were not so kindly looked on as the Protesters. Some of the English junto moved, that pains should be taken to unite the two parties, but Vane opposed this with much zeal: he said, would they heal the wound that they had given themselves, which weakened them so much? The setting them at quiet could have no other effect but to heal and unite them in their opposition to their authority. He therefore moved that they might be left at liberty to fight out their own quarrels, and thereby be kept in a greater dependence on the temporal authority, when both sides were forced to make their appeal to it. So it was resolved to suffer them to meet still in their presbyteries and synods, but not in general assemblies, which had a greater face of union and authority[47].
This advice was followed: so the division went on. Both sides studied, when any church became vacant, to get a man of their own party to be chosen to succeed in the election: and upon these occasions many tumults happened. In some of them stones were thrown, and many were 112 wounded, to the great scandal of religion. In all these disputes the Protesters were the fiercer side: for being less in number, they studied to make that up with their fury. In one point they had the others at a great advantage, with relation to their new masters, who required them to give over praying for the king. The Protesters were weary of doing it, and submitted very readily: but the others stood out longer, and said, it was a duty lying on them by the covenant, so they could not let it fall. Upon that the English council set out an order, that such as should continue to pray for the king should be denied the help of law to recover their tithes, or, as they are called there, their stipends. This touched them in a sensible point; but, that they might seem to act upon their own authority, they did enact it in their presbyteries, that since all duties did not oblige at all times, therefore considering the present juncture, in which the king could not protect them, they resolved to discontinue that 33 piece of duty. This exposed them to much censure, since such a carnal consideration as the force of law for their benefices, (which all regard at too much, though few will own it.) seemed to be that which determined them.
This great breach among them being rather encouraged than suppressed by those who were in power, all the methods imaginable were used by the Protesters to raise their credit among the people. They preached often and very long, and seemed to carry their devotions to a greater sublimity than others did[48]. Their constant topic was the sad defection and corruption of the judicatories of the church, and they often proposed several expedients for purging it[49]. 113 The truth was, they were more active, and their performances were livelier, than the Public men. They were in nothing more singular than in their communions. In many places the sacrament was discontinued for several years, where they thought the magistracy, or the more eminent of the parish, were engaged in what they called the defection, which was much more looked at than the scandals given by bad lives. But where the greater part of the parish was more sound, they gave the sacrament with a new and unusual solemnity. On the Wednesday before they held a fast day, with prayers and sermons for about eight or ten hours together: on the Saturday they had two or three preparation sermons: and on the Lord's day they had so very many, that the action continued above twelve hours in some places: and all ended with three or four sermons on Monday for thanksgivings. A great many ministers were brought together from several parts, and high pretenders would have gone forty or fifty miles to a noted communion. The crowds were far beyond the capacity of their churches, or the reach of their voices, so at the same time they had sermons in two or three different places: and all was performed with great shews of zeal. They had stories of many signal conversions that were wrought upon these occasions; whereas others were better believed, who told as many stories of much lewdness among the multitudes that did then run together.
It is scarce credible what an effect this had among the people, to how great a measure of knowledge they were brought, and how readily they could pray extempore, and talk of divine matters. All this tended to raise the credit of the Protesters. The Resolutioners tried to imitate them in these practices: but they were not thought so spiritual, nor so ready at them: so the other had the chief following. 114 Where the judicatories of the church were near an equality of the men of both sides, there were perpetual janglings among them: at last they proceeded to deprive men of both sides, as they were the majority in the judicatories: but because the possession of the church and the benefice was to depend on the orders of the temporal courts, both sides made their application to the privy council that Cromwell had set up in Scotland[50]: and they were by them referred to Cromwell himself. So they sent deputies up to London. The Protesters went in greater numbers: they came nearer both to the principles and to that temper that prevailed in the army: so they were looked on as the better men, on whom, by reason of the first rise of the difference, the government might more certainly depend: whereas the others were considered as more in the king's interests.
The Resolutioners sent up one Sharp[51], who had been long in England, and was an active and eager man: he had a very small proportion of learning, and was but an indifferent preacher: but having some acquaintance with the presbyterian ministers of London, whom Cromwell was then courting much by reason of their credit in the city, he was, by an error that proved fatal to the whole party, sent up in their name to London; where he continued for some years soliciting their concerns, and making himself known to all sorts of people. He seemed more than ordinary zealous for presbytery. And, as Cromwell was then designing to make himself king[52], Dr. Wilkins[53] told me he often said to him, no temporal government could have a sure support without a national church that adhered to it, and he thought England was capable of no other national constitution but of episcopacy; to which, he told me, he did not doubt but Cromwell would have turned, 115 as soon as the design of his kingship was settled. Upon this, he spoke to Sharp, that it was plain by their breach that presbytery could not be managed so as to maintain order among them, and that an episcopacy must be brought in to settle them: but Sharp could not bear the discourse, and rejected it with horror. I have dwelt the longer on this matter, and opened it the more fully than was necessary if I had not thought that this may have a good effect on the reader, and shew him how impossible it is in a parity to maintain peace and order, if the magistrate does not interpose: and then that will be cried out upon by the zealots of both sides as abominable Erastianism.
34 From these matters I go next to set down some particulars that I knew concerning Cromwell, that I have not yet seen in books. Some of these I had from the earls of Carlisle[1] and Orrery[2]: the one had been the captain of his guards, and the other had been the president of his council in Scotland. But he from whom I learned the most was Stoupe, a Grison by birth, then minister of the French church in the Savoy[3], and afterwards a brigadier general 116 in the French armies: a man of intrigue, but of no virtue: he adhered to the protestant religion as to outward appearance, but he was more a Socinian or deist than either protestant or Christian. He was much trusted by Cromwell in foreign affairs; in which Cromwell was oft to seek, and having no foreign language, but the little Latin that stuck to him from his education, which he spoke very viciously and scantily, had not the necessary means of informing himself.
When Cromwell first assumed the government, he had the three great parties of the nation all against him, the episcopal, the presbyterian, and the republican party[4]. The last was the most set on his ruin, looking on him as the person that had perfidiously broke the house of commons, and was setting up for himself[5]. He had none to rely on but the army: yet that enthusiastic temper that he had taken so much pains to raise among them made them very intractable[6]: many of the chief officers were broken and imprisoned by him: and he flattered the rest the best he could. He went on in his old way of long and dark discourses, sermons, and prayers. As to the cavalier party, 117 he was afraid both of assassination and other plottings from them[7]. As to the former of these, he took a method that proved very effectual: he said often and openly, that in a war it was necessary to return upon any side all the violent things that any of the side did the other: this was done for preventing greater mischiefs, and for bringing men to fair war: therefore, he said, assassinations were such detestable things, that he would never begin them: but if any of the king's party should endeavour to assassinate him, and fail in it, he would make an assassinating war of it, and destroy the whole family: and he pretended he had instruments ready to execute it whensoever he should give orders for it. The terror of this was a more effectual security to him than his guards.
The other, as to their plottings, was the more dangerous. But he understood that one sir Richard Willis was chancellor Hyde's chief confident, to whom he wrote often, and to whom all the party submitted, looking on him as an able and wise man. in whom they confided absolutely[8]. So he found a way to talk with him: he said, he did not intend to hurt any of the party: his design was rather to 118 save them from ruin: they were apt, after their cups, to run into foolish and ill concerted plots, which signified nothing but to ruin those who engaged in them: he knew they consulted him in every thing: all he desired of him was to know all their plots, that he might so deconcert them, that none might ever suffer for them: if he clapt any of them up in prison, it should only be for a little time, and they should be interrogated only about some trifling discourse, but never about the business they had been engaged in. He offered Willis whatever he would accept of, and to give it when or as he pleased. He durst not ask or take much, for if it had appeared that he had much money that would have given jealousy, so he did not take above two hundred pound a year. None was trusted with this but his secretary Thurloe, who was a very dexterous man at getting intelligence.
Thus Cromwell had all the king's party in a net, and he let them dance in it at pleasure, and upon occasions clapt them up for a short while: but nothing was ever discovered that hurt any of them. In conclusion, after Cromwell's death, Willis continued to give notice of every thing to Thurloe. At last, when the plot was laid among the cavaliers for a general insurrection, the king was desired to come over to that which was to be raised in Sussex: he was to have landed near Chichester, all by Willis's management: and a snare was laid for him, in which he would probably have been caught if Morland, Thurloe' s under secretary, who was a prying man, had not discovered the correspondence between his master and Willis, and warned the king of his danger[9]. Yet it was not easy to 119 persuade those who had trusted Willis so much, and thought him faithful in all respects, to believe that he could be guilty of so black a treachery: so Morland's advertisement was looked on as an artifice to create jealousy. But he, to give a full conviction, had observed where the secretary laid some letters of advice, on which he saw he relied most, and getting the key of that cabinet in his hand to seal a letter with a seal that hung to it, he took the impression of it in wax, and got a key to be made from it, by which he opened the cabinet, and sent over some of the most important of those letters. The hand was known, and this artful but black treachery was discovered: so the design of the rising was laid aside for that time. Sir George Booth having engaged at the same time to raise a body in Cheshire, two several messengers 35 were sent to him, to let him know the design could not be executed at the time appointed: both these persons were suspected by some garrisons through which they must pass, as giving no good account of themselves in a time of jealousy, and were so long stopt that they could not give him notice in time: so 120 he very gallantly performed his part: but not being seconded, he was soon crushed by Lambert. Thus Willis lost the merit of great and long services. This was one of Cromwell's masterpieces.
As for the presbyterians, they were so apprehensive of the fury of the commonwealth party, that they thought it a deliverance to be rescued out of their hands. Many of the republicans began to profess deism, and almost all of them were for destroying all clergymen and for breaking every thing that looked like the union of a national church. They were for pulling down the churches, for discharging the tithes, and for leaving religion free, as they called it, without either encouragement or restraint. Cromwell assured the presbyterians he would maintain a public ministry with all due encouragement[10]; and he joined them in a commission with some independents to be the triers of all those who were to be admitted to benefices. These disposed also of all the churches that were in the gift of the crown, of the bishops, and of the cathedral churches: so this softened them.
He studied to divide the commonwealth party among themselves, and to set the fifth-monarchy[11] men and the enthusiasts against those who pretended to little or no religion, and acted only upon the principles of civil liberty, such as Algernon Sidney, Henry Nevill, Marten, Wildman, and Harrington. The fifth-monarchy men seemed to be really in expectation every day when Christ should appear: John Goodwin headed these, who first brought in Arminianism 121 among the sectaries, for he was for liberty of all sorts. Cromwell hated that doctrine: for his beloved notion was, that once a child of God always a child of God: now he had led a very strict life for above eight years together before the wars[12]: so he comforted himself much with his reflections on that time, and on the certainty of perseverance. But none of the preachers were so thoroughpaced for him as to temporal matters as Goodwin was; for he not only justified the putting the king to death, but magnified it as the gloriousest action men were capable of[13]. He filled all people with such expectation of a glorious thousand years, speedily to begin, that it looked like a madness possessing them.
It was no easy thing for Cromwell to satisfy these when he took the power into his own hands, since that looked like a step to kingship, which Goodwin had long represented as the great Antichrist that hindered Christ's being set on his throne[14]. To these he said, and as some have told me, with many tears, that he would rather have taken a shepherd's staff than the protectorship, since nothing was more contrary to his genius than a shew of greatness[15]: but he saw it was necessary at that time to keep the nation from falling into extreme disorder, and from becoming a prey to the common enemy: and therefore he only stept in between the living and the dead, as he phrased it, in that interval till God should direct them on what bottom they ought to 122 settle: and he assured them that then he would surrender the heavy load lying upon him with a joy equal to the sorrow with which he was afflicted while under that shew of dignity. To men of this stamp he would enter into the terms of the old equality, shutting the door, and making them sit down covered by him; to let them see how little he valued those distances that, for form's sake, he was bound to keep up with others. These discourses commonly ended in a long prayer. Thus he with much ado managed the republican enthusiasts[16]. The other republicans he called the heathen, and he professed he could not so easily work upon them. He had some chaplains of all sorts: and he began in his latter years to be gentler towards those of the church of England. They had their meetings in several places about London without any disturbance from him. In conclusion, even the papists courted him: and he, with great dissimulation, carried things with all sorts of people much further than was thought possible, considering the difficulties he met with in all his parliaments[17]: but it was generally believed that his life and all his arts were exhausted at once, and that if he had lived much longer, he could not have held things together.
The debates came on very high for setting up a king. All the lawyers, chiefly Glyn, Maynard, Fountain, and St. John, were vehemently for this[18]. They said, no new government could be settled legally but by a king, who 123 should pass bills for such a form as should be agreed on. Till then, all they did was like building upon sand: still men were in danger of a revolution: and in that case, all that had been done would be void of itself, as contrary to a law as yet in being, and not repealed. Till that was done, every man that had been concerned in the war, and in the blood that was shed, chiefly the king's, was still obnoxious: and no warrants could be pleaded but what were founded on, or approved of by, a law passed by king, lords, and commons. They might agree to trust this 36 king as much as they pleased, and make his power determine as soon as they pleased, so that he should be a felo de se, and consent to an act, if need were, of extinguishing both name and thing for ever. And as no man's person was safe till this was done, so they said all the grants and sales that had been made were null and void: all men that had gathered or disposed of the public money were for ever accountable. In short, the point was made out beyond the possibility of answering it, except upon enthusiastic principles. But by that sort of men all this was called a mistrusting of God, and a trusting to the arm of flesh. They had gone out, as they said, in the simplicity of their hearts to fight the Lord's battles, to whom they made the appeals: he had heard them, and appeared for them, and now they would trust him no longer. They had pulled down monarchy with the monarch, and would they now build that up which they had destroyed: they had solemnly vowed to God to be true to the commonwealth, without a king or kingship: and under that vow, as under a banner, they had fought and prevailed: but now they must be secure, and in order to that go back to Egypt. They thought it was rather a happiness that they were still under a legal danger: this might be a mean to make them more cautious and diligent. If kings were the invaders of God's right, and the usurpers upon men's liberties, why must they have recourse to such a wicked engine? Upon these grounds 124 they stood out[19]: and they looked on all that was offered about the limiting this king in his power, as the gilding the pill: the assertors of those laws that made it necessary to have a king, would no sooner have one than they would bring forth out of the same storehouse all that related to the power and prerogative of this king: therefore they would not hearken to any thing that was offered on that head, but rejected it with scorn. Many of them began openly to say, if we must have a king, in consequence of so much law as was alleged, why should we not rather have that king to whom the law certainly pointed than any other[20]? The earl of Orrery told me, that, coming one day to Cromwell during those heats, and telling him he had been in the city all that day, Cromwell asked him what news he had heard there: the other answered, that he was told he was in treaty with the king, who was to be restored, and was to marry his daughter. Cromwell expressing no indignation at this, lord Orrery said, in the state to which things were brought, he saw not a better expedient: they might bring him in on what terms they pleased, and Cromwell might retain the same authority he then had, with less trouble. He answered, the king can never forgive his father's blood. Orrery said, he was one of many that were concerned in that, but he would be alone in the merit of restoring him. Cromwell replied, he is so damnably debauched, he would undo us all; and so turned 125 to another discourse without any emotion, which made Orrery conclude he had often thought of that expedient[21].
On the day in which he refused the offer of kingship that was made to him by the parliament, he had kept himself on such a reserve that no man knew what answer he would give. It was thought more likely he would accept of it[22]: but that which determined him to the contrary was, that, when he went down in the morning to walk in S. James's park, Fleetwood and Desborough were waiting for him: the one had married his daughter, and the other his sister. With these he entered into much discourse on the subject, and argued for it: he said, it was a tempting of God to expose so many worthy men to death and poverty, when there was a certain way to secure them. The others insisted still on the oaths they had made. He said, these oaths were against the power and tyranny of kings, but not against the four letters that made the word king. In conclusion, they, believing from his discourse that he intended to accept of it, told him they saw great confusions would follow on it: and as they could not serve him to set up the idol they had put down, and had sworn to keep down, so they would not engage in any thing against him, but would retire and look on. So they offered him their commissions, since they were resolved not to serve a king. He desired they would stay till they heard his answer. But it was believed, that he, seeing two persons so near him ready to abandon him, concluded that many others would follow their example, and therefore thought it was too bold 126 a venture[23]. So he refused it, but accepted of the continuance of his protectorship. Yet, if he had lived out the next winter, as the debates were to have been brought on again, so it was generally thought he would have accepted of the offer. And it is yet a question what the effect of that would have been. Some have thought it would have brought on a general settlement, since now the law and the ancient government were again to take place: others have fancied just the contrary, that it would have enraged the army, so that they would either have deserted the service, or have revolted from him, and perhaps have killed him in the first fray of the tumult. 37 I will not determine which of these would have most probably happened. In these debates some of the cavalier party, or rather their children, came to bear some share. They were then all zealous commonwealth's men, according to the directions sent them from those about the king. Their business was to oppose Cromwell in all his demands, and so to weaken him at home, and expose him abroad. When some of the other party took notice of this great change, from being the abettors of prerogative to become the patrons of liberty, they pretended their education in the court and their obligation to it had engaged them that way; but now since that was out of doors, they had the common principles of human nature and the love of liberty in them as well as others. By this means, as all the old republicans assisted and protected them, so they secured themselves at the same time that they strengthened the faction against Cromwell. But these very men at the restoration shook off this disguise, and reverted to their old principles for a high prerogative and absolute power. They said they were for liberty, when it was a mean to distress one who they thought had no right to govern, but when the government returned to its old channel, it appeared they were still as firm to all prerogative notions, and as great enemies to liberty, as ever[24]. 127
I go next to give an account of Cromwell's transactions with relation to foreign affairs. He laid it down for a maxim, to spare no cost or charge in order to procure him intelligence[25]. When he understood what dealers the Jews were every where in that trade that depends on news, that is, the advancing money upon high or low interest with a proportion to the risk they run, or gain to be made as the times might turn, and in the buying and selling of the actions of money so advanced, he, more upon that account than in compliance with the principle of toleration, brought a company of them over into England, and gave them leave to build a synagogue. All the while that he was negotiating this, they were sure and good spies for him, especially with relation to Spain and Portugal[26]. The earl 128 of Orrery told me, he was once walking with him in one of the galleries of Whitehall, and a man almost in rags came in view: so he presently dismissed Orrery, and carried that man into his closet, who brought him an account of a great sum of money that the Spaniards were 129 sending over to pay their army in Flanders, but in a Dutch man of war: and he told him the places of the ship in which the money was lodged. Cromwell sent an express immediately to Smith, afterwards sir Jeremy Smith, who lay in the Downs, telling him that within a day or two such a Dutch ship would pass the channel, whom he must visit for the Spanish money, which was counterband goods, he being then in war with Spain. So when the ship passed by Dover, Smith sent, and demanded leave to search him. The Dutch captain answered, none but his masters might search him. Smith sent him word, he had set up an hour glass, and if before that was run out he did not submit to the search, he would force it. The captain saw it was in vain to struggle, and so all the money was found. Next time that Cromwell saw Orrery, he told him he had his intelligence from that contemptible man he saw him go to some days before. And thus he had on all occasions very good intelligence: he knew every thing that passed in the king's little court: and yet none of his spies were discovered but one only[27].
The greatest difficulty in him in his foreign affairs was, what side to choose? France or Spain? The prince of Condé was then in the Netherlands with a great many protestants of quality about him. He set the Spaniards on making great steps towards the gaining Cromwell into their interests. Spain ordered their ambassador to compliment him. He was esteemed one of their ablest men[28]: his name was Don Alonso de Cardenas: he offered, that if Cromwell would join with them, they would engage themselves to make no peace till he should recover Calais again 130 to England. This was very agreeable to Cromwell, who thought it would recommend him much to the nation if he could restore that town again to the English empire, after it had been a hundred years in the hands of the French. Mazarin hearing of this, sent one over to negotiate with him, but at first without a character: and, to outbid the Spaniard, he offered to assist Cromwell to take Dunkirk, which was a place of much more importance. The prince of Condé sent over one likewise to offer Cromwell to turn protestant, and, if he would give him a fleet with good troops, he would make a descent on Guienne, where he did not doubt but that he should be assisted by the protestants; and that he should so distress France, as to obtain such conditions for them and for England as Cromwell himself should dictate. Upon this offer Cromwell sent Stoupe round all France[29], 38 to talk with their most eminent men, to see into their strength, into their present disposition, the oppressions they lay under, and their inclinations to trust the prince of Condé. He went from Paris down the Loire, then to Bourdeaux, from thence to Montauban, and across the south of France to Lyons: he was instructed to talk to them only as a traveller, and to assure them of Cromwell's zeal and care of them, which he magnified every where. The protestants were then very much at their ease: for Mazarin, who thought of nothing but how to enrich his family, took care to maintain the edicts better than they 131 had been in any time formerly. So he returned, and gave Cromwell an account of the ease they were then in, and of their resolution to be quiet. They had a very bad opinion of the prince of Condé as an impious and immoral man, who sought nothing but his own greatness, to which they believed that he was ready to sacrifice all his friends, and every cause that he espoused. This settled Cromwell as to that particular. He also found that the cardinal had such spies on that prince, that he knew every message that had passed between them: therefore he would have no farther correspondence with him: he said upon that to Stoupe, Stultus est, et garrulus, et venditur a suis cardinali. That which determined him afterwards in the choice was this: he found the parties grew so strong against him at home, that he saw if the king or his brother were assisted by France with an army of Huguenots to make a descent in England, which was threatened if he should join with Spain, this might prove very dangerous to him, who had so many enemies at home and so few friends[30]. This particular consideration, with relation to himself, made great impression on him; for he knew the Spaniards could give those princes no strength, nor had they any protestant 132 subjects to assist them in any such design. Upon this occasion K. James told me, that among other prejudices he had at the protestant religion this was one, that both his brother and himself, being in many companies in Paris incognito, where they met many protestants, he found they were all alienated from them, and were great admirers of Cromwell: so he believed they were all rebels in their heart. I answered, that foreigners were no other way concerned in the quarrels of their neighbours, than to see who could or would assist them: the coldness they had seen formerly in the court of England with relation to them, and the zeal which was then expressed, must naturally make them depend on one that seemed resolved to protect them. As the negotiation went on between France and England, Cromwell would have the king and his brothers dismissed the kingdom[31]. Mazarin consented to this; for he thought it more honourable that the French king should send them away of his own accord, than that it should be done pursuant to an article with Cromwell. Great excuses were made for doing it: they had some money given them, and were sent away loaded with promises of constant supplies that were never meant to be performed: and they retired to Cologne; for the Spaniards were not yet out of hope of gaining Cromwell. But when that vanished, they invited them to Brussells, and they settled great appointments on them in their way, which was always to promise much, how little soever they could perform. They also settled a pay for such of the subjects of the three kingdoms as would come and serve under our princes: but few came, except from Ireland: of these some regiments were formed. But though this gave them a great and lasting interest in our court, especially in K. James, yet they did not much to deserve it. 133
Before king Charles left Paris he changed his religion, but by whose persuasion is not yet known: only cardinal de Retz was of the secret, and lord Aubigny had a great hand in it. It was kept a great secret. Chancellor Hyde had some suspicion of it, but would never suffer himself to believe it quite[32]. Soon after the restoration, that cardinal 134 came over in disguise, and had an audience of the king: what passed is not known[33]. The first ground I had to believe it was this: the marquis de Roucy, who was the man of the greatest family in France that continued protestant to the last, was much pressed by that cardinal to change his religion: he was his kinsman, and his particular friend. Among other reasons one that he urged was, that the religion must certainly be ruined, and that they could expect no protection from England, for to his certain knowledge both the princes were already changed. Roucy told this in great confidence to his minister, who after his death sent an advertisement of it to my self. Sir Allan Brodrick, a great confident of the chancellor's, who from being very atheistical became in the last years of his life an eminent penitent, as he was a man of great parts, with whom I had lived long in great confidence, on his deathbed sent me likewise an account of this matter, which he believed was done in Fountainebleau, before king Charles was sent to Cologne. As for king James, it seems he was not reconciled at that time: for he told me, that being in a monastery in Flanders, 39 a nun desired him to pray every day, that if he was not in the right way, God would bring him into it: and he said, the impression these words made on him never left him till he changed.
To return to Cromwell: while he was balancing in his mind what was fit for him to do, Gage, who had been a priest, came over from the West Indies, and gave him such an account of the feebleness, as well as of the wealth, of the Spaniards in those parts, as made him conclude that 135 it would be both a great and an easy conquest to seize on their dominions[34]; by this he reckoned he would be supplied with such a treasure, that his government would be established before he should need to have any recourse to a parliament for money. Spain would never admit of a peace with England between the tropics: so he was in a state of war with them as to those parts, even before he declared war in Europe. He upon that equipped a fleet with a force sufficient, as he hoped, to have seized Hispaniola and Cuba; and Gage had assured him, that success in that expedition would make all the rest fall into his hands. Stoupe, being on another occasion called to his closet, saw him one day very intent in looking on a map, and in measuring distances. Stoupe saw it was a map of the bay of Mexico, and observed who printed it. So, there being no discourse upon that subject, Stoupe went next day to the printer to buy the map. The printer denied he had printed it. Stoupe affirmed he had seen it. Then he said, it must be only in Cromwell's hand; for he only had some of the prints, and had given him a strict charge to sell none till he had leave given him. So Stoupe perceived there was a design that way. And when the time of setting out the fleet came on, all were in a gaze whither it was to go: some fancied it was to rob the church of Loretto, which occasioned a fortification to be drawn round it: others talked of Rome itself; for Cromwell's preachers had this often in their mouths, that if it were not for the divisions at home, he would go and sack Babylon: others talked of Cadiz, though he had not yet broke with the Spaniards. The French could not penetrate into the secret. Cromwell had not finished his alliance 136 with them: so he was not bound to give them an account of the expedition: all he said upon it was, that he sent out this fleet to guard the seas, and to restore England to its dominion on that element. Stoupe happened to say in a company, he believed the design was on the West Indies. The Spanish ambassador, hearing that, sent for him very privately, to ask him upon what ground he said it: and he offered to lay down £10,000 if he could make any discovery of that. Stoupe owned to me he had a great mind to the money, and fancied he betrayed nothing if he did discover the grounds of these conjectures, since nothing had been trusted to him: but he expected greater matters from Cromwell, and so kept the secret, and said only, that, in a diversity of conjectures, that seemed to him more probable than any other. But the ambassador made no account of that, nor did he think it worth the writing to Don John, then at Brussells, about it[35].
Stoupe writ it over as his own conjecture to one about the prince of Condé, who at first hearing it was persuaded that that must be the design, and went next day to suggest it to Don John: but he relied so much on the ambassador that this made no impression; and indeed all the ministers whom he employed knew that they were not to disturb him with troublesome news: of which K. Charles told a pleasant story. One whom Don John was sending to some court in Germany, came to the king to ask his commands: he desired him only to write him news: the Spaniard asked him, whether he would have true or false news? and when the king seemed amazed at the question, he added that if he writ him true news the king must be secret, for he knew he must write news to Don John that would be acceptable, true or false. When the ministers of that court shewed that they would be served in such a manner, it is no wonder to see how their affairs have declined. This matter of the fleet continued a great secret; 137 and some months after that, Stoupe being accidentally with Cromwell, one came from the fleet through Ireland with a letter. The bearer looked like one that brought no welcome news; and as soon as Cromwell had read the letter, he dismissed Stoupe, who went immediately to the earl of Leicester, then lord Lisle, and told him what he had seen. He being then of Cromwell's council went to Whitehall, and came back, and told Stoupe of the descent made on Hispaniola, and of the misfortune that had happened. It was then late, and was the post night for Flanders; so Stoupe writ it as news to his correspondent, some days before the Spanish ambassador knew any thing of it. Don John was amazed at the news, and had never any regard to the ambassador after that; but had a great opinion of Stoupe, and ordered the ambassador to make him theirs at any rate. The ambassador sent for him, and asked him, now that it appeared he had guessed right, what were 40 his grounds: and when he told what they were, the ambassador owned he had reason to conclude as he did upon what he saw. And after that he made great use of Stoupe: but he himself was never esteemed so much as he had been. This deserved to be set down so particularly, since by it it appears that the greatest designs may be discovered by an undue carelessness. The court of France was amazed at the undertaking, and was glad that it had miscarried; for the cardinal said, if he had suspected it, he would have made peace with Spain on any terms, rather than to have given way to that which would have been such an addition to England, as must have brought all the wealth of the world into their hands. The fleet took Jamaica: but that was small gain, though much magnified to cover the failing of the main design[36] The war after that broke out, in which Dunkirk was indeed taken, and put in Cromwell's hands; but the trade of 138 England suffered more in that than in any former war: so he lost the heart of the city by that means.
Cromwell had two signal occasions given him to shew his zeal in protecting the protestants abroad. The duke of Savoy raised a new persecution of the Vaudois: so Cromwell sent to Mazarin, desiring him to put a stop to that; adding, that he knew well they had that duke in their power, and could restrain him as they pleased: and if they did it not, he must presently break with them. Mazarin objected to this as unreasonable: he promised to do good offices, but he could not be obliged to answer for the effects they might have. This did not satisfy Cromwell: so they obliged the duke of Savoy to put a stop to that unjust fury: and Cromwell raised a great sum for the Vaudois, and sent over Morland to settle all their concerns and supply all their losses. There was also a tumult in Nimes[37], in which some disorder had been committed by the Huguenots: and they, apprehending severe proceedings upon it, sent one over with great expedition to Cromwell, who sent him back to Paris in an hour's time with a very effectual letter to his ambassador, requiring him either to prevail that the matter might be passed over, or to come away immediately. Mazarin complained of this way of proceeding as too imperious, but the necessity of their affairs made him yield. These things raised Cromwell's character abroad, and made him be much depended on.
His ambassador at this time was Lockhart, a Scotchman, who had married his niece, and was in high favour with him, as he well deserved to be[38]. He was both a wise and 139 a gallant man, calm and virtuous, and one that carried the generosities of friendship very far. He was made governor of Dunkirk and ambassador at the same time; but he told me, that when he was sent afterwards ambassador by K. Charles, he found he had nothing of that regard that was paid him in Cromwell's time. Stoupe told me of a great design Cromwell had intended to begin his kingship with, if he had assumed it. He resolved to set up a council for the protestant religion, in opposition to the congregation de propaganda fide at Rome. He intended it should consist of seven councillors, and four secretaries for different provinces. These were the first, France, Switzerland, and the Valleys: the Palatinate and the other Calvinists were the second: Germany, the North, and Turkey were the third: and the East and West Indies were the fourth. These were to have 500 salary apiece, and to keep a correspondence every where, to know the state of religion all over the world, that so all good designs might be by their means protected and assisted. Stoupe was to have the second province, and they were to have a fonds of 10,000 a year at their disposal for ordinary emergents, but to be further supplied as occasions should require it. Chelsey college was to be made up for them, which was then an old decayed building, that had been at first raised for a design not unlike this, to be a college for writers of controversy. I thought it was not fit to let such a project as this was be quite lost: it was certainly a noble 140 one, but how far he would have pursued it must be left to conjecture[39].
Stoupe told me another remarkable passage in his employment under Cromwell. He had desired all that were about the prince of Condé to let him know some news, in return of that he writ to them. So he had a letter from one of them, giving an account of an Irishman newly gone over, who had said he would kill Cromwell, and that he was to lodge in King street, Westminster. With this he went down to Whitehall. Cromwell being then at council, he sent him a note, letting him know that he had a business of great consequence to lay before him. Cromwell was then upon a matter that did so entirely possess him. that he, fancying it was only some piece of foreign intelligence, sent Thurloe to know what it might be. Stoupe was troubled at this, but could not refuse to shew him his letter. Thurloe made no great matter of it: he said, they had many such advertisements sent them, which signified nothing, but to make the world think the Protector was in danger of his life: and the looking too much after these things had an appearance of fear, which did ill become so great a man. Stoupe told him. King street might be soon searched. Thurloe answered, what if we find no such person ? how shall we be laughed at. Yet he ordered him to write again to Brussells, and promise any reward if a more particular discovery could be made. Stoupe was much cast down, 41 when he saw that a piece of intelligence which he hoped might have made his fortune was so little considered. He wrote to Brussells: but he had no more from thence but a confirmation of what had been writ formerly to him. And Thurloe did not think fit to make any search or any further inquiry into it: nor did he so much as acquaint Cromwell with it Stoupe being uneasy at this, told lord Lisle of it: and it happened that a few 141 weeks after Syndercomb's design of assassinating Cromwell near Brentford, as he was going to Hampton court, was discovered. When he was examined, it appeared that he was the person set out in the letters from Brussells. So Lisle said to Cromwell, this is the very man of whom Stoupe had the notice given him[40]. Cromwell seemed amazed at this, and sent for Stoupe, and in great wrath reproached him for his ingratitude in concealing a matter of such consequence to him. Stoupe upon this shewed him the letters he had received; and put him in mind of the note he had sent in to him, which was immediately after he had the first letter, and that he had sent out Thurloe to him. At that Cromwell seemed yet more amazed, and sent for Thurloe, to whose face Stoupe affirmed the matter: nor did he deny any part of it; but only said that he had many such advertisements sent him, in which till this time he had never found any truth. Cromwell replied sternly, that he ought to have acquainted him with it, and left him to judge of the importance of it. Thurloe desired to speak in private with Cromwell: so Stoupe was dismissed, and went away, not doubting but Thurloe would be disgraced. But, as he understood from Lisle afterward, Thurloe shewed Cromwell such instances of his care and fidelity on all such occasions, and humbly acknowledged his error in this matter, but imputed it wholly to his care, both for his honour and quiet, that he pacified him entirely: and indeed he was so much in all Cromwell's secrets, that it was not safe to disgrace him without destroying him; and that, it seems, Cromwell could not resolve on. Thurloe having mastered this point, that he might further justify his not being so attentive as 142 he ought to have been, did so search into Stoupe's whole deportment, that he possessed Cromwell with such an ill opinion of him, that after that he never treated him with any confidence. So he found how dangerous it was even to preserve a prince, (so he called him,) when a minister was wounded in the doing of it; and that the minister would be too hard for the prince, even though his own safety was concerned in it[41].
These are all the memorable things that I have learnt concerning Cromwell; of whom so few have spoken with any temper, some commending and others condemning him, and both out of measure, that I thought a just account of him, which I had from sure hands, might be no unacceptable thing. He never could shake off the roughness[42] of his education and temper: he spoke always long, and very ungracefully. The enthusiast and the dissembler mixed so equally in a great part of his deportment, that it was not easy to tell which was the prevailing character. He was indeed both; as I understood from Wilkins and Tillotson, the one having married his sister and the other his niece. He was a true enthusiast, but with the principle 143 formerly mentioned, from which he might be easily led into all the practices both of falsehood and cruelty: which was, that he thought moral laws were only binding on ordinary occasions, but that upon extraordinary ones these might be superseded. When his own designs did not lead him out of the way, he was a lover of justice and virtue, and even of learning, though much decried at that time.
He studied to seek out able and honest men, and to employ them: and so having heard that my father had a very great reputation in Scotland for piety and integrity, though he knew him to be a royalist[43], he sent to him, desiring him to accept of a judge's place, and to do justice to his country, hoping only that he would not act against his government; but he would not press him to subscribe or swear to it. My father refused it in a pleasant way, so being a facetious man, and abounding in little stories. So when he who brought the message was running out into Cromwell's commendation, my father told a story of a pilgrim in popery, who came to a church where one saint Kilmaclotius was in great reverence: so the pilgrim was bid pray to him: but he answered, he knew nothing of him, for he was not in his breviary: but when he was told how great a saint he was, he prayed this collect; O sancte Kilmacloti, tu nobis hactenus es incognitus; hoc sohim a te rogo, ut si bona tua nobis non prosunt, saltern mala ne noccant. My father applied it, that he desired no other favour of him, but leave to live privately, without the imposition of oaths and subscriptions: and ever after that he lived in great quiet; though Overton, one of Cromwell's major-generals, who was a high republican, being for some time at Aberdeen, where we then lived, my father and he 144 were often together: in particular they were alone for about two 42 hours the night after the order came from Cromwell to take away his commissions, and to put him in arrest[44]. Upon that, Howard, afterwards earl of Carlisle, being sent down to inquire into all the plots that those men had been in, heard of this long privacy: but when with that he heard what my father's character was, he made no further inquiry into it, but said Cromwell was very uneasy when any good man was questioned for any thing. This gentleness had in a great measure quieted people's minds with relation to him, and his maintaining the honour of the nation in all foreign countries gratified the vanity which is very natural to Englishmen[45]; of which he was so careful, that though he was not a crowned head, yet his ambassadors had all the respects paid them which our king's ambassadors ever had. He said, the dignity of the crown was upon the account of the nation, of which the king was only the representative head; so the nation being still the same, he would have the same regard paid to his ministers.
Another instance of this pleased him much. Blake with the fleet happened to be at Malaga before he made war upon Spain: and some of his seamen went ashore, and met the hostie carried about and not only paid no respect to it, but laughed at those who did: so one of the priests put the people on to the resenting this indignity; they fell upon them, and beat them severely. When they returned to their ship, they complained of this usage: and upon that Blake sent a trumpet to the viceroy, to demand the priest who was the chief instrument in that ill usage. The viceroy answered, he had no authority over the priests, 145 and so could not dispose of him. Blake upon that sent him word, that he would not inquire who had the power to send the priest to him, but if he were not sent within three hours he would burn their town: and they, being in no condition to resist him, sent the priest to him, who justified himself upon the petulant behaviour of the seamen. Blake answered, that if he had sent a complaint to him of it, he would have punished them severely, since he would not suffer his men to affront the established religion of any place at which he touched: but he took it ill, that he set on the Spaniards to do it, for he would have all the world to know that an Englishman was only to be punished by an Englishman: and so he treated the priest civilly, and sent him back, being satisfied that he had him at his mercy. Cromwell was much delighted with this, and read the letters in council with great satisfaction; and said he hoped he should make the name of an Englishman as great as ever that of a Roman had been. The States of Holland were in such dread of him, that they took care to give him no sort of umbrage: and when at any time the king or his brothers came to see their sister, the princess royal, within a day or two after they used to send a deputation to let them know that Cromwell had required of the States that they should give them no harbour. K. Charles, when he was seeking for colours for the war with the Dutch in the year 1672, urged this for one. that they suffered some of his rebels to live in their provinces. Boreel, then their ambassador, answered, that was a maxim of long standing among them, not to inquire upon what account strangers came to live in their country, but to receive them all, unless they had been concerned in conspiracies against the persons of princes. The king told him upon that how they had used both himself and his brother. Boreel, in great simplicity, answered: Ha! sire, cela estoit une antre chose: Cromwell c'estoit im grand Jiomnie, et il se faisoit craindre et par terre et par mer. This was very rough. The king's answer was: Je me 146 feray craindre aussi a mon tour: but he was scarce as good as his word[46].
Cromwell's favourite alliance was with Sweden. Carolus Gustavus and he lived in a great conjunction of counsels[47]. Even Algernon Sidney, who was not inclined to think or speak well of kings, commended him to me, and said he had just notions of public liberty; and added, that queen Christina seemed to have them likewise. But she was much changed from that, when I waited on her at Rome; for she complained of us as a factious nation, that did not readily comply with the commands of our princes. All Italy trembled at the name of Cromwell, and seemed under a panic fear as long as he lived. His fleet scoured the Mediterranean: and the Turks durst not offend him, but delivered up Hyde[48], that kept up the character of an ambassador from the king there, who was brought over and executed for it. And the putting the brother of the king of Portugal's ambassador to death for murder, was the carrying justice very far; since, though in the strictness of the law of 147 nations it is only the ambassador's own person that is exempted from any authority but his master's that sends him, 43 yet the practice had gone in favour of all that the ambassador owned to belong to him[49]. Cromwell shewed his good understanding in nothing more than in seeking out capable and worthy men for all employments, but most particularly for the courts of law, which gave a general satisfaction.
Thus he lived, and at last died, on his auspicious third of September[50], of so slight a sickness, that his death was not looked for. He had two sons, and four daughters. His sons were weak[51], but honest men. Richard, the eldest, though declared protector in pursuance of a nomination pretended to be made by him, the truth of which was much questioned[52], was not at all bred to business, nor indeed capable of it. He was innocent of all the ill his father had done: so there was no prejudice lay against him: and both the royalists and presbyterians fancied he favoured them, though he pretended to be an independent. But all the commonwealth party cried out upon his assuming the protectorship, as a high usurpation; since whatever his father had from his parliaments was only personal, and so fell with him[53]: yet in opposition to this, the city. of London, and all the counties and cities almost in England, sent up addresses congratulatory, as well as condoling. So little do these pompous appearances of respect signify. Tillotson told me, that a week after Cromwell's death he being by accident at Whitehall, and hearing there was to be a fast that day in the household, he out of curiosity went into the presence chamber where it was held. On 148 the one side of a table Richard with the rest of Cromwell's family were placed, and six of the preachers were on the other side: Thomas Goodwin, Owen, Caril, and Sterry, were of the number. There he heard a great deal of strange stuff, enough to disgust a man for ever of that enthusiastic boldness. God was, as it were, reproached with Cromwell's services, and challenged for taking him away so soon. Goodwin, who had pretended to assure them in a prayer that he was not to die, which was but a very few minutes before he expired, had now the impudence to say to God, Thou hast deceived us, and we were deceived. Sterry, praying for Richard, used those indecent words, next to blasphemy, Make him the brightness of the father's glory, and the express image of his person[54]. Richard was put on giving his father a pompous funeral, by which his debts increased so upon him, that he was soon run out of all credit. When the parliament met, his party tried to get a recognition of his protectorship: but it soon appeared they had no strength to carry it. Fleetwood, that married Ireton's widow, set up a council of officers: and these resolved to lay aside Richard, who had neither genius nor friends, neither treasure nor army to support him[55]. He desired only security for the debts he had contracted; which was promised, though not performed. And so without any struggle he withdrew, and became a private man[56]. And as he had done hurt to nobody, so nobody did ever study to hurt him; by a rare instance both of the instability of human greatness and of 149 the security of innocence. His brother had been made by the father lieutenant of Ireland, and had the most spirit of the two; but he could not stand his ground when his brother let go his hold[57]. One of Cromwell's daughters was married to Claypole, and died a little before himself: another was married to the earl of Fauconberg, a wise and worthy woman, more likely to have maintained the post than either of her brothers; according to a saying that went of her. that those who wore breeches deserved petticoats better, but if those in petticoats had been in breeches they would have held them faster[58]. The other daughter was married, first to the earl of Warwick's heir, and afterwards to one Russell. I knew both the lady Fauconberg and her sister. They were both very worthy persons[59]. 150
Upon Richard's leaving the stage, the commonwealth was again set up: and the parliament which Cromwell had broke was brought together[1]: but the army and they fell into new disputes: so they were again broke by them: and upon that the nation was like to fall into great convulsions[2]. The enthusiasts became very fierce, and talked of nothing but the destroying all the records and the law, which, they said, had been all made by a succession of tyrants and papists: so they resolved to model all of new by a levelling and a spiritual government of the saints. There was so little sense in this, that Nevill and Harrington[3], with some others, set up in Westminster a meeting 151 to consider of a form of government that should secure liberty, and yet preserve the nation. They ran chiefly on having a parliament elected by ballot, in which the nation should be represented according to the proportion of what was paid in taxes towards the public expense: and by this parliament a council of twenty-four was to be chosen by ballot: and every year eight of these were to be changed, and might not again be brought into it but after an interval of three years: by these the nation was to be governed, and they were to give an account of the administration to the parliament every year. This meeting was a matter both of diversion and scorn, to see a few persons take upon them to form a scheme of government: and it made many conclude it was necessary to call home the king, that so matters 44 might again fall into their old channel. Lambert became the man on whom their army depended most[4]. Upon his forcing the parliament, great applications were made to Monk to declare for the parliament: but under this the declaring for the king was generally understood; yet he kept himself on such a reserve, that he declared all the while in the most solemn manner for commonwealth, and against a single person, in particular against the king: so that none had any ground from him to believe he had any design that way[5]. Some have thought that he 152 intended to try, if it was possible, to set up for himself: others believed rather, that he had no settled design any way, and resolved to do as occasions should be offered to him. The Scottish nation did certainly hope he would bring home the king[6]. He drew the greatest part of the army towards the borders, where Lambert advanced near him, who had 7000 horse. Monk was stronger in foot[7]: and being apprehensive of engaging on such disadvantage, he sent Clarges to the lord Fairfax for his advice and assistance, who returned answer by Dr. Fairfax, now secretary to the archbishop of Canterbury, and assured him he would raise Yorkshire on the first of January; and he desired him to press upon Lambert, in case that he sent a detachment to Yorkshire. On the first of January, Fairfax 153 appeared with about 100 gentlemen and their servants. But so much did he still maintain his great credit with the army, that the night after, the Irish brigade, that consisted of 1200 horse, and was the rear of Lambert's army, came over to him. Upon that Lambert retreated, finding his army was so little sure to him, and resolved to march back to London. He was followed by Monk, who when he came to Yorkshire met with Fairfax, and offered to resign the chief command to him. The lord Fairfax refused it, but pressed Monk to declare for a free parliament: yet in that he was so reserved to him, that Fairfax knew not how to depend on him[8]. But as Lambert was making haste up, his army mouldered away, and he himself was brought up a prisoner, and was put in the Tower of London. Yet not long after he made his escape[9], and gathered a few troops about him in Northamptonshire; but these were soon scattered: for Ingoldsby[10], though one of the king's judges, raised Buckinghamshire against him. And so little force seemed now in that party, that with very little opposition Ingoldsby took him prisoner, and brought him into 154 Northampton: where Lambert, as Ingoldsby told me, entertained him with a pleasant reflection for all his misfortunes. The people were in great crowds applauding and rejoicing for the success: so Lambert put Ingoldsby in mind of what Cromwell had said to them both, near that very place, in the year 1650, when they, with a body of the officers, were going down after their army that was marching to Scotland, the people all the while shouting and wishing them success: Lambert upon that said to Cromwell, he was glad to see they had the nation of their side: Cromwell answered, do not trust to that; for these very persons would shout as much if you and I were going to be hanged. So Lambert said he looked of himself now as in a fair way to that, and began to think Cromwell prophesied.
Upon the dispersing Lambert's army, Monk marched southward, and was now the object of all men's hope[11]. At London all sorts of people began to cabal together, royalists, presbyterians, and republicans. Holles told me, the presbyterians pressed the royalists to be quiet, and to leave the game in their hands; for their appearing would give jealousy, and hurt that which they meant to promote[12]. He and Ashley Cooper, Grimston and Annesley, met often with Manchester, Robarts, and the rest of the presbyterian party: and the ministers of London were very active in the city: so that when Monk came up, he was pressed to declare himself[13]. At first he would only declare for the 155 parliament that Lambert had forced. But there was then a great fermentation all over the nation. Monk and the parliament grew jealous of one another, even while they tried who could give the best words, and express their confidence in the highest terms of one another. I will pursue the relation of this transaction no further: for this matter is well known.
The king had gone in autumn 1659 to the meeting at the Pyrenees, where cardinal Mazarin and Don Louis de Haro were negotiating a peace[14]. He applied himself to both sides, to try what assistance he might expect upon their concluding the peace. It was then known that he went to mass sometimes, that so he might recommend himself the more effectually to both courts; yet this was carried secretly, and was confidently denied. Mazarin still talked to Lockhart upon the foot of the old confidence: for he went thither to watch over the treaty; though England was now in such convulsions, that no minister from thence could be much considered, unless it was upon his own account. But matters were ripening so fast towards a revolution in England, that the king came back to Flanders in all haste, and went from thence to Breda. Lockhart had it in his power to have made a great fortune, if he had begun first, and had brought the king to Dunkirk. As soon as the peace of the Pyrenees was made, he came over, and found Monk at London, and took all the pains he could to penetrate into his designs. But Monk continued still to protest to him in the solemnest manner possible that he would be true to the commonwealth, and against 156 the royal family[15]. Lockhart went away, persuaded that matters would continue still in that state: so that when his old friend Middleton writ to him desiring him to make his own terms, if he would invite the king to Dunkirk, he said, he was trusted by the commonwealth, and could not betray them.
The house of commons put Monk on breaking the gates of the city of London, not doubting but that would render him so odious to them, that it would force him to depend wholly on themselves. He did it: and soon after he saw how odious he was become by it. So conceiving a high indignation at those who had put him on such an ungracious piece of service, he sent about all that night to the ministers and other active citizens, assuring them that he would quickly repair that error, if they would forgive it. So the turn was sudden: for the city sent and invited him to dine the next day at Guildhall: and there he declared for the members whom the army had forced away in 47 and 48, who were known by the name of the secluded members. 45 And some happening to call the body that then sat at Westminster, the Rump of a Parliament[16], a sudden humour run like a madness through the whole city of roasting the rump of all sorts of animals; and thus the city expressed themselves sufficiently. Those at Westminster had now no support: so they fell unpitied and unregarded. The secluded members came, and sat down among them; but all they would do was to give orders for the summoning a new parliament to meet the first of May: and so they declared themselves dissolved[17]. 157
There was still a murmuring in the army; so great care was taken to scatter them in wide quarters, and not to suffer too many of those who were still for the old cause to lie near one another. The well and the ill affected were so mixed, that in case of any insurrection some might be ready at hand to resist them. They changed the officers that were ill affected, who were not thought fit to be trusted with the commanding those of their own stamp: and so created a mistrust between the officers and the soldiery. And above all they took care to have no more troops than was necessary about the city: and these were the best affected. This was managed with great diligence and skill: and by this conduct was that great turn brought about without the least tumult or any bloodshed; which was beyond what any person could have imagined. Of all this Monk had both the praise and the reward; though I have been told a very small share of it belonged to him[18]. Admiral Montagu[19] was then in the chief command at sea, 158 newly returned from the Sound, where he and De Ruyter, upon the orders they received from their masters, had brought the two northern kings to a peace; the king of Sweden dying as it was a making up. He was soon gained to be for the king; and he dealt so effectually with the whole fleet, that the turn there was as silently brought about, without any revolt or opposition, as it had been in the army. The republicans went about as madmen, to rouse up their party; but their time was past. All were either as men amazed or asleep: they had neither the skill nor the courage to make any opposition. The elections of parliament men run all the other way. So they saw their business was quite lost, and they felt themselves struck as with a spirit of giddiness; and then every man thought only how to save or secure himself. And now they saw how deceitful the argument was from success, which they had used so oft, and triumphed so much upon. For whereas success in the field, which was the foundation of their argument, depended much upon the conduct and courage of armies, in which the will of man had a large share, here was a thing of another nature. Their union was broke, and their courage sank, without any visible reason for either; and a nation that had run on long in such a fierce opposition to the royal family was now turned as one man to call home the king.
The nation had one great happiness during the long course of the civil wars, that no foreigners had got footing among them[20]. Spain was sinking to nothing: France was under a base spirited minister: and both were in war all the while. Now a peace was made between them, and very probably, according to what is in Mazarin's letters, they would have joined forces to have restored the king. The nation was by this means entirely in its own hands: and 159 now, returning to its wits, was in a condition to put every thing in joint again: whereas, if foreigners had been possessed of any important place, they might have had a large share of the management, and would have been sure to have taken care of themselves. Enthusiasm was now languid: for that, owing its mechanical force to the liveliness of the blood and spirits, men in disorder and depressed could not raise in themselves those heats with which they were formerly wont to transport both themselves and others. Chancellor Hyde was all this while very busy: he sent over Dr. Morley, who talked with the presbyterians much of great moderation in general, but would enter into no particulars: only he took care to let them know he was a Calvinist: and they had the best opinion of such of the church of England as were of that persuasion[21]. Hyde wrote in the king's name to all the leading men, and got the king himself to write a great many letters in a very obliging manner. Some that had been faulty sent over considerable presents, with assurances that they would redeem all that was past with their zeal for the future. These were all accepted of: their money was also very welcome; for the king needed money when his matters were on that crisis, and he had many tools at work, the management of which was so entirely the chancellor's single performance that there was scarce any other that had so much as a share in it with him. He kept a register of all the king's promises, and of his own; and did all that lay in 160 his power afterwards to get them all to be performed. He was also all that while giving the king many wise and good advices; but he did it too much with the air of a governor, or of a lawyer. Yet then the king was wholly in his hands[22].
I need not open the scene of the new parliament, or convention, as it came afterwards to be called, because it was not summoned by the king's writ. Such an unanimity appeared in their proceedings, that there was not the least dispute among them, but upon one single point: yet that was a very important one. Hale[23], afterwards the famous chief justice, moved that a committee might be appointed to look into the propositions that had been made, and the concessions that 46 had been offered by the late king during the war, particularly at the treaty of Newport, that from thence they might digest such propositions as they should think fit to be sent over to the king. This was well seconded, but I do not remember by whom. It was foreseen that such a motion might be set on foot: so Monk 161 was instructed how to answer it, whensoever it should be proposed. He told the house, that there was yet, beyond all men's hopes, an universal quiet all over the nation; but there were many incendiaries still at work, trying where they could first raise the flame. He said, he had such copious informations sent him of these things, that it was not fit they should be generally known: he could not answer for the peace, either of the nation or of the army, if any delay was put to the sending for the king: what need was there of sending propositions to him? Might they not as well prepare them, and offer them to him, when he should come over? He was to bring neither army nor treasure with him, either to fright them or to corrupt them. So he moved, that they would immediately send commissioners to bring over the king: and said, that he must lay the blame of all the blood or mischief that might follow on the heads of those that should still insist on any motion that might delay the present settlement of the nation. This was echoed with such a shout over the house, that the motion was no more insisted on[24].
This was indeed the great service that Monk did. It was chiefly owing to the post he was in, and to the credit he had gained: for as to the restoration itself, the tide made so strong that he only went into it so dexterously as to get much fame and great rewards for that which will have still a great appearance in history. If he had died soon after, he might have been more justly admired, because less known, and seen only in one advantageous light: but he lived long enough to have his stupidity and his other ill 162 qualities be well known: so false a judgment are men apt to make upon outward appearances[25]. To the king's coming in without conditions may be well imputed all the errors of his reign: and therefore when the earl of Southampton came to see and feel what he was a like to prove, he said once in great wrath to chancellor Hyde, it was to him they owed all they either felt or feared; for if he had not possessed them in all his letters with such an opinion of the king, they would have taken care to have put it out of his power either to do himself or them that mischief that was like to be the effect of their trusting him so entirely. Hyde answered, that he thought he had so true a judgment, and so much good nature, that when the age of pleasure should be over, and the idleness of his exile, which made him seek new pleasures for want of other employment, was turned to an obligation to mind affairs, then he would have shaken off those unhappy entanglements[26]. I must often put my 163 reader in mind, that I leave all common transactions to ordinary books. If at any time I say things that occur in other books, it is partly to keep the thread of the narration in an unintangled method, and partly because I either have not read these things in books, or, at least, I do not remember to have read them so clearly and particularly as I have related them. I now leave a mad and confused scene, to open a more august and splendid one. 164
47I divide king Charles his reign into two books, not so much because, it consisting of twenty-four years, it fell, if divided at all, naturally to put twelve years in a book: but I have a much better reason for it, since as to the first twelve years, though I knew the affairs of Scotland very authentically, yet I had only such a general knowledge of the affairs of England as I could pick up at a distance: whereas I lived so near the scene, and had indeed such a share in several parts of it, during the last twelve years, that I can write of these with much more certainty, as well as more fully, than of the first twelve. I will therefore enlarge more particularly, within the compass that I have fixed for this book, on the affairs of Scotland; both out of the inbred love that all men have to their native country, but more particularly, that I may give some useful instructions to those of my own order and profession, concerning the conduct of the bishops of Scotland: for having observed, with more than ordinary niceness, all the errors that were committed both at the first setting up of episcopacy and in the whole progress of its continuance in Scotland, till it was again overturned there, it may be of some use to see all that matter in a full view and in a clear and true light.
As soon as it was fixed that the king was to be restored, a great many went over to make their court: among these 165 Sharp, who was employed by the resolutioners of Scotland, was one[1]. He carried with him a letter from the earl of Glencairn to Hyde, made soon after earl of Clarendon[2], recommending him as the only person capable to manage the design of setting up episcopacy in Scotland: upon which he was received into great confidence. Yet, as he had observed very carefully the success of Monk's solemn protestations against the king and for a commonwealth, it seemed he was so pleased with the original, that he resolved to copy after it, without letting himself be diverted from it by anxious scruples, or any tenderness of conscience: for he stuck neither at solemn protestations, both by word of mouth and by letters, of which I have seen many proofs, nor at appeals to God of his sincerity in acting for the presbytery, both in prayers and on other occasions, joining with these many dreadful imprecations on himself if he did prevaricate. He was all the while maintained by the presbyterians as their agent, and he continued to give them a constant account of the progress of his negotiation in their service, while he was indeed undermining it. This piece of craft was so visible, he having repeated his protestations to so many persons as they grew jealous of him, that when he threw off the mask, about a year after this, it laid a foundation of such a character of him, that nothing could ever bring people to any tolerable thoughts of a man whose dissimulation and treachery was so well known, and of which so many proofs were to be seen under his own hand. With the restoration of the king a spirit of extravagant joy being spread over the nation, that brought on with it the throwing off the very professions of virtue and piety: all ended in entertainments and drunkenness, which overran 166 the three kingdoms to such a degree, that it very much corrupted all their morals[3]. Under the colour of drinking the king's health, there were great disorders and much riot every where: and the pretences to religion, both in those of the hypocritical sort, and of the more honest but no less pernicious enthusiasts, gave great advantages, as well as they furnished much matter, to the profane mockers at all true piety. Those who had been concerned in the former transactions thought they could not redeem themselves from the censures and jealousies that these brought on them by any method that was more sure and more easy, than by going in to the stream, and laughing at all religion, telling or making stories to expose both themselves and their party as impious and ridiculous.
The king[4] was then thirty years of age, and, as might have been supposed, past the levities of youth and the extravagance of pleasure. He had a very good understanding: he knew well the state of affairs both at home and abroad. He had a softness of temper, that charmed all who came near him, till they found how little they could depend on good looks, kind words, and fair promises, in which he was liberal to excess, because he intended nothing by them but to get rid of importunity, and to silence all further pressing upon him. He seemed to have no sense of religion: both at prayers and sacrament he, as it were, took care to satisfy people that he was in no sort concerned in that about which he was employed: so that he was very far from being an hypocrite, unless his assisting at those performances was a sort of hypocrisy, as no doubt it was; but he was sure not to increase that by any the least appearance of devotion. He said once to my self, he was no atheist, but he could not think God would make a man 167 miserable only for taking a little pleasure out of the way. He disguised his popery to the last: but when he talked freely, he could not help letting himself 48 out against the liberty that under the Reformation all men took of inquiring into matters: for from their inquiring into matters of religion, they carried the humour further, to inquire into matters of state. He said often, he thought government was a much safer and easier thing where the authority was believed infallible, and the faith and submission of the people was implicit: about which I had once much discourse with him. He was affable and easy, and loved to be made so by all about him. The great art of keeping him long was, the being easy, and the making every thing easy to him[5]. He had made such observations on the French government, that he thought a king who might be checked, or have his ministers called to an account by a parliament, was but a king in name. He had a great compass of knowledge, though he was never capable of great application or study. He understood the mechanics and physic: and was a good chemist, and much set on several preparations of mercury, chiefly the fixing it. He understood navigation well: but above all he knew the architecture of ships so perfectly, that in that respect he was exact rather more than became a prince[6]. His apprehension was quick, and his memory good; and he was an everlasting talker[7]. He told his stories with a good grace: but they came in his way too often. He had a very ill opinion both of men and women; and did not think there was either sincerity or chastity in 168 the world out of principle, but that some had either the one or the other out of humour or vanity. He thought that nobody served him out of love: and so he was quits with all the world, and loved others as little as he thought they loved him. He hated business, and could not be easily brought to mind any: but when it was necessary, and he was set to it, he would stay as long as his ministers had work for him. The ruin of his reign, and of all his affairs, was occasioned chiefly by his delivering himself up at his first coming over to a mad range of pleasure[8]. One of the race of the Villiers, then married to Palmer, a papist, soon after made earl of Castlemaine[9], who afterwards, being separated from him, was advanced to be duchess of Cleveland, was his first and longest mistress, by whom he had five children[10]. She was a woman of great beauty, but most enormously vicious and ravenous, foolish but imperious, 169 ever uneasy to the king, and always carrying on intrigues with other men, while yet she pretended she was jealous of him. His passion for her, and her strange behaviour towards him, did so disorder him, that often he was not master of himself, nor capable of minding business, which, in so critical a time, required great application: but he did then so entirely trust the earl of Clarendon that he left all to his care, and submitted to his advices as to so many oracles.
The earl of Clarendon was bred to the law, and was like to grow eminent in his profession. When the wars began he distinguished himself so in the house of commons, that he became considerable, and was much trusted all the while the king was at Oxford. He stayed beyond sea following the king's fortunes, till the restoration; and was now an absolute favourite, and the chief or the only minister, but with too magisterial a way. He was always pressing the king to mind his affairs, but in vain. He was a good chancellor, only a little too rough, but very impartial in the administration of justice[11]. He never seemed to understand foreign affairs well: and yet he meddled too much in them. He had too much levity in his wit, and did not always observe the decorum of his post. He was haughty[12], and was apt to reject those who addressed themselves to him, with too much contempt. He had such regard to the king, that when places were disposed of, even otherwise than as he advised, yet he would justify what the king did, and disparage the pretensions of others, not without much scorn; which created him many enemies. He was indefatigable in business, 170 though the gout did often disable him from waiting on the king: yet, during his credit, the king came constantly to him when he was laid up by the gout.
The man next to him in favour with the king was the duke of Ormond: a man every way fitted for a court, of a graceful appearance, a lively wit, and a cheerful temper: a man of great expense, decent even in his vices[13], for he always kept up the forms of religion. He had gone through many transactions in Ireland with more fidelity than success. He had made a treaty with the Irish, which was broken by the great body of them, though some few of them adhered still to him[14]. But the whole Irish nation did still pretend, that, though they broke the agreement first, yet he. or rather the king in whose name he had treated with them, was bound to perform all the articles of the treaty. He had miscarried so in the siege of Dublin that it very much lessened the opinion of his military conduct: yet his constant attendance on his master, his easiness to him, and his great sufferings for him, raised him to be lord steward of the household, and lord lieutenant of Ireland. He was firm to the protestant religion, and so far firm to the laws that he always gave good advices: but even when bad ones were followed, he was not for complaining too much of them.
49 The earl of Southampton was next to these. He was a man of great virtues, and of very good parts: he had a lively apprehension, and a good judgment. He had merited much by his constant adhering to the king's interests during the war, and by the large supplies he had sent him every year during his exile; for he had a great estate, and only three daughters to inherit it. He was made lord treasurer: but he grew soon weary of business; for as he was subject to the stone, which returned often and violently upon him, so he retained the principles of liberty, and did not go in to the violent measures of the court. When he saw the king's temper, and his way of managing, or rather of spoiling, 171 business, he grew very uneasy, and kept himself more out of the way than was consistent with that high post. The king stood in some awe of him, and saw how popular he would grow if put out of his service: and therefore he chose rather to bear with his ill humour and contradiction, than to dismiss him[15]. He left the business of the treasury wholly in the hands of his secretary, sir Philip Warwick, who was an honest but a weak man; he understood the common road of the treasury; but, though he pretended to wit and politics, he was not cut out for that, and least of all for writing of history. But he was an incorrupt man, and during seven years management of the treasury he made but an ordinary fortune out of it[16]. Before the restoration the lord treasurer had only a small salary, with an allowance for a table, but he gave, or rather sold, all the subaltern places, and made great profits out of the estate of the crown: but now, that being gone, and the earl of Southampton disdaining to sell places, the matter was settled so, that the lord treasurer was to have £8000 a year, and the king was to name all the subaltern officers. And it continued to be so all his time: but since that time the lord treasurer has both the £8000 and a main hand in the disposing of those places. 172
The man that was in the greatest credit with the earl of Southampton was sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, who had married his niece[17], and became afterwards so considerable, that he was raised to be earl of Shaftesbury. Since he came to have so great a name, and that I knew him for many years, and in a very particular manner, I will dwell a little longer on his character; for it was of a very extraordinary composition. He began to make a considerable figure very early. Before he was twenty, he came into the house of commons, and was on the king's side, and undertook to get Wiltshire and Dorsetshire to declare for him, but he was not able to effect it. Yet prince Maurice breaking articles to a town that he had got to receive him, furnished him with an excuse to forsake that side, and to turn to the parliament[18]. He had a wonderful faculty in speaking to a popular assembly, and could mix both the facetious and the serious way of arguing very agreeably. He had a particular talent of making others trust to his judgment, and depend on it: and he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was, as to religion, a deist at best[19]. He had the dotage of astrology[20] in him to a high 173 degree: he told me, that a Dutch doctor had from the stars foretold him the whole series of his life. But that which was before him, when he told me this, proved false, if he told true: for he said he was yet to be a greater man than he had been. He fancied that after death our souls lived in stars. He had a general knowledge of the slighter parts of learning, but understood little to bottom: so he triumphed in a rambling way of talking, but argued slightly when he was held close to any point. He had a wonderful faculty at opposing, and running things down; but had not the like force in building up. He had such an extravagant vanity in setting himself out, that it was very disagreeable. He pretended that Cromwell offered to make him king. He was indeed of great use to him, in withstanding the enthusiasts of that time. He was one of those who pressed him most to accept of the kingship, because, as he said afterwards, he was sure it would ruin him. His strength lay in the knowledge of England, and of all the considerable men in it. He understood well the size of their understanding and their tempers: and he knew how to apply himself to them so dexterously, that, though by his changing sides so often it was very visible how little he was to be depended on, yet he was to the last much trusted by all the discontented party[21]. He had a no sort of virtue, for he was both a lewd and corrupt man and had a no regard either to truth or justice. 50 He was not ashamed to reckon up the many turns he had made: and he valued himself on the doing it at the properest season, and in the best manner: and was not out of countenance in owning his 174 unsteadiness and deceitfulness. This he did with so much vanity, and so little discretion, that he lost many by it, and his reputation was at last run so low that he could not have held much longer, had not he died in good time, either for his family or for his party. The former would have been ruined if he had not saved it by betraying his party[22].
Another man very near of the same sort, who passed through many great employments, was Annesley, advanced to be earl of Anglesea; who had much more knowledge, and was very learned, chiefly in the law. He had a faculty of speaking indefatigably upon every subject: but he spoke ungracefully, and did not know that he was ill at raillery, for he was always attempting it. He understood our government well, and had examined far into the original of our constitution. He was capable of great application, and was a man of a grave deportment, but stuck at nothing, and was ashamed of nothing. He was neither loved nor trusted by any man or any side: and he seemed to have no regard to the common decencies of justice and truth, but sold every thing that was in his power: and sold himself so often, that at last the price fell so low that he grew useless, because he was so well known that he was universally despised[23]. 175
Holles was a man of great courage, and of as great pride. He was counted for many years the head of the presbyterian party. He was faithful and firm to his side, and never changed through the whole course of his life. He engaged in a particular opposition to Cromwell in the time of the war. They hated one another equally. Holles seemed to carry this too far: for he would not allow Cromwell to have been either wise or brave; but often applied Solomon's observation to him, that the battle was not to the strong, nor favour to the men of understanding, but that time and chance happened to all men. He was well versed in the records of parliament, and argued well, but too vehemently; for he could not bear contradiction. He had the soul of an old stubborn Roman in him. He was a faithful but a rough friend, and a severe but fair enemy. He had a true sense of religion, and was a man of an unblameable course of life, and of a sound judgment when it was not biassed by passion. He was made a lord for his merit in bringing about the restoration[24].
The earl of Manchester was made lord chamberlain[25]: a man of a soft and obliging temper, of no great depth, but universally beloved, being both a virtuous and a generous man. The lord Robarts[26] was made lord privy seal, 176 afterwards lord lieutenant of Ireland, and at last lord president of the council. He was a man of a morose and cynical temper, just in his administration, but vicious under the appearances of virtue: learned beyond any man of his quality, but intractable, stiff and obstinate, proud and jealous.
These five, whom I have named last, had the chief hand in engaging the nation in the design of the restoration. They had great credit, chiefly with the presbyterian party, and were men of much dexterity. So the thanks of that great turn was owing them: and they were put in great posts by the earl of Clarendon's means[27], by which he lost most of the cavaliers, who could not bear the seeing such men so highly advanced and so much trusted[28]. 177
At the king's first coming over, Monk and Montagu were the most considered They both had the garter[29] 178 The one was made duke of Albemarle, and the other earl of Sandwich, and they had noble estates given them. Monk was ravenous, as well as his wife, who was a mean and contemptible creature. They both asked and sold all that was within their reach, nothing being denied them for some time; till he became so useless, that little personal regard could be paid him. But the king maintained still the appearances of it: for the appearance of the service he did him was such, that the king thought it fit to treat him with great distinction, even after he saw into him, and despised him[30]. He took care to raise his kinsman Grenville, who was made earl of Bath, and groom of the stole, a mean minded man, who thought of nothing but of getting and spending money[31]; only in spending he had 179 a peculiar talent of doing it with so ill a grace and so bad a conduct, that it was long before those who saw how much he got. and how little he spent visibly, would believe he was so poor as he was found to be at his death: which was a thought to be a the occasion of his son's shooting himself in the head a few days after his death, finding the disorder of his affairs; for both father and son were buried together. The duke of Albemarle raised two other persons. One was Clarges, his wife's brother, who was an honest but haughty man[32]. He became afterwards a very considerable parliament man, and valued himself on his opposing the court, and on his frugality in managing the public money; for he had Cromwell's economy ever 51 in his mouth, and was always for reducing the expense of war to the modesty and parsimony of those times. Many thought he carried this too far: but it made him very popular. After he was become very rich by the public money, he seemed to take care that nobody else should grow so rich as he was in that way. Another person raised by the duke of Albemarle was Morrice[33], who was the person that had chiefly prevailed with Monk to declare for the king; upon that he was made secretary of state. He was very learned, but full of pedantry and affectation. He had no 180 true judgment about foreign affairs; and Albemarle's judgment of them may be measured by what he said when he found the king grew weary of Morrice, but that in regard to him had no mind to turn him out: upon which the duke of Albemarle replied, he did not know what was necessary for a good secretary of state in which he was defective, for he could speak French and write short hand[34]. Nicholas was the other secretary, who had been employed by king Charles the first during the war, and had served him faithfully, but had no understanding in foreign affairs. He was a man of virtue, but could not fall in to the king's temper, or become acceptable to him[35]. So, not long after the restoration, Bennet, advanced afterwards to be earl of Arlington, was by the interest of the popish party made secretary of state, and was admitted into so particular a confidence that he began to raise a party in opposition to the earl of Clarendon. He was a proud and insolent man. His parts were solid, but not quick. He had the art of observing the king's temper, and managing it beyond all the men of that time. He was believed a papist; he had once professed it, and when he died he again reconciled himself to that church. Yet in the whole course of his ministry he seemed to have made it a maxim, that the king ought to shew no favour to popery, but that all his affairs would be spoiled if ever he turned that way; which made the papists become his mortal enemies, and accuse him as an apostate and the betrayer of their interests. He was a man of great vanity, and lived at 181 a vast expense, without taking any care of paying the debts which he contracted to support that[36]. His chief friend was Charles Berkeley, made earl of Falmouth, who. without any visible merit[37], unless it was the managing the king's amours, was the most absolute of all the king's favourites: and, which was peculiar to himself, he was as much in the duke of York's favour as in the king's[38]. He was generous in his expense: and it was thought if he had outlived the lewdness of that time, and come to a more 182 sedate course of life, he would have put the king on great and noble designs. This I should have thought more likely, if I had not had it from the duke, who had so wrong a taste, that there was reason to suspect his judgment both of men and things. Bennet and he had the management of the mistress, and all the earl of Clarendon's enemies came about them: the chief of whom were the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Bristol.
The first of these was a man of a noble presence. He had a great liveliness of wit, and a peculiar faculty of turning all things into ridicule, with bold figures and natural descriptions. He had no sort of literature: only he was drawn into chemistry, and for some years he thought he was very near the finding the philosopher's stone; which had the fate that attends on all such men as he was, when they are drawn in, to lay out for it. He had no principles either of religion, virtue, or friendship. Pleasure, frolic, and extravagant diversions, was all that he laid to heart. He was true to nothing: for he was not true to himself[39]. He had no steadiness nor conduct: he could keep no secret, nor execute any design without spoiling it. He could never fix his thoughts, nor govern his estate, though then the greatest in England. He was bred about the king, and for many years he had a great ascendant over him: but he spake of him to all persons with that contempt that at last he drew a lasting disgrace upon himself; and he also ruined both body and mind, fortune and reputation equally. The madness of vice appeared in his person in very eminent instances; since at last he became contemptible and poor, sickly, and sunk in his parts, as well as in all other respects, so that his conversation was as much avoided as ever it had been courted. He found the king, when he came from his travels in the year 45, newly come to Paris, sent over by 183 his father when his affairs declined: and finding him enough inclined to receive ill impressions, he, who was then got into all the impieties and vices of the age, set himself to corrupt the king, in which he was too successful, being seconded in that wicked design by the lord Percy. And to complete the matter, Hobbes was brought to him[40], under the pretence of instructing him in mathematics: and he laid before him his schemes, both with relation to religion and politics, which made deep and lasting impressions on the king's mind. So that the main blame of the king's ill principles and bad morals was owing to the duke of Buckingham[41].
The earl of Bristol was a man of courage and learning, of a bold temper and a lively wit, but of no judgment nor steadiness. He was 52 in the queen's interests during the war at Oxford, and he studied to drive things past the possibility of a treaty or any reconciliation; fancying that nothing would make the military men so sure to the king as his being sure to them, and giving them hopes of sharing the confiscated estates among them; whereas, he thought, all discourses of treaty made them feeble and fearful. When he went beyond sea he turned papist; but it was after a way of his own: for he loved to magnify the difference between the church and the court of Rome[42]. He was esteemed a very good speaker: but he was too copious and too florid. He was set at the head of the popish party, and was a violent enemy of the earl of Clarendon. 184
Having now said as much as seems necessary to describe the state of the court and ministry at the restoration, I will next give an account of the chief of the Scots, and of the parties that were formed among them[43]. The earl of Lauderdale, afterwards made duke, had been for many years a zealous covenanter: but in the year '47 he turned to the king's interests, and had continued a prisoner from Worcester fight, where he was taken. He was kept for some years in the Tower of London, in Portland castle, and in other prisons, till he was set at liberty by those who called home the king[44]. So he went over to Holland. And since he continued so long, and, contrary to all men's opinion, in so high a degree of favour and confidence, it may be expected that I should be a little copious in setting out his character; for I knew him very particularly. He made a very ill appearance: he was very big: his hair was red, hanging oddly about him: his tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him bedew all that he talked to: and his whole manner was rough and boisterous, and very unfit for a court. He was very learned, not only in Latin, in which he was a master, but in Greek and Hebrew. He had read a great deal in divinity, and almost all the historians ancient and modern: so that he had great materials. He had with these an extraordinary memory, and a copious but unpolished expression. He was a man, as the duke of Buckingham called him to me, of a blundering understanding, not always clear, but often clouded, as his looks were always. He was haughty beyond expression; abject to those he saw he must stoop to, but imperious and insolent and brutal to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried him often to fits like madness, in which he had no temper. If he took a thing 185 wrong, it was a vain thing to study to convince him: that would rather provoke him to swear he would never be of another mind: he was to be let alone, and then perhaps he would have forgot what he had said, and come about of his own accord. He was the coldest friend and the violentest enemy I ever knew: I felt it too much not to know it. He at first seemed to despise wealth: but he delivered himself up afterwards to luxury and sensuality: and by that means he ran into a vast expense, and stuck at nothing that was necessary to support that. In his long imprisonment he had great impressions of religion on his mind: but he wore these out so entirely that scarce any trace of them was left. His great experience in affairs, his ready compliance with every thing that he thought would please the king, and his bold offering at the most desperate counsels, gained him such an interest in the king, that no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, could ever shake it, till a decay of strength and understanding forced him to let go his hold. He was in his principles much against popery and arbitrary government: and yet, by a fatal train of passions and interests, he made way for the former, and had almost established the latter. And, whereas some by a smooth deportment make the first beginnings of tyranny less unacceptable and discernable, he, by the fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity of his ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an inquisition than the legality of justice, not to say mercy. With all this he was at first a presbyterian, and retained his aversion to king Charles I. and his party to his death[45]. 186
The earl of Crawford had been his fellow prisoner for ten years, and that was a good title for maintaining him in the post he had before, of being lord treasurer[46]. He was a sincere but weak man, passionate and indiscreet, and continued still a zealous presbyterian. The earl, afterwards duke, of Rothes[47], had married his daughter, and had the merit of a long imprisonment likewise to recommend him: he had a ready dexterity in the management of affairs, with a soft and insinuating address: he had a quick apprehension with a clear judgment: he had no advantage of education, no sort of literature, nor had he travelled abroad: all in him was mere nature, but it [was] nature very much depraved; for he seemed to have freed himself from all the impressions of virtue or religion, of honour or good nature. He delivered himself, without either restraint or decency, to all the pleasures of wine and women. He had but one maxim, to which he adhered firmly, that he was to do every thing, and deny himself in nothing, that might maintain his greatness, or gratify his appetites. He was unhappily made for drunkenness; for as he drank all his friends dead, and was able to subdue two or three sets 187 of drunkards one after another, so it scarce ever appeared that he was disordered; and after the greatest excesses, an hour or two of sleep carried them off so entirely that no sign of them remained: he would go about business without any uneasiness, or discovering any heat either in body or mind. This had a terrible conclusion; 53 for after he had killed all his friends, he fell at last under such a weakness of stomach, that he had perpetual cholics, when he was not hot within and full of strong liquor, of which he was presently seized; so that he was always either sick or drunk.
The earl of Tweeddale was another of Lauderdale's friends[48]. He was early engaged in business, and continued in it to a great age: he understood all the interests and concerns of Scotland well: he had a great stock of knowledge, with a mild and obliging temper. He was of a blameless, or rather an exemplary, life in all respects. He had loose thoughts both of civil and ecclesiastical government; and seemed to think that what form soever was uppermost was to be complied with. He had been in Cromwell's parliaments, and had abjured the royal family, which lay heavy on him. But the disputes about the guardianship of the duchess of Monmouth and her elder sister, to which he pretended in the right of his wife, who was their father's sister, against their mother, who was Rothes's sister, drew him into that compliance, that brought a great cloud upon him: though he was in all other respects the ablest and worthiest man of the nobility: only he was too cautious and fearful.
A son of the marquis of Douglas, made earl of Selkirk, had married the heiress of the family of Hamilton, who by her father's patent was duchess of Hamilton[49]: and when 188 the heiress to a title in Scotland marries one not equal to her in rank, it is ordinary, at her desire, to give her husband the title for life: so he was made duke Hamilton. He then passed for a soft man, who minded nothing but the recovery of that family from the great debts under which it was sinking, till it was raised up again by his great managing. After he had compassed that, he became a more considerable man. He wanted all sorts of polishing: he was rough and sullen, but candid and sincere. His temper was boisterous, neither fit to submit nor to govern. He was mutinous when out of power, and imperious in it. He wrote well, but spoke ill: for his judgment when calm was better than his imagination. He made himself a great master in the knowledge of the laws, of the history, and of the families of Scotland, and seemed always to have a great regard to justice and the good of his country: but a narrow and selfish temper brought such an habitual meanness on him, that he was not capable of designing or undertaking great things.
Another man of that side that made a good figure at that time was Bruce, afterwards earl of Kincardine[50], who 189 had married a daughter of Mr. Sommelsdyck in Holland, and by that means he had got acquaintance with our princes beyond sea, and had supplied them liberally in their necessities. He was both the wisest and the worthiest man that belonged to his country, and fit for governing any affairs but his own; which he by a wrong turn, by his love of the public, neglected to his ruin; for they consisting much in works, coals, salt, and mines, required much care; and he was very capable of it, having gone far in mathematics, and being a great master at all mechanics. His thoughts went slow, and his words came much slower: but a deep judgment appeared in every thing he said or did. He had a noble zeal for justice, in which even friendship could never bias him. He had solid principles of religion and virtue, which shewed themselves with great lustre on all occasions. He was a faithful friend, and a merciful enemy. I may be perhaps inclined to carry his character too far; for he was the first man that entered into friendship with me. We continued for seventeen years in so entire a friendship, that there was never either reserve or mistake between us all the while till his death; and it was from him that I understood the whole secret of affairs; for he was trusted with every thing. He had a wonderful love to the king; and would never believe me when I warned him what he might look for, if he did not go along with an abject compliance in every thing. He found it true in conclusion; and the love he bore the king 190 made his disgrace sink deeper in him than became such a a philosopher or so good a Christian as he was.
I now turn to another set of men, of whom the earls of Middleton and Glencairn were the chief[51]; and they were followed by the rest of the cavalier party, who were now very fierce and full of courage over their cups, though they had been very discreet managers of it in the field, and in time of action; but now every one of them vaunted that he had killed his thousands, and all were full of merit, and as full of high pretensions, far beyond what all the wealth and revenue of Scotland could answer. The subtilest of all lord Middleton's friends was sir Archibald Primrose[52], a man of long and great practice in affairs; for he and his father had served the crown successively an hundred 54 years all but one, when he was turned out of employment. He was a dexterous man in business: he had always expedients ready at every difficulty. He had an art of speaking to every man according to their sense of things, and so drew out their secrets, while he concealed his own: for words went for nothing with him. He said every thing that was necessary to persuade those he spoke to, that he was of their mind, and did it in so genuine a way that he seemed to speak his heart. He was always for soft counsels and slow methods: and thought that the chief thing that a great man ought to do was to raise his family and his kindred, who would naturally stick to him; for he had seen so much of the world, that he did not depend much on friends, and so took no care of making any. He always advised the earl of Middleton to go on slowly in the king's business, but to do his own effectually, before 191 the king should see that he had no farther occasion for him. That earl had another friend who had more credit with him, though Primrose was more necessary for managing a parliament: he was sir John Fletcher, made the king's advocate or attorney-general: for Nicolson[53] was dead. Fletcher was a man of a generous temper, who despised wealth, except as it was necessary to support a vast expense; he was a bold and fierce man, who hated all mild proceedings, and could scarce speak with decency or patience to those of the other side, so that he was looked on by all that had been faulty in the late times, as an inquisitor-general[54]. On the other hand, Primrose took money liberally, and was the intercessor for all who made such effectual applications to him.
The first thing that was to be thought on with relation to Scottish affairs, was the manner in which offenders in the late times were to be treated: for all were at mercy. In the letter the king writ from Breda to the parliament of England, he had promised a full indemnity for all that was past, excepting only those who had been concerned in his father's death: to which the earl of Clarendon persuaded 192 the king to adhere in a most sacred manner, since the breaking of faith in such a point was that which must for ever destroy confidence, and the observing all such promises seemed to be a fundamental maxim in government, which was to be maintained in such a manner, that not so much as a stretch was to be made in it. But there was no promise made for Scotland: so all the cavaliers, as they were full of revenge, hoped to have the estates of those who had been chiefly concerned in the late wars divided among them. The earl of Lauderdale told the king, on the other hand, that the Scottish nation had turned eminently, though unfortunately, to serve his father in the year 48, that they had brought himself among them, and had lost two armies in his service, and had been under nine years' oppression on that account; that they had encouraged and assisted Monk in all he did: they might be therefore highly disgusted, if they should not have the same measure of grace and pardon that he was to give England[1]. Besides, the king, while he was in Scotland, had, in the parliament at Stirling[2], passed a very full act of indemnity, though in the terms and with the title of an act of approbation. It is true, the records of that parliament were not extant, but lost in the confusion that followed upon the reduction of that kingdom: yet the thing was so recent in every man's memory, that it might have a very ill effect if the king should proceed without a regard to it. There was indeed another very severe act made at that parliament against all that should treat with or submit to Cromwell, or comply in any sort with him: but in that, he said, a difference ought to be made between those who during the struggle had deserted the service, and gone over to the enemy, of which number it might be fit to make some examples, and the rest of the kingdom, who upon the general reduction 193 had been forced to capitulate: it would seem hard to punish any for submitting to a superior force, when they were in no condition to resist it. This seemed reasonable: and the earl of Clarendon acquiesced in it; but the earl of Middleton and his party complained of it, and desired that the marquis of Argyll, whom they charged with an accession to the king's murder, and some few of those who had joined in the remonstrance while the king was in Scotland, might be proceeded against. The marquis of Argyll's craft made them afraid of him, and his estate made them desire to divide it among them. His son, the lord Lorn, was come up to court, and was well received by the king: for he had adhered so firmly to the king's interests, that he would never enter into any engagements with the usurpers[3]: and upon every new occasion of jealousy he was 55 clapt up. In one of his imprisonments he had a terrible accident from a cannon bullet[4], which the soldiers were throwing to exercise their strength; it by a recoil struck him in the head, and made such a fracture in his skull, that the operation of the trepan, and the cure, was counted one of the greatest performances of surgery in that time. The difference between his father and him went on to a total breach[5]; so that his father was set upon the disinheriting him of all that was still left in his power. Upon the restoration the marquis of Argyll went up to the Highlands for some time, till he advised with his friends what to do; who were divided in opinion. He writ by his son to the king, asking leave to come and wait on him. The king gave an answer that seemed to encourage it, but did not bind him to any thing. I have forgot the words: there was an equivocating in them that did not become a prince: but his son told me, he wrote them very particularly to his father, without any advice of his own. 194 Upon that the marquis of Argyll came up so secretly, that he was within Whitehall, before his enemies knew any thing of his journey[6]. He sent his son to the king, to beg admittance. But instead of that, he was sent to the Tower, and orders were sent down for clapping up three of the chief remonstrators. Of these Warriston was one: but he had notice sent him before the messenger came: so he made his escape, and went beyond sea, first to Hamburg[7]. He had been long courted by Cromwell, and had stood at a distance from him for seven years: but in the last year of his government he had gone into his counsels, and was summoned as one of his peers to the other house, as it was called. He was after that put into the council of state after Richard was put out: and then in another court set up by Lambert and the army, called the committee of safety. So there was a great deal against him. Swinton[8], one of Cromwell's lords, was also sent down a prisoner to Scotland. And thus it was resolved to make a few examples in the parliament that was to be called as soon as the king could be got to prepare matters for it. It was resolved on to restore the king's authority to the same state it was in before the wars, and to raise such a force as might be necessary to secure the quiet of that kingdom for the future.
It was a harder point, what to do with the citadels that were built by Cromwell, and with the English garrisons that were kept in them. Many said, it was necessary to keep that kingdom in that subdued state at least till all things were settled, and that there were no more danger from thence. The earl of Clarendon was of this mind. But the earl of Lauderdale laid before the king, that the conquest Cromwell had made of Scotland was for their 195 adhering to him: he might then judge what they would think, who had suffered so much and so long on his account, if the same thraldom should be now kept up by his means. It would create an universal disgust[9]. He told the king, that the time might come in which he would wish rather to have Scotch garrisons in England. It would become a national quarrel, and lose the affections of the country to such a degree, that perhaps they might join with the garrisons, if any disjointing happened in England against him: whereas, without any such badge of slavery, Scotland might be so managed that they might be made entirely his. The earl of Middleton and his party durst not appear for so unpopular a thing. So it was agreed on, that the citadels should be evacuated and slighted, as soon as the money could be raised in England for paying and disbanding the army. Of all this the earl of Lauderdale was believed the chief adviser. So he became very popular in Scotland.
The next thing that fell under consideration was the church, and whether bishops were to be restored or not. The earl of Lauderdale at his first coming to the king stuck firm to presbytery. He told me, the king spoke to him to let that go, for it was not a religion for gentlemen. He being really one, but at the same time resolving to get into the king's confidence, studied to convince the king by a very subtle method to keep up presbytery still in Scotland. He told him, that both king James and his father had ruined their affairs by engaging in the design of setting up episcopacy in that kingdom: and by that means Scotland became discontented, and was of no use to them: whereas the king ought to govern them according to the 196 grain of their own inclinations, and so make them sure to him: he ought, instead of endeavouring an uniformity in both kingdoms, to keep up the opposition between them, and rather to increase than to allay that hatred that was between them: and then the Scots would be ready, and might be easily brought, to serve him upon any occasion 56 of the disputes he might afterwards have with the parliament of England: all things were then smooth, but that was the honey-moon, and it could not last long: nothing would keep England more in awe, than if they saw Scotland firm in their duty and affection to him: whereas nothing gave them so much heart, as when they knew Scotland was disjointed. It was a vain attempt to think of doing any thing in England by means of the Irish, who were a despicable people, and had a sea to pass: but Scotland could be brought to engage for the king in a silenter manner, and could serve him more effectually. He therefore laid it down as a maxim from which the king ought never to depart, that Scotland was to be kept quiet and in good humour, that the opposition of the two kingdoms was to be kept up and heightened: and then the king might reckon on every man capable of bearing arms in Scotland as a listed soldier, who would willingly change a bad country for a better. This was the plan he laid before the king. I cannot tell whether this was only to cover his zeal for presbytery, or on design to encourage the king to set up arbitrary government in England[10].
To fortify these advices, he wrote a long letter in white ink to a daughter of the earl of Cassillis, lady Margaret Kennedy[11], 197 who was in great credit with the party, and was looked on as a very wise and good woman, and was out of measure zealous for them. I married her afterwards, and after her death found this letter among her papers: in which he expressed great zeal for the cause: he saw the king was very indifferent in the matter, but he was easy to those who pressed for a change: which, he said, nothing could so effectually hinder as the sending up many men of good sense, but without any noise, who might inform the king of the aversion the nation had to that government, and assure him that, if in that point he would be easy to them, he might depend upon them as to every thing else, and more particularly, if he stood in need of their service in his other dominions: but he charged her to trust very few, if any, of the ministers with this, and to take care that Sharp might know nothing of it: for he was then jealous of him. This had all the effect that the earl of Lauderdale intended by it. The king was no more jealous of his favouring presbytery; but looked on him as a fit instrument to manage Scotland to serve him in the most desperate designs: and on this was all his credit with the king founded. In the mean time Sharp, seeing the king cold in the matter of episcopacy, thought it was necessary to lay the presbyterians asleep[12], and to make them apprehend no danger to their government, and to engage the public resolutioners to proceed against all the protesters; that so those who were like to be the most inflexible in the point of episcopacy might be censured by their own party, and by that means the others might become so odious to the more violent presbyterians, that thereby they might be the more easily disposed to submit to episcopacy, or at least might have less credit to act against it. So he, being pressed by those who employed him, to procure somewhat from the king that might look like a confirmation of their government, and put to silence all discourses of an intended change, obtained by the earl of Lauderdale's means, that a letter should be writ by the 198 king to the presbytery of Edinburgh, to be communicated by them to all the other presbyteries in Scotland, in which he confirmed the general assemblies that sat at St. Andrews and Dundee while he was in Scotland, and that had confirmed the public resolutions; and he ordered them to proceed to censure all those who had protested against them, but a would not now submit to them. The king did also confirm their presbyterian government, as it was by law established. This was signed and sent down without communicating it to the earl of Middleton or his party. But as soon as he heard of it, he thought Sharp had betrayed the design; and sent for him. and charged him with it. He said, in his own excuse, that somewhat must be done for quieting the presbyterians, who were beginning to take the alarm: that might have produced such applications as would perhaps make some impression on the king: whereas now all that was secured, and yet the king was engaged to nothing; for his confirming their government, as it was established by law, could bind him no longer than while that legal establishment was in force: so the reversing of that would release the king. 57 This allayed the earl of Middleton's displeasure a little. Yet Primrose told me, he spake often of it with great indignation, since it seemed below the dignity of a king thus to equivocate with his people, and to deceive them. It seemed that Sharp thought it was not enough to cheat the party himself, but would have the king share with him in the fraud. This was no honourable step to be made by a king, and to be contrived by a clergyman. The letter was received with transports of joy: the presbyterians reckoned they were safe, and they began to proceed severely against the protesters, which was set on by some aspiring men, who hoped to merit by the heat expressed on this occasion[13]. And if Sharp's impatience to get into the archbishopric of 199 St. Andrews had not wrought too strong in him, it would have given a great advantage to the restitution of epis copacy if a general assembly had been called, and the two parties had been let loose on one another. That would have shewn the impossibility of maintaining the government of the church in a parity, and the necessity of setting a superior order over them for keeping them in unity and peace.
The king settled the ministry in Scotland[14]. The earl of Middleton was declared the king's commissioner for holding the parliament; and general of the forces that were to be raised: the earl of Glencairn was made chancellor: the earl of Lauderdale was secretary of state: the earl of Rothes president of the council: the earl of Crawford was continued in the treasury: Primrose was clerk register, which is very like the place of the master of the rolls in England. The rest depended on these; but the earls of Middleton and Lauderdale were the two heads of the parties. The earl of Middleton had a private instruction, which, as Lauderdale told me, was not communicated to him, to try the inclinations of the nation for episcopacy, 200 and to consider of the best methods in setting it up[15]. This was drawn from the king by the earl of Clarendon: for he himself was observed to be very cold in it. While these things were doing, Primrose got an order from the king to put up all the public registers of Scotland, which Cromwell had brought up and lodged in the Tower of London, as a pawn upon that kingdom, and in imitation of what king Edward I was said to have done when he subdued that nation. They were put up in fifty hogsheads, and a ship was ready to carry them down. But it was suggested to Clarendon that the original covenant signed by the king, and some other declarations under his hand, were among them[16]; and he apprehending that at some 201 time or other an ill use might have been made of these, he would not suffer them to be shipped till they were visited: nor would he take Primrose's promise of searching for these carefully, and sending them up to him. So he ordered a search to be made. None of the papers he looked for were found. But so much time was lost that the summer was spent: so they were sent down in winter: and by some easterly gusts the ship was cast away 202 near Berwick. So we lost all our records[17]; and we have nothing now but some fragments in private hands to rely on, having made at that time so great a shipwreck of all our authentic writings. This heightened the displeasure the nation had at the designs then on foot.
The main thing, upon which all other matters depended, was the method in which the affairs of Scotland were to be conducted. The earl of Clarendon moved, that there might be a council settled to sit regularly at Whitehall on Scotch affairs[18], to which every one of the Scotch privy council that happened to be on the place should be admitted: but with this addition, that, as two Scotch lords were called to the English council, so six of the English were to be of the Scotch council. The effect of this would have been, that whereas the Scotch counsellors had no great force in English affairs, the English, as they were men of great credit with the king, and were always on the place, would have the government of the affairs of Scotland wholly in their hands. This probably would have saved that nation from much injustice and violence, when there was a certain method of laying their grievances before the king: complaints would have been heard, and matters well examined: Englishmen would not, and durst not, have given way to crying oppression and illegal proceedings: for though these matters did not fall under the cognizance of an English parliament, yet it would have very much blasted a man's credit, that should have concurred in such methods of government as were put in practice afterwards in that kingdom. Therefore all people quickly saw how wise a project this was, and how happy it would have proved if affairs had still gone in that channel. But the earl of Lauderdale opposed this with all his strength. He told the king, it would quite destroy the scheme he had 203 laid before him, which must be managed secretly, and by men that were not in fear of the parliament of England, 58 nor obnoxious to it. He said to all Scottishmen, this would make Scotland a province to England, and subject it to English counsellors, who knew neither the laws nor the interests of Scotland, and yet would determine every thing relating to it: and all the wealth of Scotland would be employed to bribe them, who, having no concern of their own in the affairs of that kingdom, must be supposed capable of being turned by private considerations. To the presbyterians he said, this would infallibly bring in not only episcopacy, but every thing else from the English pattern. Men who had neither kinred nor estates in Scotland would be biassed chiefly by that which was most in vogue in England, without any regard to the inclination of the Scots. These things made great impressions on the Scottish nation. The king himself did not much like it; but the earl of Clarendon told him, Scotland, by a secret and ill management, had begun the embroilment of his father's affairs, which could never have happened if the affairs of that kingdom had been under a more equal inspection: if Scotland should again fall into new disorders, he must have the help of England to quiet them: and that could not be expected if the English had no share in the conduct of matters there. The king yielded to it: and this method was followed for two or three years; but was afterwards broke by the earl of Lauderdale, when he got into the chief management. He began early to observe some uneasiness in the king at the earl of Clarendon's positive way; he saw the mistress hated him: and he believed she would in time be too hard for him: therefore he made great applications to her. But his conversation was too coarse: and he had not money enough to support himself by presents to her: so he could not be admitted into that cabal which was held in her lodgings. He saw that in a council, where men of weight who had much at stake in England bore the chief sway, he durst not have 204 proposed those things by which he intended to establish his own interest with the king, and to govern that kingdom which way his pride or passion might guide him. Among others, he took great pains to persuade me of the great service he had done his country by breaking that method of governing it; though we had all occasion afterwards to see how fatal that proved, and how wicked his design in it was.
I have thus opened with some copiousness the first beginnings of this reign; since, as they are little known, and I had them from the chief of both sides, so they may guide the reader to observe the progress of things better in the sequel than he could otherwise do. In August the earl of Glencairn was sent down to Scotland, and had orders to call together the committee of estates[19]. This was a practice begun in the late times: when the parliament made a recess, they appointed some of every state to sit and act as a council of state in their name till the next session; for which they were to prepare matters, and to which they gave an account of their proceedings. Now when the parliament of Stirling was adjourned, the king being present, a committee had been named: so, such of these as were yet alive were summoned to meet, and to see to the quiet of the nation, till the parliament should be brought together; which did not meet before January [1661]. On the day in which the committee met, ten or twelve of the protesting ministers met likewise at Edinburgh, and had before them a warm paper[20] prepared by one [James] Guthrie,one of the violentest of the whole party. In it, after some cold compliments to 205 the king upon his restoration, they put him in mind of the covenant he had so solemnly sworn while among them: they lamented that, instead of pursuing the ends of it in England, as he had sworn to do, he had set up the common prayer in his chapel, and the order of bishops: upon which they made terrible denunciations of heavy judgments from God on him, if he did not stand to the covenant, which they called the oath of God. The earl of Glencairn had notice of this meeting: and he sent and seized on them all, together with this remonstrance. The paper was voted scandalous and seditious: and the ministers were all clapt in prison, and were threatened with great severities. Guthrie was kept still in prison, who had brought the others together, but the rest were after a while's imprisonment let go. Guthrie, being minister of Stirling while the king was there, had let fly at him in his sermons in a most indecent manner; which at last became so intolerable that he was cited to appear before the king to answer for some passages in his sermons: he would not appear, but declined the king and his council, 59 who, he said, were not proper judges of matters of doctrine, for which he was only accountable to the judicatories of the kirk. He also protested for remedy of law against the king, for thus disturbing him in the exercise of his ministry. This personal affront had irritated the king more against him than against any other of the party[21]; and it was resolved to strike a terror into them all by making an example of him. He was a man of courage, and went through all his trouble with great firmness. But this way of proceeding struck the whole party with such a consternation, that it had all the effect which was designed by it: for whereas the pulpits had, to the great scandal of religion, been places where the preachers had for many years vented their spleen and arraigned all 206 proceedings, they became now more decent, and there was a general silence every where with relation to the affairs of state: only they could not hold from many sly and secret insinuations, as if the ark of God was shaking and the glory departing. A great many offenders were summoned, at the king's suit, before the committee, and required to give bail that they should appear at the opening of the parliament, and answer to what should be then objected to them. Many saw the design of this was to fright them to a composition, and also into a concurrence with the measures that were to be taken. The greater part complied, and redeemed themselves from further vexation by such presents as they were able to make. And in these transactions Primrose and Fletcher were the great dealers.
In the end of the year Middleton came down with great magnificence: his way of living was the greatest the nation had ever seen: but it was likewise the most scandalous; for vices of all sorts were the open practices of those about him. Drinking was the most notorious of all, which was often continued through the whole night to the next morning: and many disorders happening after those irregular heats, the people, who had never before that time seen any thing like it, came to look with an ill eye on every thing that was done by such a set of lewd and vicious men[22]. This laid in all men's minds a new prejudice against episcopacy: for they, who could not examine into the nature of things, were apt to take up a very ill opinion of every change in religion that was brought about by such bad instruments. There had been a face of gravity and piety in the former administration, which made the libertinage of the present time more odious. 207
The earl of Middleton opened the parliament on the first of January with a speech setting forth the blessing of the restoration: he magnified the king's person, and enlarged on the affection that he bore to that his ancient kingdom: he hoped they would make suitable returns of zeal for the king's service, that they would condemn all the invasions which had been made on the regal authority, and assert the just prerogative of the crown, and give supplies for keeping up such a force as was necessary to secure the public peace, and to preserve them from the return of such calamities as they had so long felt. The parliament writ in answer to the king's letter a letter full of duty and thanks. The first thing proposed was to name lords of the articles. In order to the apprehending the importance of this, I will give some account of the constitution of that kingdom.
The parliament was anciently the king's court, where all who held lands of him were bound to appear. All sat in one house, but they were considered as three estates. The first was the church, represented by the bishops, and mitred abbots, and priors. The second was the baronage, the nobility and gentry who held their baronies of the king. And the third was the boroughs, who held of the king by barony, though in a community. So that the parliament was truly the baronage of the kingdom. The lesser barons grew weary of this attendance: so in king James the first's time (during the reign of Henry IV. of England) they were excused from it, and were impowered to send proxies, to an indefinite number, to represent them in parliament. Yet they neglected to do this. And it continued so till king James the sixth's time, in which the mitred abbots being taken away, and few of the titular bishops that were then continued appearing at them, the church lands being generally in lay hands, the nobility carried matters in parliament as they pleased: and as they oppressed the boroughs, so they had the king much under them. Upon this the lower barons got themselves to be 208 restored to the right which they had neglected near two hundred years. They were allowed by act of parliament to send two from a county: only some smaller counties send only one. This brought that constitution to a truer balance; and the lower barons have a right to choose, at their county courts after Michaelmas, their commissioners, to serve in any parliament that may be called within that year. 60 And they who choose them sign a commission to him who represents them. So the sheriff has no share of the return; and in the case of controverted elections the parliament examines the commissions, and see[s] who has the greatest number, and judge[s] whether every one that signs it had a right so to do. The boroughs choose their members out of their own body when the summons goes out: and all are chosen by the men of the corporation, or, as they call them, the town council. And these sit in one house, and vote together. Anciently the parliament sat only two days, the first and the last. On the first they chose those who were to sit on the articles, eight for every state, to whom the king joined eight officers of state. These received all the heads of grievances or articles that were brought to them, and formed them into bills as they pleased: and on the last day of the parliament, these were all read, and were approved or rejected by the whole body. So they were a committee that had a very extraordinary authority, since nothing could be brought before the parliament but as they pleased. This was pretended to be done only for the shortening and dispatching of sessions. The crown was not contented with this limitation, but got it to be carried further. The nobility came to choose the eight bishops, and the bishops to choose eight noblemen: and these sixteen chose the eight barons, (so the representatives for the shires are called,) and the eight burgesses. By this means our kings did upon the matter choose all the lords of the articles; so entirely had they got the liberty of that parliament into their hands. 209
During the late troubles they had still kept up a distinction of three estates, the lesser barons making one: and then every estate might meet apart, and name their own committees: but still all things were brought in and debated in full parliament. So now the first thing proposed was, the returning to the old custom of naming lords for the articles. The earl of Tweeddale opposed it, but was seconded only by one person. So it passed with that small opposition; only, to make it go easier, it was promised that there should be frequent sessions of parliament, and that all the acts should not be brought in in a hurry, and carried with the haste that had been practised in former times.[23] 210
The parliament granted the king an additional revenue for life of £40,000 a year, to be raised by an excise on 211 beer and ale, for maintaining a small force: upon which two troops and a regiment of foot guards were to be raised[24]. They ordered Montrose's quarters to be brought together, and they were buried with great state. They fell next upon the acts of the former times that had limited the prerogative: they repealed these, and asserted it with a full extent in a most extraordinary manner. Primrose had the drawing of these acts. He often confessed to me, that he thought he was as one bewitched while he drew them: for, not considering the ill use might be made of them afterwards, he drew them with preambles full of extravagant rhetoric, reflecting severely on the proceedings of the late times, and swelled them up with the highest phrases and fullest clauses that he could invent. In the act which asserted the king's power of the militia, the power of arming and levying the subjects was carried so far that it would have ruined the kingdom, if Gilmour, 212 an eminent lawyer, and a man of great integrity, who had now the more credit, for he had always favoured the king's side, had not observed that, as the act was worded, the king might require all the subjects to serve at their own charge, and so might oblige them, in order to the redeeming themselves from serving, to pay whatever might be set on them. So he made such an opposition to this that it could not pass, till a proviso was added to it, that the kingdom should not be obliged to maintain any force levied by the king, otherwise than as it should be agreed to in parliament, or in a convention of estates. This was the only thing that was then looked to: for all the other acts passed in the articles as Primrose had penned them, and from thence they were brought into parliament, and upon one hasty reading of them they were put to the vote, and were always carried.
One act troubled the presbyterians extremely. In the act asserting the king's power in treaties of peace and war, all treaties with any other nation not made by the king's authority were declared treasonable: and in consequence of this, the league and covenant made with England in the year [16]43 was condemned, and declared to be of no force for the future[25]. This was the idol of all the presbyterians: so they were much alarmed at it. But Sharp restrained all those with whom he had credit: he told them, the only way to preserve their government was, to let all that related to the king's authority be separated from it, and be condemned, that so they might be no more 61 accused as enemies to monarchy, or as leavened with the principles of rebellion. He told them, they must be contented to let that pass, that the jealousy which the king had of them as enemies to his prerogative might be extinguished in the most effectual manner. This restrained many, but some hotter zealots could not be governed. One Macquaird, a hot man, and considerably learned, did 213 in his church at Glasgow openly protest against this act, as contrary to the oath of God, and so void of itself. To protest against an act of parliament was treason by their law. And Middleton was resolved to make an example of him for terrifying others. But Macquaird was as stiff as he was severe, and would come to no submission: yet he was condemned only to perpetual banishment. Upon which he, and some others who were afterwards banished, went and settled themselves at Rotterdam, where they formed themselves into a presbytery, and writ many seditious books[26], and kept a correspondence over all Scotland, that being the chief seat of the Scottish trade: and by that means they did much more mischief to the government than they could have done had they continued still in Scotland.
The lords of the articles grew weary in preparing so many acts as the practices of the former times gave occasion for; but did not know how to meddle with those acts that the late king had passed in the year [16]41, or the present king had passed while he was in Scotland. They saw, that, if they should proceed to repeal those by which presbyterian government was ratified, that would raise much 214 opposition, and bring petitions from all that were for that government over the whole kingdom; which Middleton and Sharp endeavoured to prevent, that so the king might be confirmed in what they had affirmed, that the general bent of the nation was now turned against presbytery and for bishops. So Primrose proposed, but half in jest, as he assured me, that the better and shorter way would be to pass a general act rescissory, (as it was called,) annulling all the parliaments that had been held since the year 1638, during the whole time of the war, as faulty and defective in their constitution[27]. But it was not so easy to know upon what point that defect was to be fixed. The only colourable pretence in law was, that, since the ecclesiastical state was not represented in those parliaments, they were not a full representative of the kingdom, and so not true parliaments. But this could not be alleged by the present parliament, which had not bishops in it: so if that inferred a nullity, this was no parliament. Therefore they could only fix the nullity upon the pretence of force and violence. Yet it was a great strain to insist on that, since it was visible that neither the .late king nor the present were under any force when they passed them: they came of their own accord, and passed those acts[28]. If it was insisted on, that the ill state of their affairs was of the nature of a force, the ill consequences of this were visible; since no prince by this means could be bound to any treaty, or be concluded by any law, that limited his power, since these are always drawn from them by the necessity of their affairs, which can never be called a force as long as their persons are free. So, upon some debate about it on those grounds, at a private junto, the proposition, though well liked, was let fall, as not capable to have good colours 215 put upon it: nor had the earl of Middleton any instruction to warrant his passing any such act. Yet within a day or two, when they had drunk higher, they resolved to venture on it. Primrose was then ill; so one was sent to him to desire him to prepare a bill to that effect. He set about it: but perceived it was so ill grounded, and so wild in all the frame of it, that he thought, when it came to be better considered, it must certainly be laid aside. But it fell out otherwise: his draught was copied out next morning, without altering a word in it, and carried to the articles, and from thence to the parliament, where it met indeed with great opposition. The earl of Crawford and the duke of Hamilton argued much against it. The parliament in the year 1641 was legally summoned: the late king came thither in person with his ordinary attendance, and without any force: if any acts then passed needed to be reviewed, that might be well done: but to annul a parliament was a terrible precedent, which destroyed the whole security of government: another parliament might annul the present parliament, as well as that which was now proposed to be done: so no stop could be made, nor any security laid down for fixing things for the future. The parliament in the year 1648 proceeded upon instructions under the king's own hand, which was all that could be had, considering his imprisonment: 62 they had declared for the king, and raised an army for his preservation. To this the earl of Middleton, who, contrary to custom, managed the debate himself, answered, that though there was no visible force on the late king in the year [16]41, yet they all knew he was under a real force, by reason of the rebellion that had been in that kingdom, and the apparent danger of one ready to break out in England; which forced him to settle Scotland on such terms as he could bring them to: that distress of his affairs was really equivalent to a force on his person: yet he confessed, it was just, that such an appearance of a parliament should be a full authority to all who acted under it, and care was taken to secure 216 these by a proviso that was put in the act to indemnify them. He acknowledged the design of the parliament in the year [16]48 was good: yet they had declared for the king in such terms, and had acted so hypocritically in order to the gaining the kirk party, that it was just to condemn the proceedings, though the intentions of many were honourable and loyal: for we went into it, he said, as knaves, and therefore no wonder if we miscarried in it as fools. This was very ill taken by all who had been concerned in it. The bill was put to the vote, and carried by a great majority in the affirmative: and the earl of Middleton immediately passed it without staying for an instruction from the king. The excuse he made for it was, that, since the king had by his letter to the presbyterians confirmed their government as it was established by law, there was no way left to get out of that but the annulling all those laws. This was a most extravagant act, and only fit to be concluded after a drunken bout; it shook all possible security for the future, and laid down a most pernicious precedent. The earl of Lauderdale aggravated this heavily to the king. It shewed, the earl of Middleton understood not the first principles of government, since he had, without any warrant for it, given the king's assent to a law that must for ever take away all the security that law can give: no government was so well established, as not to be liable to a revolution: this would cut off all hopes of peace and submission, if any disorders should happen at any time thereafter. And since the earl of Clarendon had set it up for a maxim never to be violated, that acts of indemnity were sacred things, he studied to possess him against the earl of Middleton, who had now annulled the very parliaments in which two kings had passed acts of indemnity[29]. This raised a great clamour; and upon that the earl of 217 Middleton complained in parliament that their best services were represented to the king as blemishes on his honour, and as a prejudice to his affairs: so he desired they would send up some of the most eminent of their body to give the king a true account of their proceedings. The earls of Glencairn and Rothes were sent up: for the earl of Rothes gave secret engagements to both sides, resolving to strike into that to which he saw the king most inclined. The earl of Middleton's design was to accuse the earl of Lauderdale of misrepresenting the proceedings of parliament, and of lying of the king's good subjects, called in the Scottish law leasing making; which either to the king of the people, or to the people of the king, is capital.
Sharp went up with these lords to press the speedy setting up of episcopacy, now that the greatest enemies of that government were under a general consternation, and were upon other accounts so obnoxious that they durst not make any opposition to it, since no act of indemnity was yet passed[30]. He had expressed a great concern to his old brethren when the act rescissory passed, and acted that part very solemnly for some days: yet he seemed to take heart again, and persuaded the ministers of that party that it would be a service to them, since now the case of ratifying their government was separated from the rebellion of the late times: so that hereafter it was to subsist by a law passed in a parliament that sat and acted in full freedom. So he undertook to go again, and to move for an instruction to settle presbytery on a new and undisputed bottom. The poor men were so struck with the ill state of their affairs, that they either trusted him, or at least seemed to do it; for indeed they had neither sense nor courage left them. During the session of parliament, the most aspiring men of the clergy were picked out to preach before the parliament. They did not speak out: but they all insinuated the necessity of a greater authority 218 than was then in the church, for keeping them in order. One or two spoke plainer: upon which the presbytery of Edinburgh went to the earl of Middleton, and complained of that, as an affront to the law and to the king's letter. He dismissed them with good words, but took no notice of their complaint. The synods in several places resolved to prepare addresses both to king and parliament, 63 for an act establishing their government; and Sharp dissembled so artificially, that he met with those who were preparing an April, address to be presented to the synod of Fife, that was to sit within a week after. The heads were agreed on; and Honeyman, afterwards bishop of Orkney, drew it up with so much vehemence, that Wood, their divinity professor, told me, he and some others sat up almost the whole night before the synod met, to draw it over again in a smoother strain. But Sharp gave the earl of Middleton notice of this; so the earl of Rothes was sent over to see to their behaviour, and as soon as the ministers entered upon this subject, he in the king's name dissolved the synod, and commanded the ministers under pain of treason to retire to their several habitations. Such care was taken that no public application should be made in favour of presbytery. Any attempt that was made on the other hand met with great encouragement. The synod of Aberdeen was the only body that made an address looking towards episcopacy. In a long preamble they reflected on the confusions and violence of the late times, of which they enumerated many particulars; and they concluded with a prayer, that since the legal authority upon which their courts proceeded was now annulled, that therefore the king and parliament would settle their government conform to the Scriptures and the rules of the primitive church. The presbyterians of that body saw what was driven at, and how their words would be understood: but I heard one of them say, for I was present at that meeting, that no man could decently oppose those words, since by that he would insinuate that he thought presbytery was not conform to these.
219 In this session of parliament another act passed, which was a new affliction to all the party. The 29 of May was appointed to be kept as a holy day; since on that day an end had been put to three and twenty years' course of rebellion, of which the whole progress was reckoned up in the highest strains of Primrose's eloquence. The ministers saw, that by observing this act, passed with such a preamble that condemned all their former proceedings as rebellious and hypocritical, they would lose all their credit, and contradict all they had been building up in a course of so many years. Yet such was the heat of that time that they durst not except to it on that account: so they laid hold on the subtilty of a holy day[31], and covered themselves under that controversy, denying it was in the power of any human authority to make a day holy. But withal they fell upon one of their poor shifts: they enacted in their several presbyteries that they should observe that day as a thanksgiving for the king's restoration: so they took no notice of the act of parliament, but observed it in obedience to their own act. But this, though it covered them from prosecution, since the law was obeyed, yet it laid them open to much contempt. When the earls of Glencairn and Rothes came to court, the king was soon satisfied with the account they gave of the proceedings of parliament: and the earl of Lauderdale would not own that he had ever misrepresented them. They were ordered to proceed in their charging of him as the earl of Clarendon should direct them. He told them the assaulting of a minister, as long as he had an interest in the king, was a practice that could never be approved: it was one of the uneasy things that a house of commons of England sometimes ventured on, which was always ungrateful to the court: such an attempt, instead of shaking the earl of Lauderdale, would give him a faster 220 root with the king. They must therefore content themselves with letting the king see how well his service went on in their hands, and how injustly they had been misrepresented to him: and thus by degrees they would gain their point, and the earl of Lauderdale would become useless to the king. So this design was let fall. But the earl of Rothes assured Lauderdale he had diverted the storm: though Primrose told me, this was the true ground on which they proceeded. They became all friends, as to outward appearance.
Thus I have gone through the actings of the first session of this parliament with relation to public affairs. It was a mad roaring time, full of extravagance; and no wonder it was so, when the men of affairs were almost perpetually drunk. I shall in the next place give an account of the attainders passed in it.
The first and chief of these was of the marquis of Argyll. He was indicted at the king's suit for a great many facts, that were reduced to three heads. The first was of his public actings during the war, of which many instances were given; such as his 64 being concerned in the delivering up of the king to the English at Newcastle, his opposing the engagement in the year [16]48, and his heading the rising in the west in opposition to the committee of estates: in this, and many other steps made during the war, he was esteemed the principal actor, and so ought to be made the greatest example for terrifying others. The second head consisted of many murders and other barbarities committed by his officers, during the war, on many of the king's party; chiefly those who had served under the marquis of Montrose, many of them being murdered in cold blood. The third head consisted of some articles of his concurrence with Cromwell and the usurpers, in opposition to those who appeared for the king in the Highlands; his being one of his parliament, and assisting in proclaiming him protector, with a great many particulars into which his compliance 221 was branched out. He had counsel assigned him, who performed their part very well.
The substance of his defence was, that during the late wars he was but one among a great many more: he had always acted by authority of parliament, and according to the instructions that were given him, as oft as he was sent on any expedition or negotiation. As to all things done before the year [16]41, the late king had buried them in an act of oblivion then passed, as the present king had also done in the year [16]51: so he did not think he was bound to answer to any particulars before that time[32]. For the second head, he was at London when most of the barbarities set out in it were committed: nor did it appear that he gave any orders about them. It was well known that great outrages had been committed by the Macdonalds, and he believed his people, when they had the better of them, had taken cruel revenges. This was to be imputed to the heat of the time, and to the tempers of the people, who had been much provoked by the burning his whole country, and by much blood that was shed. And as to many stories laid to the charge of his men, he knew some of them were mere forgeries, and others were aggravated much beyond the truth: but, what truth soever might be in them, he could not be answerable but for what was done by himself or by his orders. As to the third head, of his compliance with the usurpation, he had stood out till the nation was quite conquered: and in that case it was the received opinion both of divines and lawyers, that men might lawfully submit to an usurpation, when forced to it by an inevitable necessity. It was the epidemical sin of the nation. His circumstances were such, that more than a bare compliance was required of him. What he did that way was only to preserve himself and his family, and was not done on design to oppose the king's interest: nor 222 did his service suffer by any thing he did. This was the substance of his defence: he was often brought to the bar, and began every article of his defence with a long speech, which he did with so good a grace, and so skilfully, that his character was as much raised as his family suffered by the prosecution. In one speech excusing his compliances with Cromwell, he said, what could he think of that matter after a man so eminent in the law as his majesty's advocate had taken the engagement? This inflamed the other so much, that he called him an impudent villain, and was not so much as chid for that barbarous treatment. Argyll gravely said, he had learned in his affliction to bear reproaches: but so the parliament saw no cause to condemn him, he was less concerned at the advocate's railing. The king's advocate[33] put in an additional article, of charging him with accession to the king's death: for which all the proof he offered lay in a presumption. Cromwell had come down to Scotland with his army in September [16]48, and at that time he had many long conferences with Argyll; and since immediately upon his return to London the treaty with the king was broke off, and the king was brought to his trial, he from thence inferred that it was to be presumed that Cromwell and he had concerted that matter between them. While this process was carried on, which was the solemnest that ever was in Scotland, the lord Lorn continued at court soliciting for his father; and obtained a letter to be writ by the king to the earl of Middleton, requiring him to order his advocate not to insist on any public proceedings before the indemnity he himself had passed in the year 1651. He also required him, when the trial was ended, to send up the whole process, and lay it before the king, before the parliament 223 should give sentence[34]. The earl of Middleton submitted to the first part of this: so all further inquiry into those matters was superseded. But as to the second part of the letter, it looked so like a distrust of the justice of the parliament, that he said he durst not let it be known, till he had a second and more positive order, which he earnestly desired might not be sent, for it would very much discourage this loyal and affectionate parliament: and he begged earnestly to have that order recalled; which was done. For some time there was a stop in the proceedings, in which Argyll was 65 contriving an escape out of the castle. He kept his bed for some days: and his lady being of the same stature with himself, and coming to him in a chair, he had put on her clothes, and was going into the chair: but he apprehended he should be discovered, and his execution hastened; and so his heart failed him. The earl of Middleton resolved, if possible, to have the king's death fastened on him. By this means, as he would die with the more infamy, so he reckoned this would put an end to the family, since nobody durst move in favour of the son of one judged guilty of that crime. And he, as was believed, hoped to obtain a grant of his estate. Search was made into all the precedents, of men who had been at any time condemned upon presumption; and the earl of Middleton resolved to argue the matter himself, hoping that the weight of his authority would bear down all opposition. He managed it indeed with more force than decency: he was too vehement, and maintained the argument with a strength that did more honour to his parts than to his justice or his character. But Gilmour, though newly made lord president of the session, which is the supreme court of justice in that kingdom, abhorred the precedent of attainting a man upon so remote a presumption; and he 224 looked upon it as less justifiable than the much decried attainder of the earl of Strafford. So he undertook the argument against Middleton: they replied upon one another thirteen or fourteen times in a debate that lasted many hours. Gilmour had so clearly the better of the argument, that though the parliament was so set against Argyll that every thing was like to pass that might blacken him, yet, when it was put to the vote, he was acquitted as to that by a great majority: at which he expressed so much joy, that he seemed little concerned at any thing that could happen to him after that. All that remained was to make his compliance with the usurpers appear to be treason. The debate was like to have lasted long. The earl of Loudoun, who had been lord chancellor[35], and was counted the eloquentest man of the time, for he had a copiousness in speaking that was never exhausted, and was of his family and his particular friend, had prepared a long and learned argument on that head. He had gathered the opinions both of divines and lawyers, and had laid together a great deal out of history, more particularly out of the Scottish history, to shew that it had never been censured as a crime, but that, on the contrary, in all their confusions, the men who had merited the most of the crown in all its shakings, were persons who had got credit by compliances with the side that prevailed, and by that means had brought things about again. But, while it was very doubtful how it would have gone, Monk, by an inexcusable baseness, had searched among his letters, and found some that were writ by Argyll to himself, that were so hearty and zealous on their side, that after they were read it could not be pretended that his compliance was feigned, or extorted from him. Every 225 body blamed Monk for sending these down, since it was a betraying the confidence that they then lived in. They were sent down by an express, and came to the earl of Middleton after the parliament was engaged in the debate. So he ordered the letters to be read. This was much blamed, as contrary to the forms of justice, since probation was closed on both sides; but the reading of them silenced all further debate[36]. All his friends rose and went out: and he was condemned as guilty of treason. The marquis of Montrose only refused to vote; he owned he had too much resentment to judge in that matter. It was designed he should be hanged, as Montrose had been: but it was carried that he should be beheaded, and that his head should be set up where Montrose's had been set. He received his sentence decently, and composed himself to suffer with a courage that was not expected from him.
The day before his death he wrote to the king, justifying his intentions in all he had acted in the matter of the covenant: he protested his innocence as to the death of 226 the late king: he submitted patiently to his sentence, and wished the king a long and happy reign: he cast his family and children upon his mercy; and prayed that they might not suffer for their father's fault. On the 27 May, the day appointed for his execution, he came to the scaffold in a very solemn but undaunted manner, accompanied with many of the nobility and some ministers. He spoke for half an hour with a great appearance of serenity. Cunningham, his physician, told me he touched his pulse, and that it did then beat at the usual rate, calm and strong. He did in a most solemn manner vindicate himself from all knowledge or accession to the king's death: he pardoned all his enemies; and submitted to the sentence, as to the will of God: he spoke highly in justification of the covenant, calling it the cause and work of God; and he expressed his apprehension of sad times like to follow, and exhorted all people to adhere to the covenant, 66 and to resolve to suffer rather than sin against their consciences. He parted with all his friends very decently: and after some time spent in his private devotion he was beheaded; and did end his days much better than those who knew the former parts of his life expected. Concerning which the earl of Crawford told me this passage. He had lived always in ill terms with him, and went out of town on the day of his execution. The earl of Middleton, when he saw him first, after it was over, asked him, if he did not believe his soul was in hell? He answered, not at all. And when the other seemed surprised at that, he said his reason was, he knew Argyll was naturally a very great coward, and was always afraid of dying: so, since he heard he had died with great resolution, he was persuaded that was from some supernatural assistance; he was sure it was not his natural temper. A few days after him, Guthrie suffered. He was accused of his accession to the remonstrance when the king was in Scotland, and for a book he had printed with the title of The causes of God's wrath upon the nation[38], in which the 227 treating with the king, the tendering him the covenant, and the admitting him to the exercise of the government, were highly aggravated as great acts of apostasy. His declining the king's authority to judge of his sermons, and his protesting for remedy of law against him, and the late seditious paper that he was drawing others to concur in, were the matters objected to him. He was a resolute and stiff man: so when his lawyers offered him legal defences, he would not be advised by them, but resolved to take his own way. He confessed and justified all that he had done, as agreeing to the principles and practices of the kirk, who had asserted all along that the doctrine delivered by them in their sermons did not fall under the cognizance of the temporal courts, till it was first judged by the church; for which he brought much dull and tedious proof[39]. He said, his protesting for remedy of law against the king was not meant at the king's person, but was only with relation to costs and damages. The earl of Middleton had a personal animosity to him; for in the late times he had excommunicated him[40]: so his eagerness in the prosecution did not look well. The defence he made signified nothing to justify himself, but laid a great load on presbytery; since he made it out beyond all dispute that he had acted upon their principles, which made them the more odious, as having among them some of the worst maxims of the church of Rome; that in particular, which was to make the pulpit a privileged place, in which a man might safely vent treason, and be secure in doing it, if the church judicatory should agree to acquit him. So upon this occasion great advantage was taken, to shew how near the spirit that had reigned in presbytery came to popery. It was resolved to make a public example of a preacher: so he was singled out. He gave no advantage to those who wished to have saved him, by the least step towards any 228 submission, but much to the contrary. Yet, though all people were disgusted at the earl of Middleton's eagerness in the prosecution, the earl of Tweeddale was the only man that moved against the putting him to death[41]. He said, banishment had been hitherto the severest censure that had been laid on the preachers for their opinions: he knew Guthrie was a man apt to give personal provocation, and he wished that might not have too great a share in carrying the matter so far. Yet he was condemned to die. I saw him suffer. He was so far from shewing any fear, that he rather expressed a contempt of death: he spoke an hour upon the ladder, with the composedness of a man that was delivering a sermon rather than his last words. He justified all he had done, and exhorted all people to adhere to the covenant, which he magnified highly. With him one Govan was also hanged; he had deserted the army while the king was in Scotland, and had gone over to Cromwell. The man was inconsiderable, till they made him more considered by putting him to death on such an account at so great a distance of time[42].
The gross iniquity of the court appeared in nothing more eminently than in the favour shewed Macleod of Assynt, who had betrayed the marquis of Montrose, and was brought over upon it[43]. He in prison struck up to a high pitch of vice and impiety, and gave great entertainments: and that, notwithstanding the baseness of the man and of his crime, begot him so many friends, that he was let go without any censure. The proceedings against Warriston were soon despatched, he being absent. It was proved 229 that he had presented the remonstrance; that he had acted under Cromwell's authority, and had sat as a peer in his parliament; that he had confirmed him in his protectorship, and had likewise sat one of the committee of safety: so he was attainted. Swinton had been attainted[44] in the parliament at Stirling for going over to Cromwell: so he was brought before the parliament to hear what he could say why the sentence should not be executed. He was then become a quaker; and did, with a sort of eloquence that moved the whole house, lay out all his own errors, and the ill spirit he was in when he committed them, with so tender a sense, that he seemed as one indifferent what they should do with him: and, without so much as moving for mercy, or even for a delay, he 67 did so effectually prevail on them, that they recommended him to the king as a fit object of his mercy. This was the more easily consented to by the earl of Middleton in hatred to the earl of Landerdale, who had got the gift of his estate. He had two good pleas in law: the one was, that the record of his attainder at Stirling, with all that had passed in that parliament, was lost: the other was, that by the act rescissory that parliament being annulled, all that [was] done by it was void: but he urged neither, since there was matter enough to attaint him of new if the defects of that supposed attainder had been observed. So till the act of indemnity was passed he was still in danger, having been the man of all Scotland that had been the most trusted and employed by Cromwell: but upon passing the act of indemnity he was safe[45].
The session of parliament was now brought to a conclusion, without any motion for an indemnity. The secret of this was, that since episcopacy was to be set up, and 230 that those who were the most like to oppose it were on other accounts obnoxious, it was thought best to keep them under that fear till the change should be made. The earl of Middleton went up to court full of merit, and as full of pride. He had a mind to be lord treasurer; and told the king, that, if he intended to set up episcopacy, the earl of Crawford, that was a noted presbyterian, must be put out of that post: it was the opinion of the king's zeal for that form of government that must bear down all the opposition that might otherwise be made to it: and it would not be possible to persuade the nation of that as long as they saw the white staff in such hands. Therefore, on the first day that a Scottish council was called after he came up, he gave a long account of the proceedings of parliament, and magnified the zeal and loyalty that many had expressed, while others that had been not only pardoned, but were highly trusted by the king, had been often cold and backward, and sometimes plainly against his service. The earl of Lauderdale was ill that day: so the earl of Crawford undertook to answer this reflection, which he thought was meant of himself, for opposing the act rescissory. He said, he had observed such an entire unanimity in carrying on the king's service that he did not know of any that had acted otherwise: and therefore he moved, that the earl of Middleton might speak plain, and name persons. The earl of Middleton desired to be excused: he did not intend to accuse any, but yet he thought he was bound to let the king know how he had been served. The earl of Crawford still pressed him to speak out after so general an accusation: no doubt he would inform the king in private who these persons were: and since he had already gone so far in public, he thought he ought to go further. The earl of Middleton was in some confusion, for he did not expect to be thus attacked: so to get off, he named the opposition that the earl of Tweeddale had made to the sentence passed on Guthrie, not without indecent reflections, as if his prosecution had flowed from the king's resentments 231 of his behaviour to himself: and so he turned the matter, that the earl of Tweeddale's reflection, which was thought indeed pointed against himself, should seem as meant against the king. The earl of Crawford upon this said, that the earl of Middleton ought to have excepted to the words when they were first spoken, and no doubt the parliament would have done the king justice: but it was never thought consistent with the liberty of speech in parliament, to bring men into question afterwards for words spoken in any debate when they were not challenged as soon as they were spoken. The earl of Middleton excused himself: he said, the thing was passed before he made due reflections on it; and so asked pardon for that omission. The earl of Crawford was glad he himself had escaped, and was silent as to the earl of Tweeddale's concern: so, nobody offering to excuse him, an order was presently sent down for committing him to prison, and for examining him upon the words he had spoken, and on his meaning in them[46]. That was not a time in which men durst pretend to privilege, or the freedom of debate: so he did not insist on it, but sent up such an account of his words, and such an explanation of them, as fully satisfied the king. So after the imprisonment of some weeks, he was set at liberty. But this raised a great outcry against the earl of Middleton, as a thing that was contrary to the freedom of debate, and destructive of the liberty of parliament. It lay the more open to censure, because the earl of Middleton had accepted of a great entertainment from the earl of Tweeddale after Guthrie's business was over: and it seemed contrary to the rules of hospitality, to have such a design in his heart against a man in whose house he had been so treated: all the excuse he made for it was, that he never intended it, but that the earl of Crawford had pressed him so hard upon the complaint he had made in general, that he had no way of getting out of it without naming some particular, and he had no other so ready then at hand. 232
68 Another difference of greater moment fell in between him and the earl of Crawford. The earl of Middleton was now raising the guards that were to be paid out of the excise granted by the parliament. So he moved, that the excise might be raised by collectors named by himself as general, that so he might not depend on the treasury for the pay of the forces. The earl of Crawford opposed this with great advantage, since all revenues given the king did by the course of law come into the treasury. Scotland was not in a condition to maintain two treasurers: and, as to what was said of the necessity of having the pay of the army well ascertained, and ever ready, otherwise it would become a grievance to the kingdom, he said the king was master, and what orders soever he thought fit to send to the treasury they would be most punctually obeyed. But the earl of Middleton knew there would be a great overplus of the excise, beyond the pay of the troops: and he reckoned that if the collection was put in his hands, he would easily get a grant of the overplus at the year's end. The earl of Crawford said, no such thing was ever pretended to by any general, unless by such as set up to be independent, and who hoped by that means to make themselves the masters of the army. So he carried the point, which was thought a victory. And the earl of Middleton was much blamed for putting his interest at court on such an issue, where the pretension was so unusual and so unreasonable.
The next point was concerning Argyll's estate. The king was inclined to restore the lord Lorn; though much pains was taken to persuade him that all the zeal he had expressed in his service was only an artifice between his father and him to preserve the family in all adventures: it was said, that had been an ordinary practice in Scotland for father and son to put themselves in different sides[47]. The marquis of Argyll had taken very extraordinary methods to raise his own family to such a superiority in the Highlands that he was a sort of a king among them. 233 The marquis of Huntly had married his sister, and during their friendship he was bound with him for some of his debts. After that, the marquis of Huntly, as he neglected his affairs, so he engaged in the king's side, by which Argyll saw he must be undone[48]. So he pretended that he only intended to secure himself, when he bought in prior mortgages and debts, which, as was believed, were compounded at very low rates. The friends of that family pressed the king hard to give his heir the confiscation of that part of Argyll's estate in which the marquis of Huntly's debts and all the pretensions on his estate were comprehended. And it was given to the marquis of Huntly, now duke of Gordon, then a young child: but no care was taken to breed him a protestant[49]. The marquis of Montrose, and all others whose estates had been ruined under Argyll's conduct, expected likewise reparation out of his estate; which was a very great one, but in no way able to satisfy all those demands. And it was believed that the earl of Middleton himself hoped to have carried away the main bulk of it: so that both the lord Lorn and he concurred, though with different views, to put a stop to all the pretensions made upon it.
The point of the greatest importance then under consideration was whether episcopacy should be restored in Scotland or not. The earl of Middleton assured the king, 234 it was desired by the greater and honester part of the nation. One synod had as good as petitioned for it: and many others wished for it, though the share they had in the late wars made them think it was not fit or decent for them to move for it. Sharp assured the king, that none but the protesters, of whom he had a very bad opinion, were against it; and that of the public resolutioners there would not be found twenty that would oppose it. All who were for making the change agreed that it ought to be done now in the first heat of joy after the restoration, and before the act of indemnity passed. The earl of Lauderdale and all his friends, on the other hand, assured the king, that the national prejudice against it was still very strong; that those who seemed zealous for it run into that only as a method to procure favour, but that those who were against it would be found stiff and eager in their opposition to it; that by setting it up the king would lose the affections of the nation, and that the supporting it would grow a heavy load on his government. The earl of Lauderdale turned all this, that looked like a zeal for presbytery, to a dexterous insinuating himself into the king's confidence, as one that seemed to design nothing but his greatness, and the having Scotland sure to him, in order to the executing of any design he might afterwards be engaged in. He said, he remembered well the aversion that he himself had observed in that nation to any thing that looked a superiority in the church. But to that the earl of Middleton and Sharp answered by assuring him that the insolencies committed by the presbyterians while they governed, and the ten years' usurpation that had followed, had made such a change in people's tempers that they were much altered since he had been among them. The king naturally hated 69 presbytery: and, having called a new parliament in England that did with great zeal espouse the interests of the church of England, and was beginning to complain of the evacuating the garrisons held by their army in that kingdom, he did easily give way, 235 though with a visible reluctancy, to the change of the church government in Scotland. The aversion he seemed to express was imputed to his own indifference as to all those matters, and to his unwillingness to involve his government in new troubles. But the view of things that the earl of Lauderdale had given him was the true root of all that coldness. The earl of Clarendon set it on with great zeal; and so did the duke of Ormond, who said it would be very hard to maintain the government of the church in Ireland if presbytery continued in Scotland; since the northern counties, which were the best stocked of any they had, as they were originally from Scotland, so they would still follow the way of that nation[1] Upon all this diversity of opinion, the thing was proposed in a Scotch council at Whitehall. The earl of Crawford declared himself against it: but the earl of Lauderdale, the duke of Hamilton, and sir Robert Moray, were only for delaying the making any such change till the king should be better satisfied concerning the inclinations of the nation[2]. The result of the debate, all the rest who were present being earnest for the change, was, that a letter was writ to the privy council of Scotland, intimating the king's intentions for setting up episcopacy, and demanding their advice upon it. The earl of Glencairn ordered the letter to be read, having taken care that such persons should be present who he knew would speak warmly for it, that so others who might intend to oppose it might be frightened from doing it. None spoke against it but the earl of Kincardin. He proposed that some certain methods might be taken, by which they might be well informed, and so be able to inform the king, of the temper of the nation, before they offered an advice, that might have such effects very much 236 to perplex, if not to disorder, all their affairs. Some smart repartees passed between the earl of Glencairn and him. This was all the opposition that was made at that board. So a letter was writ to the king from thence, encouraging him to go on, and assuring him that the change he intended to make would give a general satisfaction to the main body of the nation.
Upon that the thing was resolved on. It remained after this only to consider the proper methods of doing it, and the men who ought to be employed in it. Sheldon and the English bishops had an aversion to all that had been engaged in the covenant: so they were for seeking out all the episcopal clergy who had been driven out of Scotland in the beginning of the troubles, and preferring them. There was but one of the old bishops left alive, Sydserfe, that had been bishop of Galloway. He had come up to London, not doubting but that he should be advanced to the primacy of Scotland. It is true, he had of late done some very irregular things. When the act of uniformity required all men who held any benefices in England to be episcopally ordained, he, who by observing the ill effects of their former violence was become very moderate, with others of the Scotch clergy that gathered about him, did set up a very indefensible practice of ordaining all those of the English clergy who came to him, and that without demanding either oaths or subscriptions of them. Some believed that this was done by him only to subsist on the fees that arose from the letters of orders so granted; for he was very poor. This did so disgust the English bishops at him and his company, that they took no care of him. Yet they were much against a set of presbyterian bishops; they believed they could have no credit, and that they would have no zeal. This touched Sharp in the quick: so he laid the matter before the earl of Clarendon. He said, these old episcopal men, by their long absence out of 237 Scotland, knew nothing of the present generation: and by the ill usage they had met with, they were so irritated that they would run matters quickly to great extremities: and, if there was a faction among the bishops, some valuing themselves upon their constant steadiness, and looking with an ill eye on those who had been carried away with the stream, this would divide and distract their councils, whereas a set of men of moderate principles would be more uniform in their proceedings. This prevailed with the earl of Clarendon, who saw the king so remiss in that matter that he resolved to keep things in as great temper as was possible. And he, not doubting that Sharp would pursue that in which he seemed to be so zealous, and that he would carry things with great moderation, persuaded the bishops of England to leave the management of that matter wholly to him. And upon that, Sharp, being assured of that at which he had long aimed, laid aside his mask, and owned that he was to be archbishop of St. Andrews. He said to some, from whom I had it, that when he saw that the king was resolved on the change, and that some hot men were like to be advanced, whose violence would ruin the country, he had submitted to that post on design to moderate matters, and to cover some good men from a storm that might otherwise break upon them. So deeply did he still dissemble: for now he talked of nothing so much as of love and moderation.
70 Sydserfe was removed to be bishop of Orkney, one of the best revenues of any of the bishoprics in Scotland: but it had been almost in all times a sinecure. He lived little more than a year after his translation. He had died in more esteem if he had died a year before it [3]. But Sharp was ordered to find out proper men for filling the other sees. That care was left entirely to him. The choice was generally very bad.
238 Two men were brought up to be consecrated in England, Fairfoul, designed for the see of Glasgow, and Hamilton, brother to the lord Belhaven[4], for Galloway. The former of these was a pleasant and facetious man, insinuating and crafty: but he was a better physician than a divine. His life was scarce free of scandal, and he was eminent in nothing that belonged to his own function. He had not only sworn the covenant, but had persuaded others to do it; and when one objected to him, that it went against his conscience, he answered, there were some very good medicines that could not be chewed, but these were to be swallowed down in a pill or a bolus; and since it was plain that a man could not live in Scotland unless he sware it, therefore it must be swallowed down without any further examination[5]. Whatever the matter was, soon after his consecration his parts sunk so fast that in a few months he, who had passed his whole life long for one of the cunningest men in Scotland, became almost a changeling; upon which it may be easily collected what commentaries the presbyterians would make. Sharp lamented this to me, as one of their great misfortunes; he said it began to appear in less than a month after he came to London. Hamilton was a good natured man, but weak: he was always believed episcopal, yet he had so far complied in the time of the covenant, that he affected a peculiar expression of his counterfeit zeal for their cause, to secure himself from suspicion: at every time when he gave the sacrament, he excommunicated all that were not true to the covenant, using a form in the Old Testament of shaking out the lap of his gown, saying, so did he cast out of the church and communion all that dealt falsely in the covenant.
239 With these there was a fourth man found out, who was then at London in his return from the Bath, where he had been for his health: and on him I will enlarge more copiously. He was the son of doctor Leighton, that had in archbishop Laud's time writ Zion's Plea against the Prelates; for which he was condemned in the Star-chamber to have his ears cut and his nose slit. He was a man of a violent and ungoverned heat[6]. He sent his eldest son Robert to be bred in Scotland, who was accounted a saint from his youth up[7]. He had great quickness of parts, a lively apprehension, with a charming vivacity of thought and expression. He had the greatest command of the purest Latin that ever I knew in any man. He was a master both in Greek and Hebrew, and in the whole compass of theological learning, chiefly in the study of the Scriptures. But that which excelled all the rest, he came to be possessed with the highest and noblest sense of divine things that I ever saw in any man. He had no regard to his person, unless it was to mortify it by a constant low diet, that was like a perpetual fast. He had a contempt both of wealth or reputation. He seemed to have the lowest thoughts of himself possible, and to desire that all other persons should think as meanly of him as he himself did. He bore all sort of ill usage and reproach like a man that 240 took pleasure in it. He had so subdued the natural heat of his temper, that in a great variety of accidents, and in a course of 22 years' intimate conversation with him, I never observed the least sign of passion, but upon one single occasion. He brought himself into so composed a gravity, that I never saw him laugh and but seldom smile. And he kept himself in such a constant recollection, that I do not remember that ever I heard him say one idle word. There was a visible tendency in all he said to raise his own mind, and those he conversed with, to serious reflections. He seemed to be in perpetual meditation. And, though the whole course of his life was strict and ascetical, yet he had nothing of the sourness of temper that generally possesses men of that sort. He was the freest of superstition, of censuring others, or of imposing his own methods on them, possible; so that he did not so much as recommend them to others. He said there was a diversity of tempers, and every man was to watch over his own, and to turn it in the best manner he could. When he spoke of divine matters, which he did almost perpetually, it was in such an elevating manner, that I have often reflected on these words, and felt somewhat like them within myself while I was with him, Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way? His thoughts were lively, oft out of the way and surprising, yet just and genuine. And he had laid together in his memory the greatest 71 treasure of the best and wisest of all the ancient sayings of the heathens as well as Christians, that I have ever known any man master of, and he used them in the aptest manner possible. He had been bred up with the greatest aversion imaginable to the whole frame of the church of England. From Scotland his father sent him to travel. He spent some years in France, and spoke that language like one born there. He came afterwards and settled in Scotland, and had presbyterian ordination; but he quickly broke through the prejudices of his education. 241 His preaching had a sublimity both of thought and expression in it; and, above all, the grace and gravity of his pronunciation was such that few heard him without a very sensible emotion: I am sure I never did. It was so different from all others, and indeed from every thing that one could hope to rise up to, that it gave a man an indignation at himself and all others. It was a very sensible humiliation to me, and for some time after I heard him, I could not bear the thought of my own performances, and was out of countenance when I was forced to think of preaching. His style was rather too fine[8]: but there was a majesty and beauty in it that left so deep an impression, that I cannot yet forget the sermons I heard him preach thirty year[s] ago. And yet with all this he seemed to look on himself as so ordinary a preacher, that while he had a cure he was ready to employ all others: and when he was a bishop he chose to preach to small auditories, and would never give notice beforehand. He had indeed a very low voice, and so could not be heard by a great crowd. He soon came to see into the follies of the presbyterians, and to hate their covenant, particularly the imposing it, and their fury against all who differed from them. He found they were not capable of large thoughts: theirs were narrow, as their tempers were sour. So he grew weary of mixing with them: he scarce ever went to their meetings, and lived in great retirement, minding only the care of his own parish at Newbotle near Edinburgh. Yet all the opposition that he made to them was, that he preached up a more universal charity, and a silenter but sublimer way of devotion, and a more exact rule of life than seemed to them consistent with human nature: but his own practice did even outshine his doctrine.
In the year [16]48 he declared himself for the engagement for the king. But the earl of Lothian, who lived in his parish, had so high an esteem for him that he persuaded the violent men not to meddle with him: though he gave occasion to great exception; for when some of his parish, 242 who had been in the engagement, were ordered to make public profession of their repentance for it, he told them, they had been in an expedition in which, he believed, they had neglected their duty to God, and had been guilty of injustice and violence, of drunkenness and other immoralities, and he charged them to repent of these very seriously, without meddling with the quarrel, or the grounds of that war. He entered into great correspondence with many of the episcopal party, and with my own father in particular, and did wholly separate himself from the presbyterians. At last he left them, and withdrew from his cure: for he could not do the things imposed on him any longer. And yet he hated all contention so much, that he chose rather to leave them in a silent manner than to engage in any disputes with them. But he had generally the reputation of a saint, and of something above human nature in him: so the mastership of the college of Edinburgh falling vacant some time after, and it being in the gift of the city, he was prevailed with to accept of it, because in it he was wholly separated from all church matters. He continued ten years in that post, and was a great blessing in it; for he talked so to all the youth of any capacity or distinction that it had a great effect on many of them. He preached often to them: and if crowds broke in, which they were apt to do, he would have gone on in his sermon in Latin, with a purity and life that charmed all who understood it. Thus he had lived above twenty years in Scotland, in the highest reputation that any man in my time ever had in that kingdom.
But he had a brother, well known at court, sir Elisha, who was very like him in face and in the vivacity of his parts, but the most unlike him in all other things that can be imagined: for, though he loved to talk of great sublimities in religion, yet he was a very immoral man, both lewd, false, and ambitious. He was a papist of a form of his own: but he had changed his religion to raise himself at 243 court; for he was at that time secretary to the duke of York[9], and was very intimate with the lord Aubigny, a brother of the duke of Richmond's, who had changed his religion, and was a priest, and had probably been a cardinal if he had lived a little longer[10]. He maintained an outward decency, and had more learning and better notions than men of quality, who enter into orders generally have. Yet he was a very vicious man: and this perhaps made him the more considered by the king, who loved and trusted him to a high degree. No man had more credit with the king; for he was of the secret as to his religion, and was more trusted with the whole design that was then managed in order to it, than any man whatsoever. Sir Elisha brought his brother and him acquainted: for Leighton loved to know men in all the varieties of religion.
72 In the vacation time he made excursions, and came oft 244 to London, where he observed all the eminent men in Cromwell's court, and in the several parties then about the city of London. But he told me he never could see any thing among them that pleased him: they were men of unquiet and meddling tempers: and their discourses and sermons were dry and unsavoury, full of airy cant, or of bombast swellings. Sometimes he went over to Flanders, to see what he could find in the several orders of the church of Rome. There he found some of Jansenius's followers, who seemed to be men of extraordinary tempers, and who studied to bring things, if possible, to the purity and simplicity of the primitive ages; on which all his thoughts were much set. He thought controversies had been too much insisted on, and had been carried too far. His brother, who thought of nothing but the raising himself at court, fancied that his being made a bishop might render himself more considerable. So he possessed the lord Aubigny with such an opinion of him, that he made the king apprehend that a man of his piety and his notions (and his not being married was not forgot) might contribute to carry on their design. He fancied such a monastic man, who had a great stretch of thought, and so many other eminent qualities, would be a mean, at least, to prepare the nation for popery, if not directly to come over to them; for his brother did not stick to say he was sure that lay at root with him. So the king named him of his own proper motion, which gave all those who began to suspect the king himself great jealousies of him. Leighton was averse to this promotion, as much as was possible. His brother had great power over him; for he took care to hide his vices from him, and to make before him a great shew of piety. He seemed to be a papist rather in name and shew than in reality, of which I will set down one instance that was then much talked of. Some of the church of England loved to magnify the sacrament in an extraordinary manner, affirming the real presence, only blaming the church of 245 Rome for defining the manner; they saying Christ was present in a most unconceivable manner. This was so much the mode, that the king and all the court went into it. So the king, upon some raillery about transubstantiation, asked sir Elisha if he believed it. He answered, he could not well tell; but he was sure the church of England believed it. And when the king seemed amazed at that, he replied, do not you believe that Christ is present in a most unconceivable manner? Which the king granted: then said he, that is just transubstantiation, the most unconceivable thing that was ever yet invented. When Leighton was prevailed on to accept a bishopric, he chose Dunblane, a small diocese, as well as a little revenue[11]. But the deanery of the chapel royal was annexed to that see. So he was willing to engage in that, that he might set up the common prayer in the king's chapel; for the rebuilding of which orders were given. The English clergy were well pleased with him, finding him both more learned, and more thoroughly theirs in the other points of uniformity, than the rest of the Scotch clergy, whom they could not much value. And though Sheldon did not very much like his great strictness, in which he had no mind to imitate him, yet he thought such a man as he was might give credit to episcopacy in its first introduction to a nation much prejudiced against it. Sharp did not know what to make of all this: he neither liked his strictness of life nor his notions: he believed they would not take the same methods, and he fancied he might be much obscured by him; for he feared he would be well supported. He saw the earl of Lauderdale began to magnify him; and so he did all he could to discourage him, but without any effect; for he had no regard to him. I bear still the greatest veneration for the memory of that man that I do to any person, and reckon my early knowledge of him, which happened the year after this, and my long and intimate conversation with him, that 246 continued to his death for 23 years, in all which time he made it very visible that I was the person he made most use of, and relied most upon, I say I reckon this among the greatest blessings of my life, and for which I know I must give an account to God in the great day in a most particular manner. And yet, though I know this account of his promotion may seem a blemish upon him, I would not conceal it, being resolved to write of all persons and things with all possible candor. I had the relation of it from himself, and more particularly from his brother. But what hopes soever the papists had of him at this time, when he knew nothing of the design of bringing in popery, and had therefore talked of some points of popery with the freedom of an abstracted and speculative man, yet he expressed another sense of the matter, when he came to see it was really intended to be brought in among us. He then spoke of popery in the complex at much another rate: and he seemed to have more zeal against it than I thought was in his nature with relation to any points in controversy; for his abstraction made him seem cold in all those matters. But he gave all who conversed with him a very different view of popery, when he saw we were really in danger of coming under the power of a religion that had, as he used to say, much of the wisdom that was earthly, sensual, and devilish, 73 but had nothing in it of the wisdom that was from above, and was pure and peaceable. He did indeed think the corruptions and cruelties of Popery were such gross and odious things, that nothing could have maintained that church under those just and visible prejudices but the several orders among them, that had such an appearance of mortification and contempt of the world; that with all the trash that was among them this maintained a face of piety and devotion. He also thought the great and fatal error of the Reformation was, that more of those houses and of that course of life, free from the entanglements of vows and other mixtures, was not preserved: so that the Protestant churches had neither places of education, nor 247 retreat for men of mortified tempers. I have dwelt long upon this man's character: but it was so singular, that it seemed to deserve it. And I was so singularly blessed by knowing him as I did, that I am sure he deserved it of me that I should give so full a view of him; which I hope may be of some use to the world.
When the time fixed for the consecration of the bishops of Scotland came on, the English bishops finding that Sharp and Leighton had not episcopal ordination to be priests and deacons, the other two having been ordained by bishops before the wars, they stood upon it that they must be ordained first deacons and then priests. Sharp was very uneasy at this, and remembered them of what had happened when king James had set up episcopacy. Bishop Andrews moved at that time the ordaining them, as was now proposed: but that was overruled by king James, who thought it went too far towards the unchurching of all those who had not bishops among them[12]. But the late wars, and the disputes during that time, had raised these controversies higher, and brought men to stricter notions, and to maintain them with more fierceness. The English bishops did also say, that by the late Act of Uniformity that matter was more positively settled than it had been before; so that they could not legally consecrate any but those who were, according to that constitution, made first priests and deacons. They also made this difference between the present time and king James's: for then the Scots were only in an imperfect state, having never had bishops among them since the Reformation; so in such a state of things, in which they had been under a real necessity, it was reasonable to allow of their orders, how defective soever: but that of late they had been in a state of schism, they had revolted from their bishops, and had thrown off that order: so that orders given in such a wilful opposition to the whole constitution of the primitive church 248 was a thing of another nature. They were positive in the point, and would not dispense with it. Sharp stuck more at it than could have been expected from a man that had swallowed down greater matters[13]. Leighton did not stand much upon it. He did not think orders given without bishops were null and void. He thought the forms of government were not settled by such positive laws as were unalterable, but only by apostolical practice, which, as he thought, authorized episcopacy as the best form. Yet he did not think it necessary to the being of a church. But yet he thought[14] that every church might make such rules in ordination as they pleased, and that they might reordain all that came to them from any other church; so that the reordaining a priest ordained in another church imported no more but that they received him into orders according to their rules, and did not infer the annulling the orders he had formerly received. These two were upon this privately ordained deacons and priests; and then all the four were consecrated publicly in the abbey of Westminster. Leighton told me he was much struck with the feasting and jollity of that day: it had not such an appearance of seriousness or piety as became the new modelling of a church[15]. When that was over, he made some attempts to work up Sharp to the two designs which possessed him most. The one was, to try what could be done towards the uniting the presbyterians and them: he offered Usher's Reduction as 249 the plan upon which they ought to form their schemes. The other was, to try how they could raise men to a truer and higher sense of piety, and bring the worship of that church out of their extempory methods into more order, and so to prepare them for a more regular way of worship, which he thought was of much more importance than a form of government. But he was amazed, when he observed that Sharp had neither formed any scheme, nor seemed so much as willing to talk of any. He reckoned they would be established in the next session of parliament, and so would be legally possessed of their bishoprics: and then every bishop was to do the best he could once to get all to submit to their authority, and when that point was carried, they might proceed to other things as should be found expedient: but he did not care to lay down any scheme. Fairfoul, when he talked to 74 him, had always a merry tale ready at hand to divert him: so that he avoided all serious discourse, and indeed did not seem capable of any. By these means Leighton quickly lost all heart and hope; and he said often to me upon it, that in the whole progress of that affair there appeared such cross characters of an angry Providence, that, how fully soever he was satisfied in his own mind as to episcopacy itself, yet it seemed that God was against them, and that they were not like to be the men that should build up his church; so that the struggling about it seemed to him like a fighting against God. He who had the greatest hand in it proceeded with so much dissimulation, and the rest of the order were so mean and so selfish, and the earl of Middleton, with the other secular men that conducted it, were so openly impious and vicious, that it did cast a reproach on every thing relating to religion, to see it managed by such instruments.
All the steps that were made afterwards were of a piece with this melancholy beginning. Upon the consecration 250 of the bishops, the presbyteries of Scotland that were still sitting began now to declare openly against episcopacy, and to prepare protestations, or other acts and instruments, against them. Some were talking of entering into new engagements against submitting to them. So Sharp moved, that, since the king had set up episcopacy, a proclamation might be issued out, forbidding clergymen to meet together in any presbytery or other judicatory, till the bishops should settle a method of proceeding in them. Upon the setting out this proclamation, a general obedience was given to it: only the ministers, to keep up a shew of acting on an ecclesiastical authority, met once, and entered in their books a protestation against this proclamation, as an invasion on the liberties of the church, to which they declared they gave obedience only for a time, and for peace sake. Sharp did this without any advice: and it proved very fatal. For when king James brought in the bishops before, they had still suffered the inferior judicatories to continue sitting, till the bishops came and sat down among them: some of them protested indeed against that: yet they sat on after that: and so the whole church had a face of unity, while all sat together in the same judicatories, though upon different principles. The old presbyterians said, they sat still as in a court settled by the laws of the church and state: and though they looked on the bishops sitting among them, and assuming a negative vote, as an usurpation, yet they said it did not infer a nullity on the court: whereas now, by this silencing these courts, the case was much altered: for if they had continued sitting, and the bishops had come among them, they would have said it was like the bearing with an usurpation when there was no remedy: and what protestations soever they might have made, or what opposition soever they might have given the bishops, that would have been kept within their own walls, but would not have broke out into such a distraction, as the nation was cast into upon that. All the opposition that might have been made would have died with those few 251 that were disposed to make it: and, upon due care to fill the vacant places with worthy and well-affected men, the nation might have been brought off from their prejudices. But these courts being now once broken, and brought together afterwards by a sort of connivance, without any legal authority, only as the bishop's assistants and officials, to give him advice, and to act in his name, they pretended they could not sit in them any more, unless they should change their principles, and become thoroughly episcopal, which was too great a turn to be soon brought about. So fatally did Sharp precipitate matters: he affected to have the reins of the church put wholly in his hands. The earl of Lauderdale was not sorry to see him commit errors; since the worse things were managed, his advices would be thereby the more justified. And the earl of Middleton and his party took no care of any business, being almost perpetually drunk: by which they came in a great measure to lose the king, for though, upon a frolic, he, with a few . in whose company he took pleasure, would sometimes run into excess, yet he did it seldom, and had a very bad opinion of all that got into the habit and love of drunkenness[16].
The bishops came down to Scotland soon after their consecration, all in one coach. Leighton told me, he believed they were weary of him, for he was very weary of them: but he, finding they intended to be received at Edinburgh with some pomp, left them at Morpeth, and came to Edinburgh a few days before them: he hated all the appearances of vanity. He would not have the title of lord given him by his friends, and was not easy when others forced it on him. In this he was thought too stiff: it provoked the other bishops, and looked like singularity and affectation, and furnished those who were prejudiced against him with a specious appearance, to represent him 252 as a man of odd notions and practices. The lord chancellor, with all the nobility and privy-counsellors then at Edinburgh, went out, together with the magistracy of the city, and brought the bishops in, as in triumph[17]. I looked on; and though I was thoroughly episcopal, yet I thought there was somewhat in the slight pomp of that entry, that did not look like the humility that became their function. Soon after their arrival, six other bishops were consecrated, but not ordained 75 priests and deacons[18]. The see of Edinburgh was for some time kept void. Sharp hoped that Douglas might be prevailed on to accept it: but he would enter into no treaty about it. So the earl of Middleton forced upon Sharp one Wishart, that had been the marquis of Montrose's chaplain, and had been taken prisoner, and used with so much cruelty in the gaol of Edinburgh, that he had been almost eat up with vermin; so the earl of Middleton thought it was but justice to advance a man in that place, where he had[19] been so near an advancement of another sort.
The session of parliament came on in April 1662: where the first thing that was proposed by the earl of Middleton was, that since by the act rescissory, that had annulled all the parliaments after that held in the year [16]33, the former laws in favour of episcopacy were now again in force, 253 the king had restored that function that had been so long glorious in the church, and for which his blessed father had suffered so much: and though the bishops had a right to come and take their place in parliament, yet it was a just piece of respect to send some of every state to invite them to come and sit among them. This was agreed to: so upon the message that was sent the bishops came and took their places[20]. Leighton came not with them, as indeed he never came to parliament but when there was something before them that related to religion or to the church.
The first act that passed in this session was for restoring of episcopacy, and settling the government of the church in their hands. Sharp had the framing of this act, as Primrose told me; and it appeared to be his; for, according to the fable of the harpies, he had an art of spoiling every thing that he touched. The whole government and jurisdiction of the church in the several dioceses was declared to be lodged in the bishops, which they were to exercise with the advice and assistance of such of their clergy as were of known loyalty and prudence: all men that held any benefice in the church were required to own and submit to the government of the church as now by law established. This was plainly the setting episcopacy on another bottom than it had been ever on in Scotland before this time: for the whole body of the presbyters did formerly maintain such a share in the administration, that the bishops had never pretended to any more than to be their settled presidents, with a negative voice upon them[21]. 254 But now it was said, that the whole power was lodged singly in the bishop, who was only bound to carry along with him in the administration so many presbyters as he thought fit to single out, as his advisers and assistants; which was the taking all power out of the body of the clergy. Church judicatories were now made only the bishop's assistants: and the few of the clergy that must assist being to be picked out by him, that was only a matter of shew: nor had they any authority lodged with them, all that being vested only in the bishop. Nor did it escape censure, that among the qualifications of those presbyters that were to be the bishop's advisers and assistants, loyalty and prudence were only named, and that piety and learning were forgot, which must always be reckoned in the first rank of the qualifications of the clergy. In the next place, exception was taken to the obligation laid on the clergy to own and submit to the government thus established by law. They said, it was hard even to submit to so high an authority as was now lodged with the bishops; but to require them to own it, seemed to import an antecedent approving, or at least a subsequent justifying, of such an authority, which carried the matter far beyond a bare obedience even to an imposing upon conscience. These were not only the exceptions made by presbyterians, but by the episcopal men themselves, who had never carried the argument farther in Scotland than for a presidency, with some authority in ordination, and a negative in matters of jurisdiction. They thought the body of the clergy ought to be a check upon the bishops, so that without a consent of the majority they ought not to be legally empowered to act in so imperious a manner, as was warranted by this act. Many of them would never subscribe to this form of owning and submitting: and the prudenter bishops did not impose it on their clergy. The whole frame of the act was liable to great censure. It was thought an unexcusable piece of madness, that, when a government was brought in upon a nation so averse to it, the first step 255 should carry their power so high. All the bishops, except Sharp, disowned their having any share in the penning the act; which indeed was passed in haste, without due consideration: nor did any of the bishops, no not Sharp himself, ever carry their authority so high as by the act they were warranted to do. But all the enemies to episcopacy had this act ever in their mouth, to excuse their not submitting to it; that it asserted a greater stretch of authority in bishops than they themselves thought fit to assume.
Soon after that act passed, some of the presbyterian preachers were summoned to answer before the parliament for some reflections made in their sermons against episcopacy. But nothing could be made of it: for their words were general, and capable of different senses. So it was resolved, for a proof of their loyalty, to tender them the, oath of allegiance and supremacy, that had been enacted in the former parliament, and was refused by none but 76 the earl of Cassillis. He desired that an explanation might be made of the supremacy. The words of the oath were large: and when the oath was enacted in England, a clear explanation was given in one of the articles of the church of England, and more copiously afterwards in a discourse of archbishop Usher's, published by king James's order. But the parliament would not satisfy him so far: and they were well pleased to see scruples raised about the oath, that so a colour might be put on their severities against such as should refuse it, as being men that refused to swear allegiance to the king. Upon that the earl of Cassillis left the parliament, and quitted all his employments: for he was a man of most inflexible firmness[22]. Many said there was no need of an explanation, since how ambiguous soever the words might be in themselves, yet that oath, being brought to Scotland from England, ought to be understood 256 in the same sense in which it was imposed in that kingdom. On the other hand, there was just reason for men's being tender in so sacred a matter as an oath. The earl of Cassillis had offered to take the oath, provided he might join his explanation to it. The earl of Middleton was contented to let him say what he pleased, but he would not suffer him to put it in writing. The ministers to whom it was now tendered offered to take it upon the same terms; and in a petition to the lords of the articles they offered their explanation. Upon that a debate arose, whether an act explanatory of the oath should be offered to the parliament or not. This was the first time that Leighton appeared in parliament. He pressed it might be done, with much zeal. He said the land mourned by reason of the many oaths that had been taken: the words of this were certainly capable of a bad sense: in compassion to papists a limited sense had been put on them in England: and he thought there should be a like tenderness shewed to protestants, especially when the scruple was just, and there was an oath in the case, in which the matter ought certainly to be made clear: to act otherwise looked like the laying snares for people, and the making men offenders for a word. Sharp took this ill from him, and replied upon him with great bitterness: he said it was below the dignity of government to make acts to satisfy the weak scruples of peevish men: it ill became them, who had imposed their covenant on all people without any explanation, and had forced all to take it, now to expect such extraordinary favour. Leighton insisted that it might be done for that very reason, that all people might see a difference between the mild proceedings of the government now, and their severity: and said it ill became the very same persons that had complained of that rigour now to practise it themselves; for thus it may be said, the world will go mad by turns. This was ill taken by the earl of Middleton and all his party: for they designed to keep the matter so, that the presbyterians should 257 be possessed with many scruples on this head, and that when any of the party should be brought before them that they believed in fault, but had not full proof against him, the oath should be tendered as the trial of his allegiance, and that for refusing it they should censure him as they thought fit. So the ministers' petition was rejected, and they were required to take the oath as it stood in the law, without putting any sense upon it. They refused to do it, and were upon that condemned to perpetual banishment, as men that denied allegiance to the king. And by this an engine was found out to banish as many as they pleased: for the resolution was taken up by the whole party to refuse it, unless with an explanation. So soon did men forget all their former complaints of the severity of imposing oaths, and began to set on foot the same practices, now that they had it in their power to do it. But how unbecoming soever this rigour might be in laymen, it was certainly much more indecent when managed by clergymen. And the supremacy which now was turned against the presbyterians, was not long after this laid much heavier on the bishops themselves: and then they desired an explanation, as much as the presbyterians did now, but could not obtain it.
The parliament was not satisfied with this oath: for they apprehended that many would infer, that, since it came from England, it ought to be understood in the public and established sense of the words that was passed there, both in an article of doctrine and in an act of parliament. Therefore another oath was likewise taken from the English pattern, of abjuring the covenant, both the league and the national covenant. It is true this was only imposed on men in the magistracy, or in public employments. By it all the presbyterians were turned out[23]: for this oath was 258 decried by the ministers as little less than open apostasy from God, and a throwing off their baptismal covenant.
The main business of this session of parliament, now that episcopacy was settled, and these oaths were enacted, was the passing the act of indemnity[1]. The earl of Middleton had obtained of the king an instruction to consent to the fining of the chief offenders, or to other punishments not extending to life[2]. This was intended to enrich him and his party, since all the rich and great offenders would be struck with the terror of this, and choose rather to make a good present than be fined on record, as guilty persons. This matter was debated at the council in Whitehall. The earls of Lauderdale and Crawford argued against it. They said the king had granted a full indemnity in England, out of which none were excepted but the regicides: it seemed therefore an unkind and unequal way of proceeding towards Scotland, that had merited eminently at the king's hands ever since the year [16]48, and had suffered much for it, that the one kingdom should not have the same measure of grace and pardon that was granted in the other. The earl of Middleton answered, that all he desired was in 77 favour of the loyal party in Scotland, who were undone by their adhering to the king: the revenue of the crown was too small, and too much charged, to repair their losses: so the 259 king had no other way to be just to them, but by making their enemies pay for their rebellion. Limitations were offered to the fines into which any should be condemned that were plausible; as, that it should be only for offences committed since the year [16]50, and that no man should be fined in above a year's rent of his estate; and these were agreed to. So he had an instruction to pass an act of indemnity, with a power of fining restrained to these rules. There was one sir George Mackenzie, since made lord Tarbot[3], a young man of great vivacity of parts, but full of ambition, and very crafty, who has had the art to recommend himself to all sides and parties by turns, and is yet alive, having made a great figure in that country now above fifty years. He has great notions of virtue and religion: but they are only notions, at least they have not had great effect on himself at all times. He became now the earl of Middleton's chief favourite. Primrose was grown rich and cautious: and his maxim having always been, that when he apprehended a change he ought to lay in for it by courting the side that was depressed, that so in the next turn he might secure friends to himself, he began to think that the earl of Middleton went too fast to hold out long. He had often advised him to manage the business of restoring episcopacy: he had formed a scheme by which it should have been the work of seven years, in a slow progress; but the earl of Middleton's heat and Sharp's vehemence spoiled all his project. The earl of Middleton, after his disgrace, said often to him, that his advices had been always wise and faithful: but he thought princes were 260 more sensible of services, and more apt to reflect on them, and to reward them, than he found they were.
When the settlement of episcopacy was over, the next care was to prepare the act of indemnity. Some proposed, that, besides the power of fining, they should move the king that he would consent to an instruction, empowering them likewise to put some under an incapacity to hold any public trust. This had never been proposed in public; but the earl of Middleton pretended that many of the best affected of the parliament had proposed it in private to himself. So he sent the lord Tarbot up to the king with two draughts of an act of indemnity; the one containing an exception of some persons to be fined, and the other containing likewise a clause for the incapacitating of some, not exceeding twelve, from all public trusts[4]. He was ordered to lay both before the king: the one was penned according to the earl of Middleton's instructions: the other was drawn at the desire of the parliament, for which he prayed an instruction, if the king thought fit to approve of it. The earl of Lauderdale had no apprehension of any design against himself in the motion: so he made no objection to it. And an instruction was drawn, empowering the earl of Middleton to pass an act with that clause. Tarbot was then much considered at court, as one of the most extraordinary men that Scotland had produced, and was the better liked, because he was looked on as the person that the earl of Middleton intended to set up in the earl of Lauderdale's room, who was then so much hated that nothing could have preserved him but the course that was taken to ruin him. So lord Tarbot went back to Scotland; and the duke of Richmond and the earl of Newburgh went down with him, by whose mild and ungoverned extravagancies the earl of Middleton's whole conduct fell under such an universal odium, and so much contempt, that it was well his own ill management forced the king to put an end to his ministry; for he could not 261 have served there much longer with any reputation. One instance of unusual severity was, that a letter of the lord Lorn's to the lord Duffus was intercepted, in which he did a little too plainly, but very truly, complain of the practices of his enemies in endeavouring to possess the king against him by many lies: but he said he had now discovered them, and had defeated them, and had gained the person upon whom the chief among them depended. This was the earl of Clarendon, upon whom the earl of Berkshire had wrought so much, that he resolved to oppose his restoration no more: and for this the earl of Berkshire was to have a thousand pound. This letter was carried into the parliament, and complained of as leasing-making; since lord Lorn pretended he had discovered the lies of his enemies to the king, which was a sowing dissension between the king and his subjects, and the creating in the king an ill opinion of them. So the parliament desired the king would send him down to be tried upon it. The king thought the letter very indiscreetly writ, but could not see any thing in it that was criminal; yet, in compliance with the desire of so zealous a parliament, Lorn was sent down upon his parole: but the king writ positively to the earl of Middleton not to proceed to the execution of any sentence that might pass upon him. Lorn, upon his appearance, was made a prisoner: and an indictment was brought against him for leasing-making. He made no defence: but in a long speech he set out the great provocation he had been under, the many libels [that] had been printed against him: some of these had been put in the king's own hands, to represent him as unworthy of his grace and favour: so, after all that hard usage, it was no wonder if he had writ with some sharpness: but he protested he meant no harm to any person; his design being only to preserve and save himself from the malice and lies of others, and not to make lies of any. In conclusion, he submitted to the justice of the parliament, and cast himself on the king's mercy. He was upon this condemned to die, 262 as guilty of leasing-making: and the day of his execution was left to the earl of Middleton by the parliament. I never knew any thing more generally cried out on than this was, 78 unless it was the second sentence passed on him about twenty years after this, which had more fatal effects and a more tragical conclusion. He was certainly born to be the signalest instance in this age of the rigour, or rather of the mockery, of justice. All that was said at this time to excuse the proceeding was, that it was certain his life was in no danger. But since that depended on the king, it did not excuse those who passed so base a sentence, and left to posterity the precedent of a parliamentary judgment, by which any man may be condemned for a letter of common news. This was not all the fury with which this matter was driven: for an act was passed against all persons, who should move the king for restoring the children of those who were attainted by parliament; which was an unheard-of restraint on applications to the king for his grace and mercy. This the earl of Middleton also passed, though he had no instruction for it. There was no penalty put in the act, from a maxim of the pleaders for prerogative, who thought the fixing a punishment was a limitation on the crown: whereas an act forbidding any thing made the offenders criminals: and in that case they did reckon, that the punishment was arbitrary; only that it could not extend to life. A committee was next appointed for setting the fines. They proceeded without any regard to the rules the king had set them. The most obnoxious compounded secretly. No consideration was had either of men's crimes or of their estates: no proofs were brought; inquiries were not so much as made: but as men were delated, they were marked down for such a fine: and all was transacted in a secret committee. When the list of the men and of their fines was read in parliament, exceptions were made to divers particulars: some had been under age all the time of transgression, and others had been abroad. But to every thing of this kind an answer 263 was made, that there would come a proper time in which every man was to be heard in his own defence: for the meaning of setting the fine was only this, that such persons should have no benefit by the act of indemnity unless they paid the fine: therefore every man that could stand upon his innocence, and renounce the benefit of the indemnity, was thereby freed from the fine, that was only his composition for the grace and pardon of the act. So all passed in a great hurry.
The other point, concerning the incapacity, was carried further than was perhaps intended at first; though the lord Tarbot assured me, he had from the beginning designed it. It was infused into all people that the king was weary of the earl of Lauderdale, but that he could not decently throw him off, and that therefore the parliament must help him with a fair pretence for doing it. Yet others were very apprehensive that the king could not approve of a parliament's falling upon a minister. So lord Tarbot proposed two expedients. The one was, that no person should be named, but that every member was to do it by ballot, and was to bring twelve names in a paper; and that a secret committee, two of every estate, should make the scrutiny; and that they, without making any report to the parliament, should put those twelve names on whom the greater number fell in the act of incapacity; which was to be an act apart, and not made a clause of the act of indemnity[5]. This was taken from the ostracism in Athens, and seemed the best method in an act of oblivion, in which all that was passed was to be forgiven: so no seeds of feuds would remain, when it was not so much as known against whom any one had voted. The other expedient was, that a clause should be put in the act, that it should have no force, and that the names in it should never be 264 published, unless the king should approve of it. By this means it was hoped, that, if the king should dislike the whole thing, yet it would be easy to soften that, by letting him see how entirely the act was in his power. Emissaries were sent to every parliament man, directing him how to make his list, that so the earls of Lauderdale, Crawford, and sir Robert Moray, might be three of the number. This was managed so carefully, that by a great majority they were three of the incapacitated persons[6]. The earl of Middleton passed the act, though he had no instruction about it in this form. The matter was so secretly carried, that it was not let out till the day before it was done: for they reckoned their success in it was to depend on the secrecy of it, and on their carrying it to the king before he should be possessed against it by the earl of Lauderdale or his party. So they took great care to visit the packet, and to stop any that should go post: and all people were under such a terror that no courage was left. Only lord Lorn sent one on his own horses, who was to go on in cross roads, till he got into Yorkshire; for they had secured every stage to Durham[7]. By this means the earl of Lauderdale had the news three days before the duke of Richmond and lord Tarbot got to court. He carried it presently to the king, who could scarce believe it. But when he saw by the letters that it was certainly true, he assured the earl of Lauderdale that he would preserve him, and never suffer such a destructive precedent to pass. He said he looked for no better upon the duke of Richmond's 265 going to Scotland, and his being perpetually drunk there. This mortified the earl of Lauderdale; for it looked like the laying in an excuse for the earl of Middleton. From him, by his orders, he went to the earl of Clarendon, and told all to him. He was amazed at it; and said, that certainly he had some secret friend that had got into their confidence, and had persuaded them to do as they had done on design to ruin them; but growing more serious, he added, he was sure the king on his own account would take care not to suffer such a thing to pass: otherwise no man could serve him: if way was given to such a method of proceeding, he himself would go out of his dominions as fast as his gout would suffer him. Two days after this, the duke of Richmond and lord Tarbot came to court. They brought the act of incapacity sealed up, together with a letter from the parliament magnifying the earl of Middleton's services, and another letter signed by ten of the bishops, setting forth his zeal for the church, and his care of them all: 79 and in particular they set out the design he was then on, of going round some of the worst affected counties to see the church established in them, as a work that was highly meritorious. At the same time he sent over the earl of Newburgh to Ireland, to engage the duke of Ormond to represent to the king the good effects that they began to feel in that kingdom from the earl of Middleton's administration in Scotland, hoping the king would not discourage, much less change, so faithful a minister. The king received the duke of Richmond and lord Tarbot very coldly. When they delivered the act of incapacity to him, he assured them it should never be opened by him; and said their last actings were like madmen, or like men that were perpetually drunk. Tarbot said, all was yet entire, and in his hands, the act being to live or to die as he pleased: he magnified the earl of Middleton's zeal in his service, and set out the loyal affections of his parliament, who had on this occasion consulted both the king's safety and his honour: the incapacity act was only intended 266 to put it out of the power of men, who had been formerly bad instruments, to be so any more: and even that was submitted by them to the king's judgment. The king heard him patiently, and, without any farther discourse on the subject, dismissed them: so they hoped they had mollified him. But the earl of Lauderdale turned the matter upon the earl of Middleton and lord Tarbot, who had made the king believe that the parliament desired leave to incapacitate some; whereas no such motion had ever been made in parliament: and then; after that the king upon that misrepresentation had given way to it, the parliament was made believe that the king desired that some might be put under that censure: so that the abuse had been equally put on both. Honours went by ballot at Venice, but punishments had never gone so, since the ostracism at Athens, which was the factious practice of a jealous commonwealth, never to be set up as a precedent under a monarchy: even the Athenians were ashamed of it when Aristides, the justest man among them, fell under the censure: and they laid it aside not long after[8].
The earl of Clarendon gave up the thing as unexcusable: but he studied to preserve the earl of Middleton. The change newly made in the church of Scotland had been managed by him with zeal and success: but though it was well begun, yet if these laws were not maintained by a vigorous execution, the presbyterians, who were quite dispirited by the steadiness of his conduct, would take heart again; especially if they saw the earl of Lauderdale grow upon him, whom they looked on as theirs in his heart: so he prayed him to forgive one single fault, that came after so much merit. He also sent advices to the earl of Middleton to go on in his care of establishing the church, and to get the bishops to send up copious accounts of all he had done. The king ordered him to come up, and to 267 give him an account of the affairs in Scotland. But he represented the absolute necessity of seeing some of the laws lately made put in execution: for it was hoped the king's displeasure would be allayed, and go off, if some time could be but gained.
One act passed in the last parliament that restored the rights of patronage[9], the taking away of which even presbytery could not carry till the year [16]49, in which they had the parliament entirely in their hands; for then the election of ministers was put in the church session and the lay elders, so that, from that time, all that had been admitted to churches came in without presentations. One clause in the act declared all these incumbents to be unlawful possessors: only it indemnified them for what was past, and required them between [ ] and Michaelmas to take presentations from the patron, who was obliged to give it, being demanded, and to get themselves to be instituted by the bishops; otherwise their churches were declared vacant on Michaelmas day. This took in all the young and hot men: so the presbyterians had many meetings about it, in which they all resolved not to obey the act. They reckoned the taking institution from a bishop was such an owning of his authority that it was a renouncing of all their former principles: whereas some few, that had a mind to hold their benefices, thought that was only a secular law for a legal right to their tithes and benefices, and had no relation to their spiritual concerns; and therefore they thought they might submit to it, especially where bishops were so moderate as to impose no subscription upon them, as the greater part were. But the resolution taken by the main body of the presbyterians was to pay no obedience to any of the acts made in this session, and to look on, and see what the state would do. The earl of Middleton was naturally fierce, and that was 268 heightened by the ill state of his affairs at court: so he resolved on a punctual execution of the law. He and all about him were at this time so constantly disordered by high entertainments and other excesses, that, even in the short intervals between their drunken bouts, they were not cool nor calm enough to consider what they were doing. He had also so mean an opinion of the party, that he believed they would comply with any thing rather than lose their benefices; and therefore he declared he would execute the law in its utmost rigour. On the other hand, the heads of the presbyterians reckoned, that if great numbers were turned out all at once, it would not be possible to fill their places all of the sudden; and that the government would be forced to take them in 80 again, if there were such a vacancy made, that a great part of the nation were cast destitute, and had no divine service in it. For that which all the wiser of the party apprehended most was, that the bishops would go on slowly, and single out some that were more factious, upon particular provocations, and turn them out by degrees, as they had men ready to put in their room; which would have been more insensible, [defensible ?] and more excusable, if indiscreet zealots had, as it were, forced censures from them. The advice sent over all the country from their leaders, that had settled measures at Edinburgh, was, that they should do and say nothing that might give a particular distaste, but should look on, and do their duty as long as they were connived at; and that if any proclamation should be issued out, commanding them to be silent, that they should all obey at once. In these measures both sides were deceived in their expectations. The bishops went to their several dioceses: and according as the people stood affected, they were well received: and they held their synods every where in October. In the northern parts very few stood out: but in the western parts scarce any came to them. The earl of Middleton went to Glasgow before Michaelmas. So when the time fixed by the act was past, and that scarce any one in all 269 those counties had paid any regard to it, he called a meeting of the privy council, that they might consider what was fit to be done. Duke Hamilton told me, they were all so drunk that day, that they were not capable of considering any thing that was laid before them, and would hear of nothing but the executing the law, without any relenting or delay. So a proclamation was issued out, requiring all who had their livings without presentations, and that had not obeyed the late act, to give over all further preaching, or serving the cure, and to withdraw from their parishes immediately: and the military men that lay in the country were ordered to pull them out of their pulpits, if they should presume to go on in their functions. This was opposed only by duke Hamilton, and sir James Lockhart, father to sir William Lockhart. They represented, that the much greater part of the preachers in these counties had come into their churches since the year [16]49; that they were very popular men, both esteemed and beloved of their people: it would be a great scandal if they should be turned out, and none be ready to be put in their places: and it would not be possible to find a competent number of well qualified men to fill the many vacancies that this proclamation would make. The earl of Middleton would hear of nothing but the immediate execution of the law. So the proclamation was issued out: and upon it above two hundred churches were shut up in one day: and about one hundred and fifty more were to be turned out for not obeying, and submitting to, the bishops' summons to their synods[10]. All this was done without considering the consequence of it, or communicating it to the other bishops. Sharp said to my self, that he knew nothing of it, nor did he imagine that so rash a thing could have been done till he saw it in print. He was glad that this was done without his having any share in it: for by it he was furnished with somewhat in which he was no way concerned, upon which he cast the blame of all the ill things that followed. Yet this was suitable 270 enough to a maxim that he and all that sort of people set up, that the execution of laws was that by which all governments maintained their strength as well as their honour[11]. The earl of Middleton was surprised at this extraordinary submission of the presbyterians; he had fancied that the greatest part would have complied, and that some of the more intractable would have done some extraordinary thing, to have justified the severities he would have exercised in that case; and was disappointed both ways. Yet this obedience of a party, so little accustomed to it, was much magnified at court. It was said that all plied before him: they knew he was steady: so they saw how necessary it was not to change the management, if it was really intended to preserve the church. Tarbot told me, that the king had expressed to himself the esteem he had for Sheldon, upon the account of the courage that he shewed [in] the debate concerning the execution of the act of uniformity at the day prefixed, which was St. Bartholomew's, when some suggested the danger that might arise, if the act were vigorously executed. From thence, it seems, the earl of Middleton concluded, the zeal he shewed now would be so acceptable, that all former errors would be forgiven, if he went through with it; as indeed he stuck at nothing. Yet the clamour of putting several counties as it were under an interdict, was very great. So all endeavours were used to get as many as could be had to fill those vacancies; and among others, I was much pressed both by the earl of Glencairn and the lord Tarbot, to go into any of the vacant churches that I liked best. I was then but nineteen: but there is no law in Scotland limiting the age of a priest. And it was upon this account that I was let in so far into the secret of all affairs: for they had such an imagination of some service I might do them, that they treated me with a very particular freedom and confidence. But I had drunk in the principle of moderation so early, that, though I was entirely episcopal, yet I would not engage with a body 271 of men that seemed to have the principles and tempers of inquisitors in them, and to have no regard to religion in any of their proceedings. So I stood upon my youth, and could not be wrought on 81 to go to the west; though the earl of Glencairn offered to carry me with him under his protection[12]. There was a sort of an invitation sent over the kingdom, like a hue and cry, to all persons to accept of benefices in the west. The livings were generally well endowed, and the parsonage houses were well built, and in good repair: and this drew many very worthless persons thither, who had little learning, less piety, and no sort of discretion. They came thither with great prejudices upon them, and had many difficulties to wrestle with. The former incumbents, who were for the most part Protesters, were a grave, solemn sort of people; their spirits were eager, and their tempers sour: but this had an appearance that created respect. They were related to the chief families in the country, either by blood or marriage; and had lived in so decent a manner that the gentry paid great respect to them. They used to visit their parishes much, and were so full of the Scriptures, and so ready at extempory prayer, that from that they grew to practise extempory sermons: for the custom in Scotland was after dinner or supper to read a chapter in the Scriptures: and where they happened to come, if it was acceptable, they of the sudden expounded the chapter. They had brought the people to such a degree of knowledge, that cottagers and servants 272 could have prayed extempore. I have often overheard them at it: and, though there was a large mixture of odd stuff, yet I was astonished to see how copious and ready they were in it. Their ministers generally brought them about them on the Sunday nights, where the sermons were talked over; and every one, women as well as men, were desired to speak their sense and their experience: and by these means they had a comprehension of matters of religion, greater than I have seen among people of that sort any where. The preachers went all in one tract, of raising observations of points of doctrine out of their texts, and of proving these by reasons, and then of applying those, and shewing the use that was to be made of such a point of doctrine, both for instruction and terror, for exhortation and comfort, for trial of themselves upon it, and for furnishing them with proper directions and helps: and this was so methodical, that the people grew to follow a sermon quite through, in every branch of it. To this some added, the resolving of doubts concerning the state they were in, and their progress or decay in it; which they called cases of conscience: and these were taken from what their people said to them at any time, very oft being under fits of melancholy, or vapours and obstructions, which, though they flowed from natural causes, were looked on as the work of the Spirit of God, and a particular exercise to them; and they fed this disease of weak minds too much. Thus they had laboured very diligently, though with a wrong method and wrong notions. But as they had lived in great familiarity with their people, and used to pray and talk oft with them in private, so it can hardly be imagined to what a degree they were loved and reverenced by them. They kept scandalous persons under a severe discipline[13]: for breach of sabbath, for an oath, or the least disorder in drunkenness, persons were cited before the church session, 273 that consisted of ten or twelve of the chief of the parish who with the minister had this care upon them, and were solemnly reproved for it: for fornication they were not only reproved before these, but there was a high place in the church, called the stool or pillar of repentance, where they sat at the time of worship for three Lord's days, receiving admonitions, and making professions of repentance on all these days; which some did with many tears, and serious exhortations to all the rest, to take warning by their fall[14]. For adultery they were to sit six months in that place, covered with sackcloth. These things had a grave appearance. Their faults and defects were not so conspicuous. They had a very low measure of learning, and a narrow compass in it. They were little men, of a very indifferent size of capacity, and apt to fly out into great excesses of passion and indiscretion. They were servile, and too apt to fawn [upon] and flatter their admirers. They were affected in their deportment, and very apt to censure all who differed from them, and to believe and report whatsoever they heard to their prejudice; and they were supercilious and haughty. In their sermons they were apt to enlarge on the present state of the times, and to preach against the sins of princes and courts: a topic that naturally makes men popular. It has an appearance of courage: and the people are glad to hear those sins insisted on in which they perceive they have no share, and to believe that all the judgments of God come down by the means and procurement of other men's sins. But their opinions about the independence of the church and clergy on the civil 274 power, and their readiness to stir up the people to tumults and wars, was that which begot so ill an opinion of them at this time in all men, that very few who were not deeply engaged with them in these conceits pitied them much, under all the ill usage they now met with. I hope this is no impertinent nor ingrateful digression; it is a just and true account of these men and times, from which a judicious reader will make good inferences. I will conclude it with a very judicious answer that one of the wisest and best of them, Colvil, that succeeded Leighton 82 in the headship of the college of Edinburgh, made to the earl of Middleton, when he pressed him in the point of defensive arms to tell plainly his opinion, whether it was lawful to use them or not. He said the question had been often put to him, and he had always declined to answer it: but to him he plainly said, he wished that kings and their ministers would believe them lawful, and so govern as men that expected to be resisted; but he wished that all their subjects might believe them unlawful, and so the world would be at quiet.
I do now return to end the account of the state of that country at that time. The people were much troubled when so many of their ministers were turned out. Their ministers had, for some months before they were thus silenced, been infusing this into their people, both in public and private, that all that was designed in this change of church government was to destroy the power of godliness, and to give an impunity to vice; that prelacy was a tyranny in the church, set on by ambitious and covetous men, who aimed at nothing but authority and wealth, luxury and idleness; and that they intended to encourage vice, that they might procure to themselves a great party among the impious and immoral. The people, thus prepossessed, seeing the earl of Middleton, with all the train that followed him through those counties, running into excesses of all sorts, and railing at the very appearances of virtue and sobriety, were confirmed in the belief of all that their ministers had told them. 275 What they had heard concerning Sharp's betraying those who had employed him, and the other bishops, who had taken the covenant, and had forced it on others, who now preached against it, openly owning that they had in so doing gone against the express dictate of their own consciences, did very much heighten all their prejudices, and fixed them so in them, that it was scarce possible to conquer them afterwards. All this was out of measure increased by the new incumbents, who were put in the places of the ejected preachers; who were generally very mean and despicable in all respects. They were the worst preachers I ever heard: they were ignorant to a reproach: and many of them were openly vicious. They were a disgrace to orders, and the sacred functions; and were indeed the dreg and refuse of the northern parts. Those of them who arose above contempt or scandal, were men of such violent tempers, that they were as much hated as the others were despised. This was the fatal beginning of episcopacy in Scotland, of which few of the bishops seemed to have any sense. Fairfoul, the most concerned, had none at all: for he fell into a paralytic state, in which he languished a year before he died. I have thus opened the first settlement of things in Scotland: of which I myself observed what was visible, and understood the secreter transactions from those who had such a share in them, that, as it was not possible for them to mistake them, so I had no reason to think they intended to deceive or misinform me.
I will in the next place change the climate, and give as particular an account as I can of the settlement of England both in church and state: which, though it will be perhaps 276 imperfect, and will in some parts be out of order, yet I am well assured it will be found true; having picked it up at several times, from the earl of Lauderdale, sir Robert Moray, the earl of Shaftesbury, the earl of Clarendon (the son of the Lord Chancellor), the lord Holles, sir Harbottle Grimston, who was the Speaker of the house of commons[1], under whose protection I lived nine years when I was preacher at the rolls, he being then master of the rolls. From such hands I could not be misled, when I laid all together, and considered what reason I had to make allowances for the different accounts that a diversity of parties and interests may lead men to give, they too easily believing some things, and as easily rejecting others, as they stood affected.
After the king came over, no person in the house of commons had the courage to move the offering propositions for any limitation of prerogative, or the defining of any doubtful points; all was joy and rapture. If the king had applied himself to business, and had pursued those designs which he studied to retrieve all the rest of his reign, when it was too late, he had probably in those first transports carried every thing that he would have desired, either as to revenue or power. But he was so given up to pleasure, that he devolved the management of all his affairs on the earl of Clarendon; who, as he had his breeding in the law, so he had all along declared himself for the ancient liberties of England, as well as for the rights of the crown. A domestic accident had happened to him, which heightened this. He, when he began to grow eminent in his profession, came down to see his aged father, a gentleman of Wiltshire: and, one day, as they 83 were walking in the fields together, his father told him, that men of his 277 profession did often stretch law and prerogative to the prejudice of the liberty of the subject, to recommend and advance themselves: so he charged him, if ever he grew to any eminence in his profession, that he should never sacrifice the laws and liberties of his country to his own interest, or to the will of a prince. He repeated this twice: and immediately he fell into a fit of an apoplexy, of which he died in a few hours. This the earl of Clarendon told the lady Ranelagh, who put him often in mind of it: and from her I had it[2]. He resolved not to stretch the prerogative beyond what it was before the wars, and would neither set aside the Petition of Right, nor endeavour to raise the courts of the Star-chamber or the High Commission again, which could have been easily done if he had set about it[3]: nor did he think fit to move for the repeal of the act for triennial parliaments till other matters were well settled[4]. He took care indeed to have all the things that were extorted by the Long Parliament from king Charles I to be repealed; and since the dispute of the power of the militia was the most important, and the most insisted on, he was very officiously earnest to have that clearly determined for the future. But as to all the acts 278 relating to property, or the just limitation of the prerogative, such as the matter of the ship-money, the tonnage and poundage, and the habeas corpus, he did not touch on these. And as for the standing revenue, 1,200,000l. a year was all that was asked: and, though it was much more than our kings had formerly, yet it was readily granted. This was to answer all the ordinary expense of the government. It was believed that if two millions had been asked, he could have carried it. But he had no mind to put the king out of the necessity of having recourse to his parliament The king came afterwards to believe he could have raised both his authority and his revenue much higher, but that he had no mind to carry it further, or to trust him too much. Whether all these things could have been got at that time, or not, is above my conjectures. But this I know, that all the earl of Clarendon's enemies after his fall said, these things had been easily obtained, if he had taken any pains in the matter, but that he himself had no mind to it: and they infused this so into the king, that he believed it, and hated him mortally on that account; and in his difficulties afterwards he said often, all these might have been prevented, if the earl of Clarendon had been true to him[5].
The king had not been many days at Whitehall, when one Venner[6], a violent fifth-monarchy man, who 279 thought it was not enough to believe that Christ was to reign on earth, and to put the saints in the possession of the kingdom (an opinion that they were all unspeakably fond of), but thought that the saints were to take the kingdom themselves[7]. He gathered some of the most furious of the party to a meeting in Coleman street. There they concerted the day and the manner of their rising to set Christ on his throne, as they called it. But withal they meant to manage the government in his name; and were so formal, that they had prepared standards and colours with their devices on them, and furnished themselves with very good arms. But when the day came, there was but a small appearance, not exceeding twenty. Howsoever they resolved to venture out into the streets, and cry out, No king but Christ. Some of them seemed persuaded that Christ would come down, and head them. They scoured the streets before them, and made a great progress. Some were afraid, and all were amazed at this piece of extravagance. They killed a great many, but were at last mastered by numbers: and were all either killed, or taken and executed. Upon this some troops of guards were raised, and there was great talk of a design, as soon as the army was disbanded, to raise a force that should be so chosen and modelled that the king might depend upon it; and that it should be so considerable, that there might be no reason to apprehend new tumults any more. The earl of Southampton looked on a while: and when he saw how 280 this design seemed to be entertained and magnified, he entered into a very free expostulation with the earl of Clarendon about it. He said, they had felt the effects of a military government, though sober and religious, in Cromwell's army: he believed vicious and dissolute troops would be much worse: the king would grow fond of them, and they would quickly become insolent and ungovernable: and then such men as he was must be only instruments to serve their ends. He said he could not look on, and see the ruin of his country begun, and be silent: a white staff would not bribe him. The earl of Clarendon was persuaded he was in the right, and promised he would divert the king from any other force than what might be decent to make a shew with, and what might serve to disperse unruly multitudes. The earl of Southampton said, if it went no farther he could bear it; but it would not be easy to fix such a number as would please our princes, and not give jealousy. The earl of Clarendon persuaded the king, that it was necessary for him to carry himself with great caution till the old army should be disbanded: for, if an ill humour got among them, they knew both their courage and their principles, which though it was for a while a little suppressed, yet upon any just jealousy there might be great cause to fear new and more violent disorders[8]. 84 By these means the king was so far wrought on, that there was no great occasion given for jealousy. The army was to be disbanded, but in such a manner, with so much respect, and so exact an account of arrears[9] and gratuities, that it looked rather like a dismissing them to the next opportunity, and a reserving 281 them till there should be occasion for their service, than a breaking of them. They were certainly the bravest, the best disciplined, and the soberest army that has been known in these latter ages: every soldier was able to do the functions of an officer. The court was at great quiet when they got rid of so uneasy a burden as lay on them from the fear of such a body of men. The guards, and the new troops that were raised, were made up of such of the army as Monk recommended and answered for[10]. And with that his great interest at court came to a stand; he was little considered after that[11].
In one thing the temper of the nation appeared to be contrary to severe proceedings: for, though the regicides were at that time odious beyond all expression, and the trials[12] and executions of the first that suffered were run to by vast crowds, and all people seemed pleased with the sight, yet the odiousness of the crime grew at last to be so much flatted by the frequent executions, and most of those who suffered died with such firmness and shews of piety, justifying all they had done, not without a seeming joy for their suffering on that account, that the king was advised not to proceed further, at least not to have the scene so near the court as Charing-cross. It was indeed remarkable that Peters, a sort of an enthusiastical buffoon preacher, though a very vicious man, that had been of great use to Cromwell, and had been outrageous in pressing the king's death with the cruelty and rudeness of an inquisitor, was the man of them all that was the most sunk in his spirit, and could 282 not in any sort bear his punishment. He had neither the honesty to repent of it, nor the strength of mind to suffer as all the rest of them did. He was observed all the while to be drinking some cordials to keep him from fainting [12a]. Harrison was the first that suffered. He was a fierce and bloody enthusiast; and it was believed, that while the army was in doubt whether it was fitter to kill the king privately or to bring him to an open trial, that he offered, if a private way was to be settled on, to be the man that should do it. So he was begun with. But, how reasonable soever this might be in it self, it had a very ill effect: for he was a man of great heat and resolution, fixed in his principles, and so persuaded of them, that as he had never looked after any interests of his own, but had opposed Cromwell when he set up for himself, so he went through all the indignities and severities of the execution, in which the letter of the law in cases of treason was punctually observed, with a calmness, or rather a cheerfulness, that astonished the spectators[13]. He spoke very positively that what they had done was the cause and work of God, which he was confident God would own, and raise it up again, how much soever it suffered at that time. Upon this a report was spread, and generally believed at that time, that he said he himself should rise again: though the party denied that, and reported the words as I have set them down. One person escaped, as was reported, merely by his vices: 283 Henry Marten, who had been a most violent enemy to monarchy, but all that he moved for was upon Roman or Greek principles. He never entered into matters of religion, but on design to laugh both at them and at all morality; for he was both an impious and vicious man, and now in his imprisonment he delivered himself up unto vice and blasphemy. It was said that this helped him to so many friends, that upon that very account he was spared[14]. John Goodwin and Milton[15] did also escape all censure, to the scandal of all people. Goodwin had so often not only justified but magnified the putting the king to death, both in his sermons and books, that few thought he could have been either forgot or excused: for Peters and he were the only preachers that spoke of it in that strain. But Goodwin had been so zealous an Arminian, and had sown such division among all the sectaries upon these heads, that it was said this procured him friends. Upon what account soever it was, he was not censured. Milton had appeared so boldly, though with much wit, and great purity and elegancy of his Latin style, against Salmasius and others, upon that argument, and had discovered so virulent a malice against the late king and all the family, and against monarchy, that it was a strange omission if he was forgot, and an odd strain of clemency if it was intended he should be forgotten; but he was not excepted out of the act of indemnity[16]. And afterwards 284 he came out of his concealment, and lived many years, much visited by all strangers, and much admired by all at home for the poems he writ, though he was then blind; chiefly that of Paradise Lost, in which there is a nobleness both of contrivance and execution, that, though he affected to write in blank verse without rithm, and made many new and rough words, yet it was esteemed the beautifulest and perfectest poem that ever was writ, at least in our language. But as the sparing these persons was much censured, so on the other hand the putting Sir Henry Vane to death was as much blamed[17]: for the declaration from Breda being full for an indemnity to all except the regicides, he was comprehended in that; since, though he was for changing the government, and deposing 85 the king, yet he did not approve of the putting him to death, nor of the force put on the parliament, but did for some time, while these things were acted, withdraw from the scene[18]. This was so represented by his friends, that an address was made by both houses on his behalf, to which the king gave a favourable answer, though only in general words. So he reckoned that he was safe[19]; that being 285 equivalent to an act of parliament, though it wanted the necessary forms. Yet the great share he had in the attainder of the earl of Strafford, and in the whole turn of affairs to the total change of government, but above all the great opinion that was had of his parts and capacity to embroil matters again, made the court think it necessary to put him out of the way[20]. He was naturally a very fearful man, as one who knew him well told me, and gave me eminent instances of it. He had a head as darkened in his notions of religion, as his mind was clouded with fear[21]: for though he set up a form of religion in a way of his own, yet it consisted rather in a withdrawing from all other forms than in any new or particular opinions or forms; from which he and his party were called seekers, and seemed to wait for some new and clearer manifestations. In these meetings he preached and prayed often himself, but with so peculiar a darkness, that though I have sometimes taken pains to see if I could find out his meaning in his books, yet I could never reach it; and since many others have said the same, it may be reasonable to believe he hid somewhat that was a necessary key to the rest. His friend told me he leaned to Origen's notion of an universal salvation of all, both the devils and the damned, and to the doctrine of pre-existence. When he saw his death was designed, he 286 composed himself to it, with a resolution that surprised all who knew how little of that was natural to him. Some instances of this were very extraordinary, though they cannot be mentioned with decency[22]. He was beheaded on Tower-Hill, where a new and very indecent practice was begun. It was observed that the dying speeches of the regicides had left impressions on the hearers that were not at all to the advantage of the government. So strains of a peculiar nature being expected from him, to prevent that, drummers were placed under the scaffold, who, as soon as he began to speak of the public, upon a sign given, struck up with their drums. This put him in no disorder. He desired they might be stopped, for he understood what was meant by it. Then he went through his devotions. And, as he was taking leave of those about him, he happening to say somewhat with relation to the times, the drums struck up a second time: so he gave over, and died with so much composedness that it was generally thought the government had lost more than it had gained by his death[23]. 287
The act of indemnity passed with very few exceptions; at which the cavaliers were highly dissatisfied, and made great complaints of it[24]. In the disposal of offices and places, as it was not possible to gratify all, so there was little regard had to men's merits or services. The king was determined to most of these by the cabal that met at mistress Palmer's lodgings. And though the earl of Clarendon did often prevail with the king to alter the resolutions taken there, yet he was forced to let a great deal go that he did not like. He would never make applications to mistress Palmer, nor let any thing pass the seal in which she was named[25], as the earl of Southampton 288 would never suffer her name to be in the treasury books. Those virtuous ministers thought it became them to let the world see that they did not comply with the king in his vices; but whether the earl of Clarendon spoke so freely to the king about his course of life as was given out, I cannot tell[26] When the cavaliers saw they had not that share in places that they expected, they complained of it so high, that the earl of Clarendon, to excuse the king's passing them by, was apt to beat down the value they set on their services. This laid the foundation of an implacable hatred in many of them, that was completed by the extent and comprehensiveness of the act of indemnity, which cut off their hopes of being reimbursed out of the fines, if not the confiscations, of those who had during the course of the wars been on the parliament side[27]. It is true, the first parliament, called by way of derogation the convention, had been too much of that side not to secure themselves and their friends. So they took care to have the most comprehensive words put in it that could be thought of[28]. 289 But when the new parliament was called, a year after, in which there was a design to set aside the act of indemnity, and to have brought in a new one, the king did so positively insist on his adhering to the act of indemnity, that the design of breaking into it was laid aside[29]. The earl of Clarendon owned it was his counsel. Acts or promises of indemnity, he thought, ought to be held sacred: a fidelity in the observation of them was the only foundation upon which any government could hope to quiet seditions or civil wars: and if people once thought those promises were only made to deceive them, without an intent to observe them religiously, they would never for the future hearken to any treaty. He often said it was the making those promises had brought the king home. So that whole work, from beginning to end, was wholly his. The angry men, that were thus disappointed of all their hopes, made a jest of the title of it, An act of oblivion 86 and indemnity, and said, the king had passed an act of oblivion for his friends and of indemnity for his enemies; and to load the earl of Clarendon the more, it was given out that he advised the king to gain his enemies, since he was sure of his friends by their principles. With this he was often charged, though he always denied it[30]. Whether the king fastened it upon him after he had disgraced him, to make him the more odious, I cannot tell. It is certain the king said many very hard things of him, for which he was much blamed: and in most of them little believed.
It was natural for the king, upon his restoration, to look out for a proper marriage. And it was soon observed that he was resolved not to marry a protestant. He pretended 290 a contempt of the Germans, and of the northern crowns[31]. France had no sister. He had seen the duke of Orleans' daughters, and liked none of them. Spain had only two infantas: and as the eldest was married to the king of France, so the second was to go to Vienna. So the house of Portugal only remained, to furnish him a wife, among the crowned heads. Monk began to hearken to a motion made him for this by a Jew, that managed the concerns of Portugal[32], which were now given for lost, since they were abandoned by France by the treaty of the Pyrenees; in which it appears, by cardinal Mazarin's letters, that he did entirely deliver up their concerns; which was imputed to his desire to please the queen-mother of France, who, being a daughter of Spain, owned herself still to be in the interests of Spain in every thing in which France was not concerned, for in that case she pretended she was true to the crown of France. And this was the true secret of cardinal Mazarin's carrying on that war so feebly as he did, to gratify the queen-mother on the one hand, and his own base covetousness on the other: for the less public expense was made, he had the greater occasions of enriching himself, which was all he thought on. The Portuguese being thus, as they thought, cast off by France, were very apprehensive of 291 falling under the Castilians,who, how weak soever they were in opposition to France, yet were like to be too hard for them, when they had nothing else on their hand. So, vast offers were made if the king would marry their infanta, and take them under his protection. Monk was the more encouraged to entertain the proposition, because in the beginning of the war of Portugal, king Charles had entered into a negotiation for a marriage between his son and this infanta; and the veneration paid his memory was then so high, that everything he had projected was esteemed sacred. Monk promised to serve the interests of Portugal: and that was, as sir Robert Southwell[33] told me, the first step made in that matter. Soon after the king came into England, an embassy of congratulation came from thence, with orders to negotiate that business. The Spanish ambassador, who had a pretension of merit from the king in behalf of that crown, since they had received and entertained him at Brussells when France had thrown him off, set himself much against this match: and, among other things, affirmed the infanta was incapable of having children. But this was little considered[34]. The Spaniards are not very scrupulous in affirming any thing that serves their ends: and this 292 marriage was like to secure the kingdom of Portugal. So it was no wonder that he opposed it: and little regard was had to all that he said to break it.
At this time monsieur Fouquet was gaining an ascendant in the counsels of France, cardinal Mazarin falling then into a languishing, of which he died a year after. He sent one over to the king[35] with a project of an alliance between France and England. He was addressed first to the earl of Clarendon, to whom he enlarged on all the heads of the scheme he had brought, of which the match with Portugal was a main article. And, to make all go down the better, Fouquet desired to enter into a particular friendship with the earl of Clarendon; and sent him the offer of 10,000l. 293 and assured him of the renewing the same present every year. The lord Clarendon told him, he would lay all that related to the king faithfully before him, and give him his answer in a little time: but for what related to himself, he said he served a great and bountiful master, who knew well how to support and reward his servants: he would ever serve him faithfully; and, because he knew he must serve those from whom he accepted the hire, therefore he rejected the offer with great indignation[36]. He laid before the king the heads of the proposed alliance, which required much consultation; but in the next place he told both the king and his brother what had been offered to himself. They both advised him to accept of it. Why, said he, have you a mind that I should betray you? The king answered, he knew nothing could corrupt him. Then, said he, you know me better than I do my self: for if I take the money, I will find the sweet of it, and will study to have it continued to me by deserving it. He then told them how he had rejected the offer, and very seriously warned the king of the danger he saw he might fall in, if he suffered any of those who served him, to become pensioners of other princes: those presents were made only to bias them in their affairs, and to discover secrets by their means: and the taking money would soon grow to a habit, and spread like an infection through the whole court.
As the motion for the match with Portugal 87 was carried on, an incident of an extraordinary nature happened in the court. The earl of Clarendon's daughter, being with child, and near her time, called upon the duke of York to own his marriage with her. She had been maid of honour to the princess royal: and the duke, who was even to his old age of an amorous disposition, tried to gain her to comply with his desires. She managed the matter with so much address, that in conclusion he married her. Her father did very 294 solemnly protest, that he knew nothing of the matter till it broke out[37] and then the duke thought to have shaken her from claiming it by great promises, and as great threatenings[38]. But she was a woman of a high spirit. She said she was his wife, and would have it known that she was so; let him use her afterwards as he pleased. Many discourses were set about upon this occasion. But the king ordered some 295 bishops and judges to peruse the proofs she had to produce: and they reported that, according to the doctrine of the Gospel, and the law of England, it was a good marriage. So it was not possible to break it, but by trying how far the matter could be carried against her for marrying a person so near the king without his leave. The king would not break with the earl of Clarendon: and so he told his brother, he must drink as he brewed, and live with her whom he had made his wife. All the earl of Clarendon's enemies rejoiced at this: for they reckoned that how much soever it seemed to raise him at present, yet it would raise envy so high against him, and make the king so jealous of him, as being more in his brother's interests than in his own, that they looked on it as that which would end in his ruin. And he himself thought so, as his son told me: for, as soon as he knew of it, and when he saw his son lifted up with it, upon that he protested to him that he knew nothing of the matter till it broke out; but added, that he looked on it as that which must be all their ruin sooner or later.
Upon this I will digress a little, to give an account of the duke's character, whom I knew for some years so particularly, that I can say much upon my own knowledge. He was very brave in his youth[39], and so much magnified by monsieur Turenne, that, till his marriage lessened him, he really clouded the king, and passed for the superior genius. He was naturally candid and sincere, and a firm friend, till affairs and his religion wore out all his first principles and inclinations. He had a great desire to understand affairs: and in order to that he kept a constant journal of all that passed, of which he shewed me a great deal. The duke of Buckingham gave me once a short but severe character of the two brothers; it was the more severe, because it was true. The king could see things if he would, and the duke would see things if he could. He had no true judgment, 296 and so was soon determined by those whom he trusted: but he was obstinate against all other advices. He was bred with high notions of the kingly authority, and laid it down for a maxim, that all who opposed the king were rebels in their hearts. He was perpetually in one amour or other, without being very nice in his choice: so that the king said once, he believed his brother had his mistresses given him by his priests to do penance. He gave me this account of his changing his religion. When he escaped out of the hands of the earl of Northumberland, who had the charge of his education trusted to him by the parliament, and had used him with great respect, all due care was taken as soon as he got beyond sea to form him to a strict adherence to the church of England: among other things, much was said of the authority of the church, and of the traditions from the apostles in support of episcopacy: so that when he came to observe that there was more reason to submit to the catholic church than to one particular church, and that other traditions might be taken on her word, as well as episcopacy was received among us, he thought the step was not great but very reasonable to go over to the church of Rome: and doctor Stewart[40] having taught them to believe a real but unconceivable presence of Christ in the sacrament, he thought that went more than half way to transubstantiation. He said that a nun that advised him to pray every day, that if he was not in the right way, that God would set him 297 right, did make a great impression on him; but he never told me when or where he was reconciled[41]. He suffered me to say a great deal to him on all these heads. I shewed him the difference between submission and obedience in indifferent things, and an implicit submission from the belief of infallibility. I also shewed him the difference between a speculation of a mode of Christ's presence, when it rested in an opinion, and an adoration founded on it. Though the opinion of such a presence was wrong, there was no great harm: but the adoration of an undue object was idolatry. He has suffered me to talk much and often to him on these heads; but I plainly saw it made no impression, and all that he seemed to intend by it was 88 to make use of me as an instrument to soften the aversion that people began to be possessed with to him. He was naturally eager and revengeful: and was much against the taking off any that set up in an opposition to the measures of the court, and who by that means grew popular in the house of commons. He was for rougher methods. He continued for many years dissembling his religion[42], and a seemed zealous for the church of England: but it was chiefly on design to hinder all propositions that tended to unite us among ourselves. He was a frugal prince, and brought his court into method and magnificence: for he had 100,000l. a year allowed him. 298
He was made high admiral: and he came to understand all the concerns of the sea very particularly. He had a very able secretary about him, sir William Coventry: a man of great notions and eminent virtues, the best speaker in the house of commons, and capable of bearing the chief ministry, as it was once thought he was very near it[43]. The duke found all the great seamen had a deep tincture from their education: they both hated popery and loved liberty: they were men of severe tempers, and kept good discipline. But in order to the putting the fleet into more confident hands, the duke began a method of sending pages of honour, and other young persons of quality, to be bred to the sea[44]. And these were put in command, as soon as they were capable of it, if not sooner. This discouraged many of the old seamen, when they saw in what a channel advancement was like to go; who upon that left the service, and went and commanded merchantmen. By this means the virtue and discipline of the navy is much lost. It is true we have a breed of many gallant men, who do distinguish themselves in action; but it is thought that the nation has suffered much by the vices and disorders of those captains, who have risen by their quality more than by merit or service.
The duchess of York was a very extraordinary woman. She had great knowledge, and a lively sense of things. She soon understood what belonged to a princess, and took state on her, rather too much[45]. She writ well; and had begun the duke's life, of which he shewed me a volume; it was all drawn from his journal: and he 299 intended to have employed me in carrying it on[46]. She was bred to great strictness in religion, and practised secret confession. Morley told me he was her confessor; she began at 12, and continued under his direction, till, upon her father's disgrace, he was put from the court. She was generous and friendly; but was too severe an enemy[47].
The king's third brother, the duke of Gloucester, was of a temper different from both his brothers. He was active and loved business, apt to have particular friendships, and had an insinuating temper, which was generally very acceptable. The king loved him much better than the duke of York. But he was uneasy when he saw there was no post left for him, since Monk was general. So he spoke to the earl of Clarendon, that he might be made lord treasurer. But he told him, it was a post below his dignity. He would not be put off with that: for he could not bear an idle life, nor to see his brother at the head of the fleet, when he had neither business nor dependence. But the mirth and entertainments of that time raised his blood so high, that he took the small-pox; of which he 300 died[48], much lamented by all, but most particularly by the king, who was never in his whole life seen so much troubled as he was on that occasion. Those who would not believe that he had much tenderness in his nature, imputed this rather to his jealousy of the brother that survived, since he had now lost the only person that could balance him. Not long after him the princess royal died likewise of the small-pox; but was not much lamented[49]. She had lived in her widowhood for some years with great reputation, kept a decent court, and supported her brothers very liberally; and yet lived within bounds. But her mother, who had the art of making herself believe any thing she had a mind to, upon a conversation with the queen mother of France, fancied the king of France might be inclined to marry her. So she writ to her to come to Paris. On that, she made an equipage far above what she could support. So she run herself into debt, sold all her jewels, and some estates that were in her power as her son's guardian; and was not only disappointed of that vain expectation, but fell into some misfortunes that lessened the reputation she had formerly lived in[50]. Upon her death, 301 it might have been expected, both in justice and gratitude, that the king would in a most particular manner have taken her son, the young prince of Orange, into his protection[51]. But he fell into better hands: for his grandmother[52] became his guardian, and took care both of his estate and his education.
Thus two of the branches of the royal family were cut off soon after the restoration[53]; and so little do the events of things answer the first appearances, that a royal family of three princes and two princesses, all young and graceful persons, that promised a numerous issue, did moulder away so fast, that now, while I am writing, all is reduced to the person of the queen, and the duchess of Savoy[54]. And as the king had a very numerous spurious issue, though none by his queen, so the duke had by both his wives, and some 89 irregular amours, a very numerous issue; and the present queen has had a most fruitful marriage as to issue, though none of them survive. The princess Henriette was so pleased with the diversions of the French court, that she was glad to go thither again to be married to the king's brother[55], a poor-spirited and voluptuous prince, monstrous in his vices, and effeminate in his luxury in more 302 senses than one. He had not one great or good quality, but courage: so that he became both odious and contemptible.
As the treaty with Portugal went on, France did engage in the concerns of that crown. They had by treaty promised the contrary to the Spaniards[56]; so to excuse their perfidy, count Schomberg[57], a German by birth and a Calvinist by his religion, was ordered to go thither, as one prevailed with by the Portugal ambassador, and not as sent over by the orders of the court of France. He passed through England to concert with the king the matters of Portugal, and the supply that was to be sent thither from England. He told me, the king had admitted him into great familiarities at Paris. He had known him first at the Hague, for he was the prince of Orange's particular favourite[58]; but had so great a share in the last violent actions of his life in seizing the states, and in the attempt upon Amsterdam, that he left the service upon his death; and gained so great a reputation in France, that, after the prince of Condé and Turenne, he was thought the best general they had. He had much free discourse with the king, though he found his mind was so turned to mirth and pleasure that he seemed scarce capable of laying any thing to heart. He advised him to set up for the head of the protestant religion: for though he said to him he knew he had not much religion, yet his interests led him to that. It would keep the princes of Germany in a great dependence on him, and make him the umpire of all their affairs; so it would procure him great credit with the Huguenots of France, and keep that crown in perpetual fear of him. He advised the king to employ the military men that had served under Cromwell, whom he thought the best officers 303 he had ever seen: and he was sorry to see they were dismissed, and that a company of wild young men were those the king relied on[59]. But that he pressed most on the king as the business then in agitation, was concerning the sale of Dunkirk. The Spaniards pretended it ought to be restored to them, since it was taken from them by Cromwell, when they had the king and his brothers in their armies: but that was not much regarded. The French pretended that by their agreement with Cromwell he was only to hold it till they had repayed the charge of the war[60]: therefore they, offering to lay that down, ought to have the place delivered to them. The king was in no sort bound by this. So the matter under debate was, whether it ought to be kept or sold? The military men, who were believed to be corrupted by France, said, the place was not tenable; that in time of peace it would put the king to a great charge, and in time of war it would not quit the cost of keeping it[61]. The earl of Clarendon said, he understood not those matters, but appealed to Monk's judgment, who did positively advise the letting it go for the sum that the French offered[62]. To make the business 304 go the easier, the king promised that he would lay up all the money in the Tower, and that it should not be touched but upon extraordinary occasions. Schomberg advised, in opposition to all this, that the king should keep it; for, considering the naval power of England, it could not be taken. He knew that, though France spoke big as if they would break with England unless that was delivered up, yet they were far from the thoughts of it. He had considered 305 the place well; and he was sure it could never be taken, as long as England was master of the sea. The holding it would keep both France and Spain in a dependence upon the king. But he was singular in that opinion; so it was sold: and all the money that was paid for it was immediately squandered away among the mistress's creatures. By this the king lost his reputation abroad. The court was believed venal; and because the earl of Clarendon was in greatest credit, the blame was cast chiefly on him; though his son assured me, he kept himself out of that affair entirely[63]. The cost bestowed on that place since that time, and the great prejudice we have suffered by it, has made that sale to be often reflected on very severely. But it was pretended that Tangier, which was offered as a part of the portion that the infanta of Portugal was to bring with her, was a place of much greater consequence. Its situation in the map is indeed very eminent; and if Spain had been then in condition to put any restraint on our trade, it had been of great use to us; especially if the making a mole there had been more practicable than it proved to be. It was then spoke of in the court in the highest strains of flattery. It was said, this would not only give us the entire command of the Mediterranean trade, but it would be a place of safety for a squadron to be kept always there, for securing our East and West India trade. And such mighty things were said of it, as if it had been reserved for the king's reign, to make it as glorious abroad as it was happy at home: though since that time we have never been able, neither by force nor treaty, to get ground enough round the town from the Moors to maintain the garrison. But every 90 man that was employed there studied only his own interest, and how to rob the king. If the money, that was laid out in the mole at different times, had been raised all in a succession, as fast as the work could be carried on, it might have been 306 made a very valuable place. But there were so many discontinuings, and so many new undertakings, that after an immense charge the court grew weary of it: and in the year [16]83 they sent a squadron of ships to bring away the garrison and to destroy all the works[64].
To end this matter of the king's marriage with the infanta of Portugal all at once: it was at last concluded. The earl of Sandwich went for her, and was the king's proxy in the nuptial ceremony[65]. The king communicated the matter both to the parliament of England and Scotland; and so strangely were people changed, that though they all had seen the mischievous effects of a popish queen in the former 307 reign, yet not one person moved against it in either parliament, except the earl of Cassillis[66] in Scotland; who moved for an address to the king to marry a protestant. He had but one to second him: so entirely were men run from one extreme to another. When the queen was brought over, the king met her at Winchester, in summer [16]62. The archbishop of Canterbury came to perform the ceremony: but the queen was bigoted to such a degree, that she would not say the words of matrimony, nor bear the sight of the archbishop[67]. The king said the words hastily: and the archbishop pronounced them married persons. Upon this some thought afterwards to have dissolved the marriage, as a marriage only de facto, in which no consent had been given. But the duke of York told me, they were married by the lord Aubigny[68] according to the Roman ritual, and that he himself was one of the witnesses: and he added, that, a few days before he told me this, the queen had said to him, that she heard some intended to call her marriage in question; and that, if that was done, she must call on him as one of her witnesses to prove it. I saw the letter that the king writ to the earl of Clarendon the day after their marriage, by which it appeared very plainly, if not too plainly, that the marriage was consummated, and that the king was well pleased with her[69], which convinced me of the falsehood of 308 the reports that had been so set about that I was once persuaded of them, that she was not fit for marriage. The king himself told me, she had been with child: and Willis, the great physician, told doctor Lloyd, from whom I had it. that she had once miscarried of a child, which was so far advanced, that, if it had been carefully looked to, the sex might have been distinguished[70]. But she proved a barren wife, and was a woman of a mean shape, and of no agreeable temper: so that the king never considered her much, and she made ever after but a very mean figure. For some time the king carried things decently, and did not visit his mistress openly[71]. But he grew weary of that restraint; and shook it off so entirely, that he had ever after that mistresses to the end of his life, to the great scandal of the world, and to the particular reproach of all that served about him in the church[72]. He usually came 309 from his mistress's lodgings to church, even on sacrament days. He held as it were a court in them, and all his ministers made applications to them; only the earls of Clarendon and Southampton would never so much as make a visit to them, which was the maintaining the decencies of virtue in a very solemn manner. The lord Clarendon put the justice of the nation in very good hands; and employed some who had been on the bench in Cromwell's time, the famous sir Matthew Hale in particular[73].
The business of Ireland was a harder province[74]. The Irish that had been in the rebellion had made a treaty with the duke of Ormond, then acting in the king's name: 310 though he had no legal powers under the great seal, the king being then a prisoner. But the queen-mother got, as they give out, the crown of France to become the guarantee for the performance. By the treaty they were to furnish him with an army, to adhere to the king's interests, and serve under the duke of Ormond: and for this they were to be pardoned all that was past, to have the open exercise of their religion, and a free admittance into all employments, and to have a free parliament without the curb of Poyning's law. But after the misfortune at Dublin, they set up a supreme council again, and refused to obey the duke of Ormond; in which the pope's nuncio conducted them. After some disputes, and that the duke of Ormond saw he could not prevail with them to be commanded by him any more, he left Ireland and Cromwell came over, and reduced the whole kingdom, and made a settlement of the confiscated estates for the pay of the undertakers for the Irish war and of the officers that had served in it[75]. The king had in his declaration from Breda[76] promised to confirm the settlement of Ireland. So now a great debate arose between the native Irish and English settled in Ireland. The former claimed the articles that the duke of Ormond had granted them. He, in answer to this, said they had broke first on their part, and so had forfeited their claim to them. They seemed to rely much on the court of France, and on the whole popish party abroad, of which they were the most 91 considerable branch at home. But England did naturally incline to support the English interest: and, as that interest in Ireland had gone in very unanimously into the design of the king's restoration, and 311 had merited much on that account, so they drew over the duke of Ormond to join with them, in order to an act confirming Cromwell's settlement. Only a court of claims was set up to examine the pretensions of some of the Irish, who had special excuses for themselves, why they should not be included in the general forfeiture of the nation[77]. Some were under age: others were travelling, or serving abroad: and many had distinguished themselves in the king's service, when he was in Flanders, chiefly under the duke of York, who pleaded much for them, and was always depended on by them as their chief patron. It was thought most equitable to send over men from England, who were not concerned in the interests or passions of the parties of that kingdom, to try those claims. Their proceedings were much cried out on: for it was said that every man's claim who could support it with a good present was found good, and that all the members of that court came back very rich: so that, though the Irish thought they had not justice enough done them, the English said they had too much. When any thing was to be proved by witnesses, sets of them were hired to depose according to the instructions given them. This was then cried out on, as a new scene of wickedness that was then opened, and that must in [the] end subvert all justice and good government. The infection has spread since that time, and crossed the seas, and the danger of being ruined by false witnesses has become so terrible, that there is no security against it, but from the sincerity of 312 juries; and if these come to be packed, then all men may be soon at mercy, if a wicked government should set on a violent prosecution, as has appeared oftener than once. I am not instructed enough in the affairs of Ireland, to carry this matter into more particulars[78]. The English interest was managed chiefly by two men of a very indifferent reputation: the earls of Anglesey and Orrery[79]. The chief manager of the Irish interest was Richard Talbot[80], one of the duke's bedchamber men, who had much cunning, and had the secret of his master's pleasures for some years, and was afterwards raised by him to be earl and duke of Tyrconnel. Thus I have gone over the several branches of the settlement of matters after the restoration. I have reserved the affairs of the church to the last, as those about which I have taken the most pains to be well informed, and which I do therefore offer to the reader with some assurance, and on which I hope due reflections will be made.
At the restoration, Juxon, the ancientest and most eminent of the former bishops, who had assisted the late king in his last hours, was promoted to Canterbury, more out of decency than that he was then capable to fill that post; for as he was never a great divine, so he was now 313 superannuated[1]. Though others have assured me, that after some discourses with the king, he was so much struck with what he observed in him, that upon that he lost both heart and hope. The king treated him with outward respect, but had no great regard to him. Sheldon and Morley were the men that had the greatest credit. Sheldon was esteemed a learned man before the wars: but he was then engaged so deep in the politics, that scarce any . prints of what he had been remained. He was a very dexterous man in business, had a great quickness of apprehension, and a very true judgment. He was a generous and charitable man. He had a great pleasantness of conversation, perhaps it was too great. He had an art that was peculiar to him, of treating all that came to him in a most obliging manner: but few depended much on his professions of friendship. He seemed not to have a deep sense of religion, if any at all: and spoke of it most commonly as of an engine of government, and a matter of policy; and by this means the king came to look on him 314 as a wise and honest clergyman, that had little virtue and less religion. Sheldon was at first made bishop of London, and was upon Juxon's death promoted to Canterbury. Morley had been first known to the world as a friend of the lord Falkland's: and that was enough to raise a man's character[2]. He had continued for many years in the lord Clarendon's family, and was his particular friend. He was a Calvinist with relation to the Arminian points, and was thought a friend to the puritans, before the wars: but he took care after his promotion to free himself from all suspicions of that kind. He was a pious and charitable man, of a very exemplary life, but extreme passionate, and very obstinate. He was first made bishop of Worcester. Dr. Hammond, for whom that see was designed, died a little before the restoration, 92 which was an unspeakable loss to the church: for, as he was a man of great learning and of most eminent merit, he having been the person that during the bad times had maintained the cause of the church in a very singular manner, so he was a very moderate man in his temper, though with a high principle, and probably he would have fallen into healing counsels. He was also much set on reforming abuses, and for raising in the clergy a due sense of the obligations they lay under. But by his death Morley was advanced to Worcester: and not long after he 1662. was removed to Winchester, void by Duppa's death, who 315 had been the king's tutor, though no way fit for that post. He was a meek and humble man, and much beloved for the sweetness of his temper; and would have been more esteemed if he had died before the restoration; for he made not that use of the great wealth that flowed in upon him that was expected. Morley was thought always the honester man of the two, as Sheldon was certainly the abler man.
The first point in debate was, whether concessions should be made and pains taken to gain the dissenters, or not; especially the presbyterians. The earl of Clarendon was much for it; and got the king to publish a declaration[3] soon after his restoration, concerning ecclesiastical affairs, to which if he had stood, very probably the greatest part of them might have been gained. But the bishops did not 316 approve of this: and after the service they did that lord in the duke of York's marriage, he would not put hardships on those that had so signally obliged him[4]. This disgusted the lord Southampton much, who was for carrying on the designs that had been much talked of during the wars, of moderating matters both with relation to the government of the church and the worship and ceremonies: which created a coldness between him and the earl of Clarendon when he went off from those designs. The consideration that those bishops and their party had in the matter was this: the presbyterians were possessed of most of the great benefices in the church, chiefly in the city of London and in the two universities[5]. It is true, all that had come into the room of those who were turned out by the parliament, or the visitors sent by them, were turned out by the course of law, as men that were illegally possessed of other men's rights: and that, even where the former incumbents were dead, because a title originally wrong was still wrong in law. But there were a great many of them in very eminent posts who were legally possessed of them. Many of these, chiefly in the city of London, had gone in to the design of the restoration in so signal a manner, and with such success, that they had great merit, and a just title to very high preferment. Now, as there remained a great deal of the old animosity against them for what they had done during the war, so it was said that it was better to have a schism out of the church than within it; and that the half conformity of the puritans before the war had set up a faction in every city and town between the lecturers and the incumbents; that the former took all methods to render themselves popular, and to raise the benevolence of their people, which was their chief subsistence, by disparaging 317 the government both in church [and] in state. They had also many stories among them of the credit they had in the elections of parliament men, which they infused in the king, to possess him with the necessity of having none to serve in the church but persons that should be firmly tied to his interest, both by principle, and subscriptions and oaths. It is true, the joy then spread through the nation had got at this time a new parliament to be elected of men so high and so hot, that, unless the court had restrained them, they would have carried things much farther than they did, against all that had been concerned in the late wars: but they were not to expect such success at all times: therefore they thought it was necessary to make sure work at this time, and, instead of using methods to bring in the sectaries, they resolved rather to seek the most effectual ones for casting them out, and for bringing in a new set of men into the church[6]. This took with the king, at least it seemed to do so. But, though he put on an outward appearance of moderation, yet he was in another and deeper laid design, to which the heat of these men was subservient, for bringing in of popery. A popish queen was a great step to keep it in countenance at court, and to have a great many priests going about the court making converts; but it was thought a toleration was the only method for setting it a going all the nation over. And nothing could make a toleration for popery pass, but the having great bodies of men put out of the church, and put under severe laws, which should force them to move for a toleration, and should make it reasonable to grant it to them. And it was resolved, that whatever should be granted of that sort, should go in so large a manner that papists should be 318 comprehended within it. So the papists had this generally spread among them, that they should oppose all propositions for comprehension, and should animate the church party to maintain their ground 93 against all the sectaries. And in that point they seemed zealous for the church. But at the same time they spoke of toleration, as necessary both for the peace and quiet of the nation, and for the encouragement of trade. And with this the duke was so possessed, that he declared himself a most violent enemy to comprehension, and as zealous for toleration. The king being thus resolved on fixing the terms of conformity to what they had been before the war, without making the least abatement or alteration, they carried on still an appearance of moderation, till the strength of the parties should appear in the new parliament. So, after the Declaration was set out, a commission was granted to twelve of a side, with nine assistants to each side, who were appointed to meet at the Savoy, and to consider on the ways of uniting both sides[7]. At their first meeting Sheldon told them, that those of the church had not desired this meeting as not being satisfied with the legal establishment; and therefore they had nothing to offer; but it belonged to the other side, who moved for alterations, to offer both their exceptions to the laws in being, and the alterations that they proposed. He told them they were to lay all they had to offer before them at once; for they would not engage to treat about any one particular till they saw how far their demands went: and he said that all was to be transacted in writing, though the others insisted on an amicable conference; which was at first denied, yet some hope was given of allowing it at last. Papers were upon this given in. The presbyterians moved that bishop Usher's Reduction should be laid down as a groundwork to treat on[8]; that bishops should not govern their diocese by their 319 single authority, nor depute it to the lay officers in their courts, but should in matters of ordination and jurisdiction take along with them the council and concurrence of their presbyters. They did offer several exceptions to the liturgy; against the many responses by the people, the answers to the litany, which they desired might be made one continued prayer. They desired that no lessons should be taken out of the apocryphal books; that the psalms used in the daily service should be according to the new translation. They excepted to many parts of the office of baptism, that import the inward regeneration of all that were baptized. But as they proposed these amendments, so they did also offer a liturgy new drawn by Mr. Baxter. They insisted, mainly, on kneeling at the sacrament of the Lord's supper as a thing imposed, and moved that the posture might be left free; and that the use of the surplice, of the cross in baptism, of godfathers being the sponsors in baptism, and of the holy days, might be abolished. Sheldon saw well what the effect would be of putting them to make all their demands at once. The number of them raised a mighty outcry against them, as people that could never be satisfied. But nothing gave so great an advantage against them, as their offering a new liturgy. In this they were divided among themselves. Some were for insisting only on a few important things, reckoning that if these were gained, and a union followed upon that, it would be easier to gain other things afterwards. But all this was overthrown by Mr. Baxter, who was a man of great piety, and, if he had not meddled in too many things, he would have been esteemed one of the learned men of the age: he writ near two hundred books[9]: of these, three are large folios. 320 He had a very moving and pathetical way of writing, and as he was his whole life long a man of great zeal and much simplicity, so he was most unhappily subtle and metaphysical in every thing. There was a great submission paid to him by the whole party. So he persuaded them, that from the words of the commission they were bound to offer every thing that they thought might conduce to the good or peace of the church, without considering what was like to be obtained, or what effect their demanding so much might have, in irritating the minds of those who were then the superior body in strength and number. All the whole matter was at last reduced to one single point, whether it was lawful to determine the certain use of things indifferent in the worship of God? The bishops held them to that point, and pressed them to shew that any of the things imposed were of themselves unlawful. The presbyterians declined this; but affirmed that other circumstances might make it become unlawful to settle a peremptory law about things indifferent; which they applied chiefly to kneeling in the sacrament; and stood upon it, that a law which excluded all that did not kneel from the sacrament was unlawful, as a limitation in the point of communion put on the laws of Christ, which ought to be the only condition of those who had a right to it. Upon this point there was a free conference, that lasted some days. The two men that had the chief management of the debate, were the most unfit to heal matters, and the fittest to widen them, that could have been found out. Baxter was the opponent, and Gunning was the respondent, who was afterwards advanced, first to Chichester, and then to Ely[10]. He was 321 a man of great reading, and noted for a special subtilty of arguing: all the arts of sophistry were made use of by him on all occasions, in as confident a manner as if they had been sound reasoning. He was a man of an innocent life, unweariedly active to very little purpose. He was much set on the reconciling us with popery in some points: and because the charge of idolatry seemed a bar 94 to all thoughts of reconciliation with them, he set himself with very great zeal to clear the church of Rome of idolatry. This made many suspect him as inclining to go over to them: but he was far from it, and was a very honest, sincere man, but of no sound judgment, and of no prudence in affairs. He was for our conforming in all things to the rules of the primitive church, particularly in praying for the dead, in the use of oil, with many other rituals: he formed many in Cambridge upon his own notions, who have carried them perhaps farther than he intended. Baxter and he spent some days in much logical arguing, to the diversion of the town, who thought here were a couple of fencers engaged into a thread of disputes, that could never be brought to an end, nor have any good effect. In conclusion, this commission, being limited to such a number of days, came to an end before any one thing was agreed on. The bishops insisted on the laws that were still in force, to which they would admit of no exception, unless it was proved that the matter of those laws was sinful. They charged the presbyterians for having made a schism, upon grounds which now they themselves could not call sinful. They said there was no reason to gratify such a sort of men in any thing: one demand granted would draw on many more: all authority both in church and state was struck at by the position they had insisted on, that it was not lawful to impose things indifferent, since they seemed to be the only proper matter in which human authority could interpose. So this furnished 322 an occasion to expose them as enemies to all order. Things had been carried at the Savoy with great sharpness, and many reflections. Baxter said once, such things would offend many good men in the nation. Stearn[11], upon that took notice, that he would not say kingdom, but nation, because he would not acknowledge a king. Of this great complaints were made, as an indecent return for the zeal they had shewn in the restoration[12].
The conference broke up without doing any good; it did rather hurt, and heightened the sharpness that was then on people's minds to such a degree, that it needed no addition to raise it higher. The presbyterians laid their complaints before the king: but little regard was had to them. And now all the concern that seemed to employ the bishops' thoughts was, not only to make no alteration on their account, but to make the terms of conformity much stricter than they had been before the war. So it was resolved to maintain conformity to the height, and to put lecturers in the same condition with the incumbents as to oaths and subscriptions, and to oblige all persons to subscribe an unfeigned assent and consent to all and every particular contained and prescribed in the book of common prayer. Many who thought it lawful to conform in submission yet scrupled this, as importing a particular approbation of every thing: and great distinction was made between a conformity in practice and so full and distinct an assent. Yet men got over that, as importing .no more but a consent of obedience: for though the words of the subscription, which were to be also publicly pronounced before the congregation, were the declaring the person's unfeigned assent and consent, seemed to import this, yet the clause that enjoined this carried 323 a clear explanation of it, for it enacted this declaration as an assent and consent to the use of all things contained in the book. Another subscription was enacted with relation to the league and covenant; by which they were required to declare it unlawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the king, renouncing the traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person, or those commissioned by him, together with a declaration that no obligation lay on them or any other person, from the league or covenant, to endeavour any change or alteration of government in church and state, and that the covenant was in itself an unlawful oath. This was contrived against all the old men, who had both taken the covenant themselves, and had pressed it upon others[13]. So they were now to own themselves very guilty in that matter. And those who thought it might be lawful upon great and illegal provocation to resist unjust invasions on the laws and liberties of the subjects, excepted to the subscription, though it was scarce safe for any at that time to have insisted on that point. Some thought, that since the king had taken the covenant, he at least was bound to stand to it. Another point was fixed by the act of uniformity, which was more at large formerly. Those who came to England from the foreign churches had not been required to be ordained among us. But now all that had not episcopal ordination were made incapable of holding any ecclesiastical benefice[14]. Some few alterations were made in the liturgy by the bishops themselves: a few new collects were made, as the prayer for all conditions of men, and the general thanksgiving: 324 a collect was also drawn for the parliament, in which a new epithet was added to the king's title that gave great offence, and occasioned much indecent raillery: he was styled our most religious king[15]. It was not easy to give a proper sense to this, and to make it go well down; since, whatever the signification of religion might be in the Latin word, as importing the sacredness of the king's 95 person, yet in the English language it bore a signification that was no way applicable to the king. And those who took great liberties with him have often asked him, what must all his people think when they heard him prayed for as their most religious king? Some other lesser additions were made; but care was taken that nothing should be altered so as it had been moved by the presbyterians; for it was resolved to gratify them in nothing. One important addition was made, chiefly by Gauden's means[16]: he pressed that a declaration explaining the reasons of their kneeling at the sacrament, which had been in king Edward's liturgy but was left out in queen Elizabeth's time, should be again set where it had once been. The papists were highly offended when they saw such an express declaration made against the real presence; and the duke told me, that when he asked Sheldon how they came to declare against a doctrine on which he had been instructed that it was the doctrine of the church, Sheldon answered, Ask Gauden for that, that is a bishop of your own making: for the king had ordered his promotion for the service he had done[17]. The convocation that prepared those alterations, as they 325 added some new holy days, St. Barnabas and the Conversion of St. Paul, so they took in more lessons out of the Apocrypha, in particular the Bel and the Dragon. New offices were also drawn for two new days, the thirtieth of January, called king Charles the Martyr, and the twenty-ninth of May, the day of the king's birth and return. Sancroft drew for these some offices of a very high strain; yet others of a moderater strain were preferred to them. But he, coming to be advanced to the see of Canterbury, got his offices to be published by the king's authority, in a time when so high a style as was in them did not sound well in the nation[18]. Such care was taken in the choice and returns 326 of the members of the convocation, that every thing went among them as was directed by Sheldon and Morley. When they had prepared all their alterations, they offered them to the king, who sent them to the house of commons: upon which the act of uniformity was prepared by Keeling, afterward lord chief justice[19]. When it was brought into the house, many did apprehend that so severe an act might have ill effects, and began to abate of their first heat: upon which reports were spread, and much aggravated as they were reported to the house of commons, of the plots of the presbyterians in several counties[20]. Many were taken up on those reports: but none were ever tried[21]: so, the thing being let fall, it has been given out since, that these were forged by the direction of some hot spirits, who might think such arts were necessary to give an alarm and by rendering the party odious, to carry so severe an act against them. The lord Clarendon himself was charged as having directed this piece of artifice: but I could never see any ground for fastening it on him: though there are great appearances 327 of foul dealing among some of the fiercer sort. The act passed by no great majority[22]: and by it all who did not conform to the liturgy by the twenty-fourth of August, 1662, St. Bartholomew's day, in the year 1662, were deprived of all ecclesiastical benefices, without leaving any discretional power with the king in the execution of it, or without making provision for the maintenance of those who should be so deprived: a severity neither practised by queen Elizabeth in the enacting her liturgy, nor by Cromwell in ejecting the royalists[23], a fifth part of the benefice being reserved for their subsistence[24]. St. Bartholomew's day was pitched on, that, if they were then deprived, they should lose the profits of the whole year, since the tithes are commonly due at Michaelmas. The presbyterians remembered what a St. Bartholomew's had been held at Paris ninety years before, which was the day of that massacre, and did not stick to compare the one to the other. The common prayer with the new corrections was that to which they were to subscribe; but the corrections were so long a preparing, and the vast number of copies, 328 above 20,000, that were to be wrought off for all the parish churches of England, made the impression go on so slowly, that there were few books out when the day came[25]. So, many that were well affected to the church, but that made conscience of subscribing to a book that they had not seen, left their benefices on that very account. Some made a journey to London on purpose to see it. With so much precipitation was that matter driven on, that it seemed expected that the clergy should subscribe implicitly to a book they had never seen. This was done by too many, as I was informed by some of the bishops[26]. But the presbyterians were now in great difficulties. They had many meetings, and much disputing about conformity. Reynolds accepted of the bishopric of Norwich. But Calamy and Baxter refused the sees of Litchfield and Hereford. And 329 about two thousand of them fell under the parliamentary deprivation, which raised a grievous outcry over the nation; though it was less considered at that time than it would have been at any other. Baxter told me then that had the terms of the king's declaration been stood to, he did not believe that above three hundred of these would have been so deprived. Some few, and but few, of the episcopal party were troubled at this severity, or apprehensive of the very ill effects it was like to have. Here were many men much valued, some on better grounds and others on worse, who were now cast out ignominiously, reduced to great poverty, provoked by much spiteful usage, and cast upon those popular practices that both their principles and their circumstances seemed to justify, in forming separate congregations, and of diverting men from the public worship, and from considering their successors as the lawful pastors of those churches in which they 96 had served. The blame of all this fell heaviest on Sheldon. The earl of Clarendon was charged with having entertained the presbyterians with hopes and good words, while he was all the while carrying on, or at least giving way to, the bishops' project. When the convocation had gone through the book of common prayer, it was in the next place proposed, that, according to a clause in the king's licence, they should consider the canons of the church. They had it then in their power to have reformed many abuses, and particularly to have provided an effectual remedy to the root of all those which arise from the poor maintenance that is reserved to the incumbents. Almost all the leases of the church estates over England were fallen in, there having been no renewal for twenty years. The leases for years were determined: and the wars had carried off so many men, that most of the leases for lives were fallen into hand[27]. So that the church estates were now in hand: and the fines raised by the renewing the leases rose to about a million and a half. It was an unreasonable thing to let those who were now 330 promoted carry away so great a treasure. If the half had been applied to the buying in of tithes or glebes for small vicarages, here a foundation had been laid down for a great and effectual reformation[28]. In some sees forty or fifty thousand pound was raised, and applied to the a enriching the bishops' families[29]. Something was done to churches and colleges, in particular to St. Paul's in London, and a noble collection was made for redeeming all the English slaves that were in any part of Barbary. But this fell far short of what might have been expected. In this the lord Clarendon was heavily charged, as having shewed that he was more the bishops' friend than the church's. It is true the law made those fines belong to the incumbents; but such an extraordinary occasion deserved that a law should have been made on purpose. What the bishops did with greater fines was a pattern to all the lower dignitaries, who generally took more care of themselves than of the church. The men of merit and service were loaded with many livings and many dignities. With this great accession of wealth there broke in upon the church a great deal of luxury and high living, on the pretence of hospitality; while others made purchases, and left great estates, most of which we have seen melt away. And with this overset of wealth and pomp, that came on men in the decline of their parts and age, they who were now growing into old age became lazy and negligent in all the true concerns of the church: they left preaching and writing to others, while they gave themselves up to ease and sloth. In all which sad representation, some few exceptions were to be made; but so few, that, if a new set of men had not appeared of another stamp, the church had quite lost her esteem over the nation[30]. 331
These were generally of Cambridge, formed under some divines, the chief of whom were Drs. Whitchcot, Cudworth, Wilkins, More, and Worthington[31]. Whitchcot was a man of a rare temper, very mild and obliging. He had great credit with some that had been eminent in the late times, but made all the use he could of it to protect good men of all persuasions. He was much for liberty of conscience: and being disgusted with the dry systematical way of those times, he studied to raise those that conversed with him to a nobler set of thoughts, and to consider religion as the seed of a Deiform nature, (to use one of his own phrases.) In order to this, he set young students much on reading the ancient philosophers, chiefly Plato, Tully, and Plotin, and on considering the Christian religion as a doctrine sent from God both to elevate and sweeten human nature; in which he was a great example, as well as a wise and kind instructor. Cudworth carried this on with a great strength 332 of genius and a vast compass of learning. He was a man of great conduct and prudence: upon which his enemies did very falsely accuse him of craft and dissimulation. Wilkins was of Oxford, but removed to Cambridge[32]. His first rise was in the prince elector palatine's family, when he was in England. Afterwards he married Cromwell's sister; but made no other use of that alliance but to do good offices, and to cover the university from the sourness of Owen[33] and Goodwin[34]. But at Cambridge he joined with those who studied to propagate better thoughts, to take men off from being in parties, or from narrow notions, 333 from superstitious conceits, and a fierceness about opinions. He was also a great observer of natural, and a promoter of experimental, philosophy, which was then a new thing, and much looked after. He was naturally ambitious, but was the wisest clergyman I ever knew. He was a lover of mankind, and had a delight in doing good. More was an open hearted and sincere Christian philosopher, who studied to establish men in the great principles of religion against atheism, 97 that was then beginning to gain ground, chiefly by reason of the hypocrisy of some, and the fantastical conceits of the more sincere enthusiasts. Hobbes, who had long followed the court, and passed there for a mathematical man, though he really knew a little that way, being disgusted of the court, came into England in Cromwell's time, and published a very wicked book, with a very strange title, The Leviathan. His main principles were, that all men acted under an absolute necessity, in which he seemed protected by the then received doctrine of absolute decrees. He seemed to think that the universe was God, and that souls were material; thought being only a subtil and imperceptible motion. He thought interest and fear were the chief principles of society: and he put all morality in the following that which was our own private will or advantage. He thought religion had no other foundation than the laws of the land; and he put all law in the will of the prince, or of the people: for he writ his book at first in favour of absolute monarchy, but turned it afterwards to gratify the republican party. These were his true principles, though he had disguised them, for deceiving unwary readers[35]. 334 And this set of notions came to spread much. The novelty and boldness of them set many on reading them; the impiety of them was acceptable to men of corrupt minds, which were but too much prepared to receive them by the extravagance of the late times. So this set of men at Cambridge studied to assert and examine the principles of religion and morality, on clear grounds, and in a philosophical method. In this More led the way to many that came after him. Worthington was a man of eminent piety, of great humility, and practised a most sublime way of self-denial and devotion. All these, and those who were formed under them, studied to examine further into the nature of things than had been done formerly. They declared against superstition on the one hand, and enthusiasm on the other. They loved the constitution of the church, and the liturgy, and could well live under them: but they did not think it unlawful to live under another form. They wished things might have been carried with more moderation; and they continued to keep a good correspondence with those who differed from them in opinion, and allowed a great freedom both in philosophy and in divinity: from whence they were called men of latitude. And upon this men of narrower thoughts and fiercer tempers fastened upon them the name of Latitudinarians[36]. They read Episcopius much, and the making out the reasons of things being a main part of their studies, their 335 enemies called them Socinians. They were all very zealous against popery; and so, they becoming soon very considerable, the papists set themselves against them to decry them as atheists, deists, or at best Socinians. And now that the main principles of religion were struck at by Hobbes and his followers, the papists acted upon this a very strange part. They went in so far even into the argument for atheism, as to publish many books in which they affirmed, that there was no certain proof of the Christian religion, unless we took it from the authority of the church as infallible. This was such a delivering up of the cause to them, that it raised in all good men a very high indignation at popery; that party shewing, that they chose to make men who would not turn papists become atheists, rather than believe Christianity upon any other ground than infallibility. The most eminent of those who were formed under those great men were Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Patrick. The first of these was a man of a clear head and a sweet temper. He had the brightest thoughts and the most correct style of all our divines, and was esteemed the best preacher of the age. He was a very prudent man; and had such a management with him, that I never knew any clergyman so universally esteemed and beloved as he was for above twenty years. He was eminent for his opposition to popery; he was no friend to persecution, and stood up much against atheism: nor did any man contribute more to bring the city to love our worship than he did. But there was so little superstition, and so much reason and gentleness in his way of explaining things, that malice was long levelled at him, and in conclusion broke in fiercely on him. Stillingfleet was a man of much more learning, but of a more reserved and a haughtier temper. He, in his youth, writ an Irenicum for healing our divisions, with so much learning and moderation, that it was esteemed a masterpiece[37]. His notion was, that the apostles had 336 settled the church in a constitution of bishops, priests, and deacons, but had made no perpetual law about it, having only taken it in, as they did many other things, from the customs and practice of the synagogue; from which he inferred, that certainly the constitution was lawful, since authorized by them, but not necessary, since they had made no settled law about it. This took with many; but was cried out upon by others, as an attempt against the church; yet the argument was managed with so much learning and skill, that none of either side ever undertook to answer it[38]. After that, he 98 wrote against infidelity, beyond any that had gone before him. And then he engaged to write against popery, which he did with such an exactness and liveliness, that no books of controversy were so much read and valued as his were. He was a great man in many respects. He knew the world well, and was esteemed a very wise man. The writing his Irenicum was a great snare to him: for, to avoid the imputations which that brought upon him, he not only retracted the book, but he went in to the humours of that high sort of people beyond what became him, perhaps beyond his own sense of things. He applied himself much to the study of law and records, and the original of our constitution, and was a very extraordinary man, too much conceited of himself, and too much concerned for his family. Patrick was a great preacher[39]. He wrote much and well, chiefly on the Scriptures. He was a laborious man in his function, of 337 great strictness of life, but a little too severe against those who differed from him; but that was when he thought their doctrines struck at the fundamentals of religion. He became afterwards more moderate. To these I shall add another divine, who, though of Oxford, yet as he was formed by bishop Wilkins, so he went in to most of their principles, but went far beyond them in learning. Lloyd was a great critic both in the Greek and Latin authors, but chiefly in the Scriptures; of the words and phrases of which he carries the most perfect concordance in his memory, and has it the readiest about him, of all that ever I knew. He is an exact historian, and the most punctual in chronology of all our divines. He has read the most books and with the best judgment, and has made the most copious abstracts out of them, of any in this age: so that Wilkins used to say, he had the most learning in ready cash of any he ever knew. He is so exact in every thing he sets about, that he never gives over any part of study, till he has quite mastered it. But when that is done, he goes to another subject, and does not lay out his learning with the diligence with which he lays it in. He has many volumes of materials upon all subjects, laid together in so distinct a method that he could with very little labour write on any of them. He has more life in his imagination, and a truer judgment, than may seem consistent with such a laborious course of study[40]. Yet, as much as he is set on learning, he has 338 never neglected his pastoral care. For several years he had the greatest cure in England, St. Martin's, Westminster, which he took care of with an application and diligence beyond any about him; to whom he was an example, or rather a reproach, so few following his example. He is a holy, humble, meek, and patient man, ever ready to do good when he sees a proper opportunity: even his love of study does not divert him from that. He did indeed, upon his promotion, find a very worthy successor in his cure, Tenison, who carried on and advanced all those good methods that he had begun in the management of that great cure; he endowed schools, set up a public library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours among them. He was a very learned man[41], and took much pains to state the notions and practices of the heathenish idolatry, to fasten that charge on the church of Rome. And, Whitehall lying within that parish, he stood as in the front of the battle all king James's reign; and maintained, as well as managed, that dangerous post with great courage and much judgment, and was held in very high esteem for his whole deportment, which was ever grave and moderate. These have been the greatest divines we have had these forty years[42]: and may we ever have a succession of such men to fill the rooms of those who have already gone off the stage, and of those who, being 339 now very old, cannot hold their posts long. Of these I have writ the more fully, because I knew them well, and have lived long in great friendship with them, but most particularly with Tillotson and Lloyd. And, as I am sensible I owe a great deal of the consideration that has been had for me to my being known to be their friend, so I have really learned the best part of what I know, and of the services I may have done, to them. And if I have arrived at any faculty of writing clear and correctly, I owe that entirely to them. For as they joined with Wilkins in that noble though despised attempt at an universal character, and a philosophical language[43], they took great pains to observe all the common errors of language in general, and of ours in particular: and in the drawing the tables for that work, which was Lloyd's province, he had looked further into a natural purity and simplicity of style, than any man I ever knew; into all which he led me, and so helped me to any measure of exactness of writing which may be thought to belong to me. But I owed them much more on the account of those excellent principles and notions, in which they were in a most particular manner communicative to me. This set of men contributed more than can be well imagined to reform our way of preaching; which, among the divines of the church of England before them, overrun with pedantry, a great mixture of quotations from fathers and ancient writers, 99 a long opening of a text with the concordance of every word in it, and a giving all the different expositions with the grounds of them, and the 340 entering in some parts of controversy; and all was to conclude in some, but very short, practical application, according to the subject or the occasion. This was both long and heavy, especially when all was pye-balled[44], full of many sayings of different languages. The common style of sermons was either very flat and low, or swelled up with rhetoric to a false pitch of a wrong sublime. The king had little or no literature, but true and good sense; and had got a right notion of style[45]; for he was in France at a time when they were much set on reforming their language[46]. It soon appeared that he had a true taste. So this helped on the value of these men, when the king approved of the style their discourses generally run in; which was clear, plain, and short[47]. They gave a short paraphrase of their text, unless where great difficulties required a more copious enlargement: but even then they cut off unnecessary shews of learning, and applied themselves to the matter, in which they opened the nature and reasons of things so fully, and with that simplicity, that their hearers felt an instruction of another sort than had commonly been observed before. So they became very much followed: and a set of these men brought off the city 341 in a great measure from the prejudices they had formerly to the church[48].
There was a great debate in council a little before S. Bartholomew's day, whether the act of uniformity should be punctually executed, or not. Some moved to have the execution of it delayed till the next session of parliament. Others were for executing it in the main, but to connive at some eminent men, and to put curates in their churches to read and officiate according to the common prayer, but to leave them to preach on, till they should all die out. The earl of Manchester laid all these things before the king with much zeal, but with no great force. Sheldon, on the other hand, pressed the execution of the law. England was accustomed to obey laws: so while they stood on that ground they were safe, and needed fear none of the dangers that seemed to be threatened. He also undertook to fill all the vacant pulpits, that should be forsaken in London, better and more to the satisfaction of the people than they had been before: and he seemed to apprehend that a very small number would fall under the deprivation, and that the gross of the party would conform. On the other hand, those who led the party took great pains to have them all stick together: they infused it into them that if great numbers stood out, it would shew their strength, and produce new laws in their favour; whereas they would be despised, if, after so much noise made, the greater part of them should conform[49]. So it was thought, that many went out in the crowd to keep their friends company[50]. They were reckoned to be 342 about 2000 in all. Many of these were distinguished by their abilities and zeal. They cast themselves upon the providence of God and the charity of their friends, which had a fair appearance, as of men that were ready to suffer persecution for their consciences. This begot esteem, and raised compassion: whereas the old clergy, now much enriched, were as much despised. But the young clergy that came from the universities did good service. Learning was then very high at Oxford; chiefly the study of the oriental tongues, which was much raised by the Polyglot Bible, lately set forth[51]. They read the fathers much there. Mathematics and the new philosophy were in great esteem. And the meetings that Wilkins had begun at Oxford were now held in London to such a degree, that the king himself encouraged them much, and had many experiments made before him. The men that formed the Royal Society in London were, sir Robert Murray, the lord Brouncker, a profound mathematician, and Dr. Ward, soon after promoted to Exeter, and afterwards removed to Salisbury[52]. He was a man of a great reach, went deep in mathematical studies, and was a very dexterous man, if not too dexterous; for his sincerity was much questioned. He had complied during the late times, and held in by taking the covenant: so he was hated by the high men as a time-server. But the lord Clarendon saw that most 343 of the bishops were men of merit by their sufferings, but of no great capacity for business; so he brought Ward in, as a man fit to govern the church: for Ward, to get his former errors to be forgot, went in to the high-flown notions of a severe conformity, and became the most considerable man on the bishops' bench. He was a profound statesman, but a very indifferent clergyman[53]. Many physicians, and other ingenious men, went in to this society for natural philosophy; but he who laboured most, at the greatest charge, and with the most success at experiments, was Robert Boyle, the earl of Cork's youngest son[54]. He was looked on by all who knew him as a very 344 perfect pattern; he was a very devout Christian, humble and modest, almost to a fault, of a most spotless and exemplary life in all respects. 100 He was highly charitable; and was a mortified and self-denied man, that delighted in nothing so much as in the doing good. He neglected his person, despised the world, and lived abstracted from all pleasures, designs, or interests. I preached his funeral sermon, in which I gave his character so truly that I do not think it necessary now to enlarge more upon it. The society for philosophy grew so considerable that they thought fit to take out a patent, which constituted them a body by the name of the Royal Society; of which sir Robert Murray was the first president, bishop Ward the second, and the lord Brouncker the third[55]. Their history is writ so well by Dr. Sprat, that I will insist no more on them, but go on to other matters.
After S. Bartholomew's day, the dissenters, seeing both court and parliament was so much set against them, had much consultation together what to do. Many were for going over to Holland, and settling there with their ministers. Others proposed New England, and the other plantations. Upon this the earl of Bristol drew to his house a meeting of the chief papists in town: and, after 345 an oath of secrecy, he told them, now was the proper time for them to make some steps towards the bringing in of their religion: in order to that it seemed advisable for them to take pains to procure favour to the nonconformists; for that became the common name to them all, as puritan had been before the war. They were the rather to bestir themselves to procure a toleration for them in general terms; that they themselves might be comprehended within it. The lord Aubigny seconded the motion[1]. He said, it was so visibly the interest of England to make so great a body of the trading men stay within the kingdom, and be made easy in it, that it would have a good grace in them to seem zealous for it, and to draw in so great a number of those, who had been hitherto the hottest against them to feel their care, and see their zeal to serve them; that he recommended to them to make this the subject of all their discourses, and to engage all their friends into the design. Bennet did not meet with them, but was known to be in the secret; as the lord Stafford told me in the Tower a little before his death. But that lord soon withdrew from those meetings: for he apprehended the earl of Bristol's heat, and that he might raise a storm against them by his indiscreet meddling.
The king was so far prevailed on by them, that in Dec. 22, December [16]62 he set out a declaration[2], that was 346 generally thought to be procured by the lord Bristol: but it had a deeper root, and was designed by the king himself. In it the king expressed his aversion to all severities on the account of religion, but more particularly to all sanguinary laws; and gave hopes both to papists and nonconformists, that he would find out such ways for tempering the severity of the laws, that all his subjects should be easy under them. The wiser of the nonconformists saw at what all this was aimed, and so received it coldly. But the papists went on more warmly, and were preparing a scheme of a toleration for them; and one part of it raised great disputes among themselves. Some were for their taking the oath of allegiance, which renounced the pope's deposing power; but all those that were under a management from Rome refused this, and the internuntio at Brussells proceeded to censure those that were for it, as enemies to the papal authority. A proposition was also made for having none but secular priests tolerated in England, who should be under a bishop, and under an established government; but that all regulars, in particular all Jesuits, should be under the strictest penalties forbid the kingdom. The earl of Clarendon set this on; for he knew well it would divide the papists among themselves. But, though a few honest priests, such as Blackloe, Serjant Carron, and Walsh, were for it, yet they could not make a party among the leading men of their own side. It was pretended that this was set on foot with a design to divide them, and so to break their strength[3]. The earl of Clarendon knew, that cardinal de Rets, for whom 347 he saw the king had a particular esteem, had come over incognito, and had been with the king in private[4]. So, to let the king see how odious a thing his being suspect of popery would be, and what a load it would lay on his government if it came to be believed, he got some of his party, as sir Allain Brodrick[5] told me, to move in the house for an act rendering it a highly penal to say the king was a papist. And, whereas the king was made believe that the old cavaliers were become milder with relation 348 to popery, the lord Clarendon upon this inferred, that it still appeared that the opinion of his being a papist would so certainly make him odious, that for that reason the parliament had made the spreading those reports so penal. But this was taken by another handle, while some said that this act was made on purpose, that, though the design of bringing in popery should become ever so visible, none should dare to speak of it. The earl of Clarendon had a quite contrary design in it, to let the king see how fatal the effects of any such suspicions were like to be. When the Declaration was proposed in council, lord Clarendon and the bishops opposed it[6]. But there was nothing in it directly against law, hopes being only given of endeavours to make all men easy under the king's government: so it passed. The earl of Bristol carried it as a great victory; and he, with the duke of Buckingham, and all lord Clarendon's enemies, declared openly against him. But the poor priests, who had made those honest motions, were very ill looked on by all their own party, as men gained on design to betray them. I knew all this from Peter Walsh himself, who was the honestest and learnedest man I ever knew among them[7]. He was of Irish extraction, and of the Franciscan order: and was indeed in all points of controversy 101 almost wholly protestant: but he had senses of his own, by which he excused his adhering to the church of Rome: and maintained that with these he could continue in the communion of that church without sin: and he said that he was sure he did some good, staying still on that side, but that he could do none at all if he should come over. He thought no man ought to forsake that religion in which he was born and bred, unless he was clearly convinced that he must certainly be damned if he continued in it. He was an honest and able 349 man. much practised in intrigues, and knew well the methods of the Jesuits and other missionaries. He told me often, there was nothing which the whole popish party feared more than an union of the church of England with the presbyterians: they knew we grew the weaker the more our breaches were widened; and that the more we were set against one another, we would mind them the less. The papists had two maxims from which they never departed: the one was to divide us, and the other was to keep themselves united, and either to set on an indiscriminated toleration, or a general prosecution; for so we loved to soften the harsh word of persecution. And he observed, not without great indignation at us for our folly, that we, instead of uniting among ourselves and dividing them, according to their maxims, did all we could to keep them united and to disjoint our own body. For he was persuaded, if the government had held an heavy hand on the regulars and the Jesuits, and had been gentle to the seculars, and had set up a distinguishing test, renouncing all sort of power in the pope over the temporal rights of princes, to which the regulars and the Jesuits could never submit, that this would have engaged them into such violent quarrels among themselves, that censures would have been thundered at Rome against all that should take any such test; which would have procured much disputing, and might have probably ended in the revolt of the soberer part of that church[8]. But he found, that, though the earl of Clarendon and the duke of Ormond liked the project, little regard was had to it by the governing party at court.
The church party was alarmed at all this, and though they were unwilling to suspect the king or the duke, yet 350 the management for popery was so visible, that in the next session of parliament the king's declaration was severely arraigned, and the authors of it were plainly enough pointed at[9]. This was done chiefly by the lord Clarendon's friends, and at this the earl of Bristol was highly displeased, and resolved to take all possible methods to ruin the earl of Clarendon. He had great skill in astrology, and had possessed the king with a high opinion of it[10]: and told the 351 duke of Buckingham, as he said to the earl of Rochester, Wilmot, from whom I had it, that he was confident he could lay that before the king that would totally alienate him both from his brother and from the lord Clarendon: for he could demonstrate by the principles of that art, that he was to fall by his brother's means, if not by his hand: and he was sure this would work on the king. It would so, said the duke of Buckingham, but in another way than he expected: for it would make the king be so afraid of offending him, that he would do any thing rather than provoke him. Yet the lord Bristol would lay this before the king; and the duke of Buckingham believed that it had the effect ever after that he had apprehended: for though the king never loved nor esteemed the duke, yet he seemed to stand in some sort of awe of him. But this was not all: the lord Bristol resolved to offer articles of impeachment of the earl of Clarendon to the house of lords, though it was plainly provided against by the statute against appeals in the reign of Henry the fourth. Yet both the duke of Buckingham and the lord Bristol, the fathers of these two lords, had broke through that in the former reign. So the lord Bristol drew his impeachment, and carried it to the king, who took much pains on him in a soft and gentle manner to persuade him from it. But he would not be wrought on; and he told the king plainly, that, if he forsook him, he would raise such disorders that all England should feel them, and the king himself should not be without a large share in them. The king, as the earl of Lauderdale told me, who said he had it from himself, said he was so provoked at this that he durst not trust himself in answering it, but went out of the room, and sent the lord Aubigny to soften him: but all was in vain. It is very probable that the lord Bristol knew the secret of the king's religion, and that both made him so bold and the king so fearful. The next day he carried the charge to the house of lords[11]. It was of 352 a very mixed nature: in one part he charged the lord Clarendon with raising jealousies, and spreading reports of the king's being a papist: and yet in the other articles he charged him with a correspondence with the court of Rome, in order to the making the lord Aubigny a cardinal, and several other things of a very strange nature; and as soon as he put it in, he, it seems, either repented of it, or at least was prevailed with to abscond, and he was ever after that looked on as a man capable of the highest extravagancies possible. He made the matter worse by a letter that he writ to the lords, in which he expressed his fear of the danger the king was in by the duke's having of guards. Proclamations went out for discovering him, but he kept out of the way till the storm was over. The parliament expressed a firm resolution to maintain the act of uniformity. And the king being run much in debt, they gave him four subsidies, being willing to return to the ancient way of taxes by subsidies[12]. But these were so evaded, and brought in so little money, that the court resolved never to have recourse to that method of raising money any more, but to betake themselves for the future to the assessment begun in the war. 102 And the convocation gave at the same time four subsidies, which proved as heavy on them as they were light on the temporalty. This was the last aid that the spiritualty gave: for the whole proving so inconsiderable, and yet so unequally heavy on the clergy, it was resolved 353 on [13]hereafter to tax church benefices as temporal estates were; which proved indeed a lighter burden, but was not so honourable as when it was given by themselves: yet interest prevailing above the point of honour, they acquiesced in it, though the convocations being no more necessary to the crown made that there was less regard had to them afterwards. They were often discontinued and prorogued: and when they met, it was only for form. The parliament did pass another act that was very acceptable to the court, and that shewed a confidence in the king, for repealing the act of triennial parliaments[14], which had been 354 obtained with so much difficulty, and was clogged with so many clauses, that they seemed to transfer the power from the crown to the people, and that when carried in the year 1641, was thought the greatest security that the people had for all their other liberties, was now given up without a struggle, or any clauses for a certainty of parliaments, besides a general one, that there should be a parliament called within three years after the dissolution of the present parliament, and so ever afterwards; but without any severe clauses in case the act was not observed.
As for our foreign negotiations, I know nothing in particular concerning them. Secretary Bennet had them all in his hands: and I had no confidence with any about him. Our concerns with Portugal were public, and I know so[me] secrets about these.
By a melancholy instance to our private family, it appeared that France was taking all possible methods to do every thing that the king desired. The commonwealth's-men were now thinking that they saw the stream of the nation beginning to turn against the court: and upon that they were meeting, and laying plots to retrieve their lost game[15]. One of these being taken, and he apprehending 355 that he was in danger, begged his life of the king, and said, if he might be assured of his pardon, he would tell where my uncle Warriston was, who was then in Rouen: for he agreed so ill with the air of Hamburg, that he was advised to go to France; and this man was on the secret[16]. So the king sent one to the court of France, desiring he might be put in his hands: and this was immediately done: and no notice was sent to my uncle to go out of the way, as is usual in such cases, when a person is not charged with assassinations or any infamous action, but only with crimes of state. He was sent over, and kept some months in the Tower; and from that was sent to Scotland, as shall be told afterwards[17]. 356
The design of a war with Holland was now working; and I have been very positively assured by statesmen of both sides, that the French set it on in a very artificial manner[18]: for while they encouraged us to insist on some extravagant demands, they at the same time pressed the Dutch not to yield to them: and as they put them in hope that if a rupture should follow they would assist them according to their alliance, so they assured us that they would do us no hurt. Downing[19] was then employed in Holland, a crafty fawning man, who was ready to turn to every side that was uppermost, and to betray those who by their former friendship and services thought they might depend on him; as he did some of the regicides, whom he got into his hands under trust, and then delivered them up. He had been Cromwell's ambassador in Holland, where he had offered personal affronts both to the king and the duke: yet he had by some base practices got himself to be so effectually recommended by the duke of Albemarle, that all former offences were forgiven, and he was sent over to 357 Holland as the king's ambassador, whose behaviour towards himself the States had observed. So they had reason to conclude he was sent over with no good intent, and that he was capable of managing a bad design, and very ready to undertake it. There was no visible cause of war[20]. A complaint of a ship taken was ready to have been satisfied, but Downing hindered it. So it was plain the king hated them[21]; and fancied they were so feeble, and the English were so much superior to them, that a war would humble them, and bring them to an entire submission and dependence on him in all things. The States had treated and presented the king with great magnificence, and at a vast charge, during the time that he had stayed among them, after England had declared for him. And, as far as appearances could go, the king was sensible of it: insomuch that the party for the prince of Orange were not pleased, because their applications to him could not prevail 103 to make him interpose either in the behalf of himself or of his friends, to get his party again put in places of trust and command. The king put that off, as not proper to be pressed by him at that time. But neither then nor afterwards did he bestir himself in that matter; though, if either gratitude or interest had been of force, and if these had not been overruled by some more prevalent considerations, he must have been inclined to make some returns for the services the late prince of Orange did him: and must have seen what a figure he must make by having the prince of Orange tied to him in interest as much as he was by blood[22]. France and popery 358 were the true springs of all these counsels. It was the interest of the king of France that the armies of the States might fall under such a feebleness, that they should not be in condition to make a vigorous resistance, when he should be ready either to invade them or to fall into Flanders, which he was resolved to do whensoever the king of Spain should die. The French did thus set on the war between the English and the Dutch, hoping that our fleets should mutually weaken one another so much, that the naval force of France, which was increasing very considerably, should be near an equality to them when they should be shattered by a war[23]. The States were likewise the greatest strength of the protestant interest, and were therefore to be humbled. So, in order to make the king more considerable both at home and abroad, the court resolved to prepare for a war, and to seek for such colours as might serve to justify it. The earl of Clarendon was not let into the secret of this design, and was always against it[24]. But his interest was now sunk low, and he began to feel the power of an imperious mistress over an amorous king, who was so disgusted of the queen that he abandoned himself wholly to amour and luxury.
This was, as far as I could penetrate into it, the state of the court for the first four years after the restoration. I was in the court a great part of the years [16]62, [16]63[25], and [16]64, and was as inquisitive as I could possibly be, and had more than ordinary occasions to hear and see a great deal[26]. 359
But now I return back to the affairs of Scotland. The earl of Middleton, after a delay of some months, came up to London, and was very coldly received by the king. The earl of Lauderdale moved that a Scottish council should be called[1]. The lord Clarendon got this to be delayed a fortnight. When it met, the lord Lauderdale accused the earl of Middleton of many malversations in the great trust he had been in, which he aggravated severely. The lord Middleton desired he might have what was objected to him in writing; and when he had it he sent it to Scotland; so that it was six weeks before he had his answer ready; all on design to gain time. He excused some errors in point of form, that, having served in a military way, he understood not so exactly what belonged to law and form: but insisted on this, that he designed nothing but that the king's service might go on, and that his friends might be taken care of, and his enemies be humbled, and that so loyal a parliament might be encouraged, who were full of zeal and affection to his service; that, in complying with 360 them, he had kept every thing so entirely in his majesty's power, that the king was under no difficulties by any thing they had done. In the mean while Sheldon was very earnest with the king to forgive the lord Middleton's errors; otherwise he concluded the change so newly made in the church would be so ill supported that it must fall to the ground. The duke of Albemarle, who knew Scotland, and so had more credit on that head than on any other, pretended that the lord Middleton's party was that on which the king could only rely: he magnified both their power and their zeal, and represented the earl of Lauderdale's friends as cold and hollow in the king's service. And to support all this, the letters that came from Scotland were full of the insolencies of the presbyterians, and of the dejection the bishops and their friends were under. Sharp was prevailed on to go up. He promised to all the earl of Middleton's friends that he would stick firm to him, and that he would lay before the king that his standing or falling must be the standing or falling of the church. Of this the earl of Lauderdale had advice sent him. Yet when he came to London, and saw that the king was alienated from the lord Middleton, he resolved to make great submissions to the lord Lauderdale. When he reproached him for his engagements with the earl of Middleton, he denied all; and said he had never gone further than what was decent, considering his post. He also denied he had writ to the king in his favour. But the king had given the original letter to the lord Lauderdale, who upon that shewed it to Sharp; with which he was so struck that he fell a crying in a most abject manner. He begged pardon for it, and said, what could a company of poor men refuse to the earl of Middleton, who had done so much for them, and had them so entirely in his power. The lord Lauderdale, upon this, comforted him, and said he would forgive them all that was past, and would serve them and the church at another rate than lord Middleton was capable of doing. So Sharp became wholly his. Of all this lord Lauderdale gave me 361 a full relation the next day, and shewed me the papers that passed between lord Middleton and him. Sharp thought he had 104 escaped well. The earl of Middleton treated them too much as his creatures, and assumed a great deal to himself, and exercised a sort of authority over them, which he was uneasy under, though he durst not well complain of it, or resist it: whereas he reckoned, that lord Lauderdale, knowing the suspicions that lay on him as favouring the presbyterians, would have less credit and courage in opposing any thing that should be necessary for their support. It proved that in this he judged right: for the lord Lauderdale, that he might maintain himself at court, and with the church of England, was really more compliant and easy to every proposition the bishops made, than he would otherwise have been if he had been always of the episcopal party[2]. But all he did that way was against his heart, except when his passions were vehemently stirred, which a very slight occasion would readily do. After the earls of Lauderdale and Middleton were writing papers and answers for above three months[3], an accident happened which hastened lord Middleton's disgrace. The earl of Lauderdale laid before the king the unjust proceedings in the matter of laying on fines; and to make all that party sure to himself, he procured a letter from the king to the council in Scotland, ordering them to issue out a proclamation for superseding the execution of the act of fining till 362 further order. The privy council being then for the greater part composed of lord Middleton's friends, it was pretended by some of them, that as long as he was the king's commissioner, they could receive and execute no orders from the king but through his hands. So they writ to him, desiring him to represent to the king that this would be an affront on the proceedings of parliament, and would raise the spirits of a party that ought to be kept down. Lord Middleton writ back, that he had laid the matter before the king, and that he, considering better of it, had ordered, that no proceeding should be made upon his former letter. This occasioned a hot debate in council. It was said a letter under the king's hand could not be countermanded but from the same hand. So the council wrote to know the king's mind in the matter. The king protested he knew nothing of it, and that lord Middleton had not spoke one word on the subject to him. He upon that sent for him, and chid him so severely, that lord Middleton concluded from it that he was ruined. Yet he always stood upon it, that he had the king's order by word of mouth for what he had done, though he was not so cautious as to procure an instruction under his hand for his warrant. It is very probable that he spoke of it to the king when his head was full of somewhat else, so that he did not mind it; and that to get rid of the earl of Middleton, he bid him do whatsoever he proposed, without reflecting much on it; for the king was at that time often so distracted in his thoughts, that he was not at all times master of himself. The queenmother had brought over from France one Mrs. Stewart[4], reckoned a very great beauty, afterwards married to 363 the duke of Richmond. The king was believed to be deeply in love with her; yet his former mistress kept her ground still, and what with her humours and jealousy, and what with this new amour, the king had very little quiet, between both their passions and his own. Towards the end of May the king called many of his English counsellors together, and did order all the papers that had passed between the earls of Lauderdale and Middleton to be read to them. When that was done, many of them who were Middleton's friends said much in excuse of his errors, and of the necessity of continuing him still in that high trust. But the king said his errors were so great and so many, that the credit of his affairs must suffer, if he continued them any longer in such hands. Yet he promised them he would be still kind to him; for he looked on him as a very honest man. A few days after that, secretary Morrice was sent to him with a warrant under the king's hand, requiring him to deliver up his commission, which he did; and so his ministry came to an end, after a sort of a reign of much violence and injustice: for he was become very imperious. He and his company were delivered up to so much excess, and to such a madness of frolic and intemperance, that as Scotland had never seen any thing like it, so upon his disgrace there was a general joy over the kingdom, though that lasted not long; for those that came after him grew worse than ever he was like to be. He had lived in great magnificence, which made him acceptable to many[5]: and he was a firm friend, though 364 a violent enemy. The earl of Rothes[6] was declared the king's commissioner; but the earl of Lauderdale would not trust him[7]; so he went down with him, and kept him too visibly in a dependence on him, for all his high character.
One of the first things done in this session of parliament was the execution of my unfortunate uncle[8]. He was so disordered both in body and mind, that it was a reproach to a government to proceed against him. His memory was so gone that he did not know his own children. He was brought before the parliament, to hear what he had to say why his execution should not be awarded. He spoke long, but in a broken and disordered strain, which his enemies fancied was put on to create pity[9]. So he was sentenced to die. The presbyterians came about him, and 365 prayed for him in a style like an upbraiding of God with the services he had done him. His deportment was unequal, as might be expected from a man in his condition. Yet when the day of his execution came, he was very serene: he was cheerful, and seemed fully satisfied with his death. He read a speech twice on the scaffold, that to my knowledge he composed himself, in which he justified all the proceedings in the covenant, and asserted his own sincerity; but condemned his joining with Cromwell and the sectaries, though even in that his intentions had been sincere for the good of his country and the security of religion. Lord Lauderdale had lived in great friendship with him: but he saw the king was so set against him, that he, who at all times took more care of himself than of his friends, would not in so critical a time seem to favour a man whom the presbyterians had set up as a sort of an idol among them, and on whom they did depend more than on any other then alive.
105 The business of the parliament went on as the lord Lauderdale directed. The whole proceeding in the matter of the billeting was laid open[10]. It appeared that the parliament had not desired it, but had been led into it by being made believe that the king had a mind to it; and of all the members of parliament not above twelve could be prevailed on to own, that they had advised the earl of Middleton to ask leave of the king for it, whose private suggestions he had represented to the king as the desire of the parliament. So this finished his disgrace, as well as it occasioned the putting all his party out of employments. While they were going on with their affairs, they understood that an act had passed in the parliament of England against all conventicles[11], empowering justices of peace to 366 convict offenders without juries; which was thought a great breach on the security of the English constitution, and a raising the power of justices to a very arbitrary pitch. Any meeting for religious worship at which five were present more than the family, was declared a conventicle; and every person above sixteen, that was present, was to lie three months in prison, or to pay 5l. for the first offence; six months for the second offence, or 20l. fine; and for the third offence, being convict by a jury, he was to be banished to any plantation, except New England or Virginia, or to pay an 100l. All people were amazed at this severity[12]; but the bishops in Scotland took heart upon it, and resolved to copy from it. So an act passed there, almost in the same terms: and, at the passing it, lord Lauderdale in a long speech expressed great zeal for the church. There was some little opposition made to it by the earl of Kincardine[13], who was an enemy to all persecution; but though some few voted against it, it was carried by a great majority.
Another act passed, declaring the constitution of a national synod[14], that it was to be composed of the archbishops and bishops, of all deans, and of two to be deputed from every presbytery; of which the moderator of the presbytery named by the bishop was to be one. All 367 things were to be proposed to this court by the king or his commissioner; and whatsoever should be agreed to by the majority and the president, the archbishop of St. Andrews, was to have the force of an ecclesiastical law when it should be confirmed by the king. Great exceptions were taken to this act. The church was restrained from meddling with any thing, but as it should be laid before them by the king; which was thought a severe restraint, like that of the proponentibus legatis so much complained of at Trent. The putting the negative not in the whole bench of the bishops, but singly in the president, was thought very irregular. But it passed with so little observation, that the lord Lauderdale could scarce believe it was penned as he found it to be, when I told him of it. Primrose told me Sharp put that clause in with his own hand. The inferior clergy complained that the power was wholly taken from them; since, as one of their deputies was to be a person named by the bishops, so, the moderators claiming a negative vote as the bishops' delegates, the other half were only to consist of persons to whom they gave their vote. The act was indeed so penned, that nobody moved for a national synod when they saw how it was to be constituted.
Two other acts passed in favour of the crown. The parliament of England had laid great impositions on all things imported from Scotland: so, the parliament being speedily to be dissolved, and not having time to regulate such impositions on English goods as might force the English to bring that matter to a just balance, they put that confidence in the king, that they left the laying of impositions on all foreign merchandize wholly to the king[15]. The other act was looked on but as a pompous compliment: and so it passed without any observation or opposition[16]. 368 In it they made an offer to the king of an army of 20,000 foot and 2,000 horse, to be ready upon summons, to march with forty days' provision into any part of his majesty's dominions, to oppose invasions, to suppress insurrections, or for any other cause in which his authority, power, or greatness was concerned. Nobody dreamt that any use was ever to be made of this; yet the earl of Lauderdale had his end in it, to let the king see what use the king might make of Scotland, if he should intend to set up arbitrary government in England. He told the king that the earl of Midletoun and his party understood not what was the greatest service that Scotland could do him: they had not much treasure to offer him: the only thing they were capable of doing was to furnish him with a good army when his affairs in England should require it. And of this he made great use afterwards to advance himself, though it could never have signified any thing to the advancing the king's ends[17]. So easy was it to draw the parliament of Scotland to pass acts of the greatest consequence in a hurry, without considering the effects they might have. After these acts were passed, the parliament was dissolved, which gave a general satisfaction to the country, for they were a furious set of people. The government was left in the earl of Glencairn's hands, who began, now that he had little favour at court, to set himself on all occasions to oppose Sharp's violent motions. The earl of Rothes stuck firm to Sharp, and was recommended by him to the bishops of England as the only man that supported their interests. The king at this time restored lord Lorn to 369 his grandfather's honour, of being earl of Argyll, passing over his father; and gave him a great part of the estate, leaving the rest to be sold for the payment of debts, which did not rise in value to above a third part of them. This occasioned a great outcry, that continued long to pursue him.
106 Sharp went up to London to complain of the lord Glencairn and of the privy council; where, he said, there was such a remissness, and so much popularity appeared on all occasions, that unless some more spirit were put in the administration, it would be impossible to preserve the church[18]. That was the word always used, as if there had been a charm in it. He moved that a letter might be writ, giving him the precedence of the lord chancellor. This was thought an inexcusable piece of vanity: for in Scotland, when there was no commissioner all matters passed through the lord chancellor's hands, who by act of parliament was to preside in all courts, and was considered as representing the king's person. He also moved, that the king would grant a special commission to some persons for executing the laws relating to the church. All the privy counsellors were to be of it; but to these he desired many others might be added, for whom he undertook that they would execute them with zeal. Lord Lauderdale saw that this would prove a high commission court: yet he gave way to it, though much against his own mind. Upon these things I took the liberty, though then too young to meddle in things of that kind, to expostulate very freely with him. I thought he was acting the earl 370 of Traquair's part, giving way to all the follies of the bishops on design to ruin them[19]. He upon that ran out into a great deal of freedom with me: he told me many passages of Sharp's past life: he was persuaded he would ruin all: but he said he was resolved to give him line, for he had not credit enough to stop him; nor would he oppose any thing he proposed, unless it were very extravagant: he saw the earl of Glencairn and he would be in perpetual war: and it was indifferent to him how matters might go between them. Things would run to a height, and then the king would of himself put a stop to their career: for the king said often, he was not priest-ridden, he would not venture a war, nor travel again for any party. This was all that I could obtain of the earl of Lauderdale. I pressed Sharp himself to think of more moderate methods[20]; but he despised my applications, and from that time he was ever very jealous of me.
Fairfoul, archbishop of Glasgow, died this year: and one Burnet succeeded him[21], who was a near kinsman of the lord Teviot's; who, from being governor of Dunkirk when it was sold, was sent to Tangier, but soon after in an unhappy encounter, going out to view some grounds, was intercepted, and cut to pieces by the Moors[22]. Upon 371 a Teviot's a recommendation, Burnet, who had lived many years in England, and knew nothing of Scotland, was sent thither, first to be bishop of Aberdeen, and from thence he was raised to Glasgow. He was of himself a soft and good natured man, tolerably learned, and of a blameless life: but was a man of no genius, and though he was inclined to peaceable and moderate counsels, yet he was much in the power of others, and took any impression that was given him very easily. I was much in his favour at first, but could not hold it long: for as I had been bred up by my father to love liberty and moderation, so I spent the greatest part of the year 1664 in Holland and France, which contributed not a little to root and fix me in those principles. I saw much peace and quiet in Holland, notwithstanding the diversity of opinions among them; which was occasioned by the gentleness of the government, and the toleration that made all people easy and happy. An universal industry was spread through the whole country: there was little aspiring to preferment in the state, because little was to be got that way. It is true there seemed to be among them too much coldness and indifference in the matters of religion; but I imputed that to their phlegmatic tempers, that were not apt to take fire, rather than to the liberty they enjoyed. They were then apprehending a war with England, and were preparing for it. From thence, where every thing was free, I went to France, where nothing was free. The king was beginning to put things in great method, both in his revenue, in his troops, in his government at home, but above all in the increasing of trade, and the building a great fleet. His own deportment was solemn and grave, save only that he kept his 372 mistresses very avowedly. He was diligent in his own councils, and regular in the despatch of affairs: so that all things about him looked like the preparing of matters for all that we have seen acted since. The king of Spain was considered as dying, and the infant his son was like to die as soon as he: so that it was generally believed the king of France was designing to set up a new empire in the west. He had carried the quarrel at Rome about the Corses so high with the house of Chigi, that the protestants were beginning to flatter themselves with great hopes. When I was in France, cardinal Chigi came as legate to give the king full satisfaction in that matter[23]. Lord Holles was then ambassador at Paris[24]. I was so effectually recommended to him, that he used me with great freedom, which he continued to do to the end of his days. He stood upon all the points of an ambassador with the stiffness of former ages, which made him very unacceptable to a high-spirited young prince, who began even then to be flattered as if he had been somewhat more than a mortal. This established me in my love of law and liberty, and in my hatred of absolute 107 power. When I came back, I stayed for some months at court, and observed the scene as carefully as I could, and became acquainted with all the men that were employed in Scottish affairs. I had more than ordinary opportunities of being well informed. This drew a jealousy on me from the bishops, which was increased from the friendship into which Leighton received me. I was thought no great friend to church power, nor to persecution. So it was thought that lord Lauderdale was preparing me, as one who was known to have been always episcopal, to be set up against Sharp and his set of men, who were much hated by one side, and not loved or trusted by the other. 373
In the mean while the earl of Glencairn died, which set Sharp at ease, but put him on new designs. He apprehended that the earl of Tweeddale might be advanced: for in the settlement of the duchess of Buccleugh's estate[25], who was married to the duke of Monmouth, the best beloved of all the king's bastards, by which, in default of issue by her, it was to go to Monmouth and the issue he might have by any other wife, the earl of Tweeddale, though his children were the next heirs, who were by this robbed of their right, had yet given way to it in so frank a manner, that the king was enough inclined both to oblige and to trust him. But Sharp had great suspicions of him, as cold in their concerns. So he writ to Sheldon[26], that upon the disposal of the seals the very being of the church did so absolutely depend, that he begged be would press the king very earnestly in the matter, and that he would move that he might be called up before that post should be filled. The king bid Sheldon assure him he should take a special care of that matter, but that there was no occasion for his coming up[27]: for the king by this time had a very ill opinion of him. Sharp was so mortified with this, that he resolved to put all to hazard, for he believed all was at stake: and he ventured to come up. The king received him coldly, and asked him if he had not the archbishop of Canterbury's letter. He said he had; but he would choose rather to venture on his majesty's displeasure, than to see the church ruined through his caution or negligence. He knew the danger they were in in Scotland, where they had but few and cold friends, and many violent enemies. His majesty's protection, and the execution of the law, were the only things they could 374 trust to: and so much depended on the good choice of a chancellor, that he could not answer it to God and the church if he did not bestir himself in that matter. He knew many thought of himself for that post: but he was so far from that, that, if his majesty had any such intention, he would choose rather to be sent to a plantation: he desired that he might be a churchman in heart, but not in habit, that should be raised to that trust. These were his very words, as the king reported them. From thence he went to Sheldon, and pressed him to move the king for himself, and furnished him with many reasons to support the proposition; a main one being, that the late king had raised his predecessor Spotswood to that trust. Sheldon upon that did move the king with more than ordinary earnestness in it. The king suspected who had set him on, and charged him to tell him the truth. The other did it, though not without some uneasiness. Upon that the king told him what he had said to himself; and then it may be easily imagined in what a style they both spoke of him. Yet Sheldon prayed the king that, whatsoever he might think of the man, he would consider the archbishop and the church; which the king assured him he would do. Sheldon told Sharp that he saw the motion for himself did not take; so he must think of somewhat else. He proposed that the seals should be put in the earl of Rothes's hands, till the king should pitch on a proper person. He also proposed that the king would make him his commissioner, in order to the preparing matters for a national synod, that they might settle a book of common prayer, and a book of canons. This he said must be carried on slowly, and with great caution; of which the late troubles did demonstrate the necessity.
All this was easily agreed to: for the king loved the lord Rothes, and the earl of Lauderdale would not oppose 375 his advancement[28]: though it was a very extravagant thing to see one man possess so many of the chief places of so poor a kingdom[29]. The earl of Crawford would not abjure the covenant; so he had been made lord treasurer in his place: he continued to be still what he was before, lord president of the council: and upon the earl of Middleton's disgrace he was made captain of a troop of guards: and now he was both the king's commissioner and upon the matter lord chancellor[30]. Sharp reckoned this was his masterpiece. Lord Rothes, being thus advanced by his means, was in all things governed by him. His instructions were such as Sharp proposed, to prepare matters for a national synod, and in the mean while to execute the laws that related to the church with a steady firmness[31]. So, when they parted from Whitehall, Sharp said to the king, that he had now done all that could be desired of him for the good of the church: so that, if all matters went not right in Scotland, none must bear the blame but either the earl of Lauderdale or of Rothes. And so they came to Scotland, where a very furious scene of illegal violence was opened. Sharp governed lord Rothes, who abandoned himself to pleasure: and was more barefaced in some indecent courtships, than that kingdom had ever seen before: and when some censured this, all the answer that was made was a severe piece of raillery, that the king's commissioner ought to represent his person.
376 108 The government of Scotland as to civil matters was very easy. All were quiet and obedient; but all those counties that lie towards the west became very fierce and intractable[32], and the whole work of the council was to deal with them and to subdue them. It was not easy to prove any thing against any of them, for they did stick firm to one another. The people complained of the new set of ministers that was sent among them, as immoral, stupid, and ignorant. Generally they forsook their churches, and if any of them went to church, they were so little edified with their sermons that the whole country was full of strange reports of the weakness and indecency of their preaching and their whole deportment[33]. The people treated them with great contempt, and with an aversion that broke out often into violence and injustice. But their ministers, on their parts, were not wanting in their complaints, aggravating matters, and possessing the bishops with many stories of designs and plottings against the state. So, many were brought before the council, and the new ecclesiastical commission, for pretended riots[34], and for using their ministers ill, but chiefly for not coming to church and for holding conventicles. The proofs were often defective, and lay rather in presumptions than clear evidence: and the punishments proposed were often arbitrary, not warranted by law. So the judges and other lawyers that were of those courts, 377 were careful to keep proceedings according to forms of law: upon which Sharp was often complaining that favour was shewed to the enemies of the church under the pretence of law. It was said that the people of the country were in such a combination that it was not possible to find witnesses to prove things fully: and he often said, Must the church be ruined for punctilios of law? When he could not carry matters by a vote, as he had a mind, he usually looked to the earl of Rothes; who upon that was ever ready to say, he would take it upon [him] to order the matter as Sharp proposed, and would do it in the king's name[35]. Great numbers were cast in prison, where they were kept long, and ill used: and sometimes they were fined, and the younger sort whipped about the streets. The people grew more sullen on all this ill usage. Many were undone by it, and went over to the Scots in Ulster, where they were well received, and had all manner of liberty as to their way of religion.
Burnet was sent up to possess the king with the apprehensions of a rebellion in the beginning of the Dutch war[36]. He proposed that about twenty of the chief gentlemen 378 of those counties might be secured: and he undertook for the peace of the country, if they were clapped up[37]. This was plainly illegal; but the lord Lauderdale opposed nothing. So it was done; but with a very ill effect. For those gentlemen, knowing how obnoxious they were, had kept measures a little better: but they being put in prison, both their friends and tenants laid all to the door of the clergy, and hated them the more, and used them the worse for it. The earls of Argyll, Tweeddale, and Kincardine, who were considered as the lord Lauderdale's chief friends, were cold in all those matters[38]. They studied to keep proceedings in a legal channel, and were for moderate censures; upon which Sharp said they appeared to be the friends and favourers of the enemies of the church. When the people had generally forsaken their churches, the guards were quartered through the country. Sir James Turner[39], that commanded them, was naturally fierce, but was mad when he was drunk; and was often so. He was ordered by the lord Rothes to act according to such 379 directions as Burnet should send him; so he went about the country, and received such lists as the ministers brought him of those who came not to church: and, without any other proof or any legal conviction, he set such fines on them as he thought they could pay, and sent soldiers to lie on them till they were paid. I knew him well afterwards, when he came to himself, being out of employment. He was a learned man; but had been always in armies, and knew no other rule but to obey orders. He told me he had no regard to any law, but acted as he was commanded, in a military way. He confessed it went often against the grain with him to serve such a debauched and worthless company as the clergy generally were, and that sometimes he did not act up to the rigour of his orders; for which he was oft chid both by lord Rothes and Sharp, but was never checked for his illegal and violent proceedings. And though the complaints of him were very high, so that when he was afterwards seized on by the party, they intended to make a sacrifice of him; yet, when they looked into his orders, and found that his proceedings, how fierce soever, fell short of these, they spared him, as a man that had merited by being so gentle among them.
The truth is, the whole face of the government looked liker the proceedings of an inquisition than of legal courts: and yet Sharp was never satisfied. So lord Rothes and he went up to court in the first year of the Dutch war[40]. When they waited first on the king, Sharp put him in mind of what he had said at his last parting, that if their matters 380 went not well, none must be blamed for it but either the earl of Lauderdale or of Rothes: and now he came to tell him that things were worse than ever: and he must do the earl of Rothes the justice as to say he had done his part. Lord Lauderdale was all on fire at this, but durst not give himself vent before the king. So he only desired that Sharp would come to particulars, and then he knew what he had to say. Sharp put that off 109 in a general charge, and said, he knew the party so well, that if they were not supported by secret encouragements, they would have been weary of the opposition they gave the government. The king had no mind to enter further into their complaints. So lord Rothes and he withdrew, and were observed to look very pleasantly upon one another as they went away[41]. Lord Lauderdale told the king he was now accused to his face, but he would quickly let him see what a man Sharp was. So he obtained a message from the king to him, of which he himself was to be the bearer, requiring him to put his complaints in writing, and to come to particulars. He followed Sharp home, who received him with a gaiety as if he had given him no provocation. But lord Lauderdale was more solemn, and told him it was the king's pleasure that he should put the accusation with which he had charged him in writing. Sharp pretended he did not comprehend his meaning. He answered, the matter was plain: he had accused him to the king, and he must either go thorough with it and make it out, otherwise he would charge 381 him with leasing-making: and spoke in a terrible tone to him. Upon that, as he told me, Sharp fell a trembling and weeping: he protested he meant no harm to him: he was only sorry that his friends were upon all occasions pleading for favour to the fanatics: (that was become the name of reproach.) Lord Lauderdale said, that would not serve turn: he was not answerable for his friends, except when they acted by directions from him. Sharp offered to go with him presently to the king, and to clear the whole matter. Lord Lauderdale had no mind to break openly with him; so he accepted of this, and carried him to the king, where he retracted all he had said in so gross a manner, that the king said afterwards, lord Lauderdale was ill-natured to press it so heavily, and to force Sharp on giving himself the lie in such coarse terms. This went to Sharp's heart: so he made a proposition to the earl of Dumfries, who was a great friend of the lord Middleton's, to try if a reconciliation could be made between him and the earl of Rothes, and if he would be content to come into the government under lord Rothes. Lord Dumfries went into Kent, where the lord Middleton was then employed in a military command on the account of the war[42]: and he laid Sharp's proposition before him. The earl of Middleton gave lord Dumfries power to treat in his name; but said he knew Sharp too well to regard any thing that came from him. Before lord Dumfries came back, Sharp had tried lord Rothes, but found he would not meddle in it: and they both understood that the earl of Clarendon's interest was declining, and that the king was like to change his measures. So when lord Dumfries came back to give Sharp an account of his negotiation, he seemed surprised, and denied he had given him any such commission. This enraged the earl of Dumfries so, that he published the 382 thing in all companies: among others, he told it very particularly to myself.
At that time Leighton was prevailed on to go to court, and to give the king a true account of the proceedings in Scotland; which, he said, were so violent, that he could not concur in the planting the Christian religion itself in such a manner, much less a form of government. He therefore begged leave to quit his bishopric, and to retire, for he thought he was in some sort accessory even to the violences done by others, since he was one of them, and all was pretended to be done to establish them and their order. There were indeed no violences committed in his diocese. He went round it constantly every year, preaching and catechising from parish to parish. He continued in his private and ascetic course of life, and gave all his income, beyond the small expense on his own person, to the poor. He studied to raise in his clergy a greater sense of spiritual matters, and of the care of souls, and was in all respects a burning and shining light, highly esteemed by the greater part of his diocese: even the presbyterians were much mollified, if not quite overcome, by his mild and heavenly course of life[43]. The king seemed touched with the state that the country was in: he spoke very severely of Sharp, and assured Leightoun he would quickly come to other measures, and put a stop to those violent methods: but he would by no means suffer him to quit his bishopric. So the king gave orders that the ecclesiastical commission should be discontinued; and signified his pleasure that another way of proceeding was necessary for his affairs.
He understood by his intelligence from Holland that the exiles at Rotterdam were very busy, and that perhaps the Dutch might furnish the malecontents of Scotland with money and arms: so he thought it was necessary to raise more troops. Two gallant officers that had served him in the wars, and had gone with his letters to serve in Muscovy, 383 where one of them, Dalziel[44], was raised to be a general, and the other, Drummond[45], was a lieutenant-general, and governor of Smolensko, were now, not without great difficulty, sent back by the Czar. So the king intended they should command some forces that he was to raise. Sharp was very apprehensive of this, but the king was positive. A little before this, the Act of fining, that had lien so long asleep that it was thought forgot, was revived; and all were required to bring in one moiety of their fines, but the other moiety was forgiven those who took the declaration renouncing the covenant. The money was by act of parliament to be given among those who had served and suffered for the king; so that the king had only the trust of distributing it. There was no more Scottish councils called at Whitehall after lord Middleton's fall, but upon particular occasions the king ordered the privy counsellors of that kingdom that were about the town to be brought to him, before whom he laid out the necessity of raising some more force for securing the quiet of Scotland: he only asked their advice, how they should be paid. Sharp 110 very readily said, the money raised by the fining was not yet disposed of: so he proposed the applying it to that use. None opposed this: so it was resolved on, and by that means the cavaliers, who were come up with their pretensions, were disappointed of their last hopes of being recompensed for their sufferings. The blame of all 384 was cast on Sharp, at which they were out of measure enraged, and charged him with it. He denied it boldly; but the king published it so openly that he durst not contradict him. Many to whom he had denied that he knew any thing of the matter, and called that advice a diabolical invention, affirmed it to the king; and the lord Lauderdale, to complete his disgrace with the king, got many of his letters[46], which he had writ to the presbyterians after the time in which the king knew that he was negotiating for episcopacy, in which he had continued to protest with what zeal he was soliciting their concerns, not without dreadful imprecations on himself if he was prevaricating with them, and laid these before the king: so that he looked on him as one of the worst of men[47].
Many of the episcopal clergy in Scotland were much offended at all these proceedings. They saw the prejudices of the people were increased by them. They hated violent courses, and thought they were contrary to the meek spirit of the Gospel, and that they alienated the nation more and more from the church. They set themselves much to read church history, and to observe the state of the primitive church, and the spirit of those times: and they could not but observe so great a difference between the constitution of the church under those bishops and our own, that they seemed to agree in nothing but the name. I happened to be settled near two of the most eminent of them, who were often moved to accept of bishoprics, but always refused them, both out of a true principle of humility and self-denial, and also because they could not engage in the methods by which things were carried on. One of these, Mr. Nairn[48], was the politest man I ever knew bred in Scotland; he had formed clear and lively schemes of 385 things, and was the most eloquent of all our preachers. He considered the pastoral function as a dedication of the whole man to God and his service. He read the moral philosophers much, and had wrought himself into their equal temper, as much as could consist with a great deal of fire that was in his own: but he turned it all to melting devotion. He had a true notion of superstition, as a narrowness of soul, and a meanness of thought in religion. He studied to raise all that conversed with him to great notions of God, and to an universal charity. This made him pity the presbyterians, as men of low notions and ill tempers. He had indeed too much heat of imagination, which carried him to be very positive in some things, in which he afterwards changed his mind, that made him pass for an inconstant man. In a word, he was the brightest man I ever knew among all our Scottish divines. Another of these was Mr. Charteris, a man of a composed and serene gravity, but without affectation or sourness. He scarce ever spoke in company, but was very open and free in private. He made true judgments of things and of men's tempers, and had a peculiar talent in managing such as he thought deserved his pains. He had little heat either in body or mind: for, as he had a most emaciated body, so he spoke both slow, and in so low a voice that he could not easily be heard. He had great tenderness, and was a very perfect friend, and a most sublime Christian. He lived in a constant contempt of the world, and a neglect of his person. There was a gravity in his conversation that raised an attention and begot a composedness in all about him, without frightening them; for he made religion appear amiable in his whole deportment. He had read all the lives and the epistles of great men very carefully, and delighted much in the mystics. He had read the fathers much, and gave me this notion of them, that in speculative points, for which writers of controversy searched into their works, they were but ordinary men, but their excellency lay in that which was least sought for, their sense of 386 spiritual things, and of the pastoral care. In these he thought their strength lay; and he often lamented, not without some indignation, that in the disputes about the government of the church, much pains was taken to seek out all those passages that shewed what their opinions were, but that due care was not taken to set out the notions that they had of the sacred functions, of the preparation of mind and inward vocation with which men ought to come to holy orders; or of the strictness of life, the deadness to the world, the heavenly temper, and of the constant application to the doing of good, that became them. Of these things he did not talk like an angry reformer, that set up in that strain because he was neglected or provoked, but like a man full of a deep but humble sense of them. He was a great enemy to large confessions of faith, chiefly when they were imposed in the lump as tests: for he was positive in very few things. He had gone through the chief parts of learning, but was then most conversant in history, as the innocentest sort of study, that did not fill the mind with subtilty, but helped to make a man wiser and better. These were both single persons, and men of great sobriety, and lived on a constant low diet, which they valued more than severer fastings. Yet they both became miserable by the stone. Nairn went to Paris, where he was cut of a great one, of which he recovered, but lived not many years after. Charteris lived to a great age, and died in the end of the year 1700, having in his last years suffered unspeakable torment from the stone, which the operator would not venture to cut; but all that saw what he suffered, and how he bore it, acknowledged that in him they saw a most perfect pattern of patience and submission to the will of God. It was a great 111 happiness for me, after I had broke into the world by such a ramble, that I fell into such hands, with whom I entered into a close and particular friendship. They both set me right, and kept me right; though I made at this time a sally that may be mentioned, since it had some relation to public 387 affairs. I observed the deportment of our bishops was in all points so different from what became their function that I had a more than ordinary zeal kindled within me upon it. They were not only furious against all that stood out against them, but were very remiss in all the parts of their function. Some did not live within their dioceses, and those who did, seemed to take no care of them, they shewed no zeal against vice: the most eminently wicked men in the country were their particular confidents: they took no pains to keep their clergy strictly to rules and to their duty: on the contrary, there was a levity and a carnal way of living about them, that very much scandalized me. There was indeed one Scougal, bishop of Aberdeen, that was a man of a rare temper, great piety and prudence: but I thought he was too much under Sharp's conduct, and was at least too easy to him[49].
Upon all this I took a resolution of drawing up a memorial of the grievances we lay under by the ill conduct of our bishops[50]. I resolved that no other person besides myself should have a share in any trouble it might bring on me: so I communicated it to none. This made it not to be in all the parts of it so well digested as it otherwise might have been: and I was then but three and twenty. I laid my foundation in the constitution of the primitive church; and shewed how they had departed from it, by 388 their neglecting their dioceses, meddling so much in secular affairs, raising their families out of the revenues of the church, and above all by their violent prosecuting of those who differed from them. Of this I writ out some copies, and signed them, and sent them to all the bishops of my acquaintance. Sharp was much alarmed at it, and fancied I was set on to it by some of the lord Lauderdale's friends. I was called before the bishops, and treated with great severity. Sharp called it a libel. I said I had set my name to it, so it could not be called a libel. He charged me with the presumption of offering to teach my superiors. I said, such things has been not only done, but justified in all ages. He charged me for reflecting on the king's putting them on his councils. I said, I found no fault with the king for calling them to his councils, but with them for going out of that which was their proper province, and for giving ill counsel. Then he charged me for reflecting on some severities, which, he said, was a reproaching public courts, and a censuring the laws. I said, laws might be made in terrorem, not always fit to be executed: but I only complained of clergymen's pressing the rigorous execution of them, and going often beyond what the law dictated. He broke out into a great vehemence, and proposed to the bishops that I should be summarily deprived and excommunicated: but none of them would agree to that. By this management of his the thing grew public. What I had ventured on was variously censured: but the greater part approved of it. Lord Lauderdale and all his friends were delighted with it: and he gave the king an account of it, who was not ill pleased at it. Great pains was taken to make me ask pardon, but to no purpose: so Sharp let the thing fall[51]. But, that it might appear that I had not done 389 it upon any factious design, I entered into a very close state of retirement, and gave my self wholly to my studies and the duties of my function.
Thus I have run over the state of Scotland in the years
[16]63, [16]64, [16]65, and till near the end of [16]66.
I now return to the affairs of England; in which I must
write more defectively, being then so far from the scene.
In winter [16]64 the king declared his resolution of entering
into a war with the Dutch. The grounds were so slight[1],
that it was visible there was somewhat more at bottom
than was openly owned. A great comet[2], which appeared
390
that winter, raised the apprehensions of those who did not
enter into just speculations concerning those matters. The
house of commons was so far from examining nicely into
the grounds of the war, that without any difficulty they
gave the king two millions and a half for carrying it on[3].
A great fleet was set out, which the duke commanded in
person[4]; as Opdam had the command of the Dutch fleet.
But as soon as the war broke out, a most terrible plague
broke out also in the city of London, that scattered all the
inhabitants that were able to remove themselves elsewhere[5].
It broke the trade of the nation, and swept away about an
hundred thousand souls; the greatest havock that any
plague had ever made in England. This did dishearten
all people: and coming in the very time in which so unjust
a war was begun, it had a dreadful appearance. All the
king's enemies and the enemies of monarchy said, here was
391
a manifest character of God's heavy displeasure; as indeed
the ill life the king led, and the viciousness of the whole
court, gave but a melancholy prospect. Yet God's ways
are not as our ways. What all had seen in the year [16]60
ought to have silenced those who at this time pretended to
comment on providence. But there will be always much
discourse of things that are very visible, as well as very
extraordinary. When the two fleets met, it is well known
what accidents disordered the Dutch, and what advantage
the English had[6]. If that first success had
112
been followed,
as was proposed, it might have been fatal to the Dutch,
who, finding they had suffered so much, steered off. The
duke ordered all the sail to be set on to overtake them.
There was a council of war called to concert the method of
action, when they should come up with them. In that
council Penn[7], who commanded under the duke, happened
to say. that they must prepare for hotter work in the next
engagement: he knew well the courage of the Dutch was
never so high as when they were desperate. The earl of
Montagu, who was then a volunteer, and one of the
duke's court, said to me, it was very visible that made an
impression: and all the duke's domestics said, he had got
honour enough: why a should he venture a second time?
The duchess had also given a strict charge to all the duke's
servants, to do all they could for hindering him to engage
too far. When matters were settled, they all went to sleep:
and the duke ordered a call to be given him when they
should get up to the Dutch fleet. It is not known what
passed between the duke and Brouncker[8], who was of his
392
bedchamber, and was then in waiting: but he came to Penn,
as from him, and said, the duke ordered the sail to be
slackened. Penn was struck with the order; but did not
go to argue the matter with the duke himself, as he ought
to have done, but obeyed it. When the duke had slept, he,
upon his waking, went out on the quarter-deck, and seemed
amazed to see the sails slackened, and that thereby all
hope of overtaking the Dutch was lost. He questioned
Penn upon it. Penn put it on Brouncker, who said nothing.
The duke denied he had given any such order; but he
neither punished Brouncker for carrying it, nor Penn for
obeying it[9]. He indeed put Brouncker out of his service:
and it was said that he durst do no more, because he was
so much both in the king's favour and in the mistress's.
Penn was more in his favour after that than ever, which he
continued to his son after him, though a quaker: and it
was thought that all that favour was to oblige him to keep
the secret. Lord Montagu did believe that the duke was
struck, seeing the earl of Falmouth[10], the favourite, and two
other persons of quality, killed very near him; and that he
393
had no mind to engage again, and that Penn was privately
with him. If Brouncker was so much in fault as he seemed
to be, it was thought the duke, in the passion that this
must have raised in him, would have proceeded to greater
extremities, and not have acted with so much phlegm.
This proved the breaking the designs of the king's whole
reign: for the Dutch themselves believed that, if our fleet
had followed them with full sail, we must have come up
with them next tide, and have either sunk or taken their
whole fleet. De Witt was struck with this misfortune: and,
imputing some part of it to errors in conduct, he resolved
to go on board himself, as soon as their fleet was ready to
go to sea again.
Upon this occasion I will say a little of him, and of the affairs of Holland. His father was the deputy of the town of Dort in the States, when the late prince of Orange[11] was so much offended with their proceedings in disbanding a great part of their army: and he was one of those whom he ordered upon that to be carried to the castle of Loevestein. Soon after that, his design on Amsterdam miscarrying, he saw a necessity of making up the best he could with the States. But, before he had quite healed that wound, he died of the small-pox. Upon his death all his party fell in disgrace, and the Loevesteiners carried all before them. So De Witt got his son John, then but twenty-five years of age, made pensioner of Dort[12]. And within a year after, the pensioner of Holland dying, he was made pensioner of Holland. His breeding was to the civil law, which he understood very well. He was a great mathematician: and as his Elementa Curvarum shew what 394 a man he was that way, so perhaps no man ever applied algebra to all matters of trade so nicely as he did. He made himself so entirely the master of the state of Holland, that he understood exactly all the concerns of their revenue, and what sums, and in what manner, could be raised upon any emergent of state: for this he had a pocketbook full of tables, and was ever ready to shew how they could be furnished with money. He was a frank, sincere man, without fraud, or any other artifice but silence: to which he had so accustomed the world, that it was not easy to know whether he was silent on design or custom. He had a great clearness of apprehension: and when any thing was proposed to him, how new soever, he heard all patiently, and then asked such questions as occurred to him: and by the time he had done all this, he was as much master of the proposition as the person was that had made it. He knew nothing of modern history, nor of the state of courts: and was eminently defective in all points of form. But he laid down this for a maxim, that all princes and states followed their own interests: so by observing what their true interests were, he thought he could without great intelligence calculate what they were about. He did not enough consider how far passions, amours, humours, and opinions wrought on the world, chiefly on princes. He had the notions of a commonwealth from the Greeks and Romans: and from them he came to fancy, that an army commanded by officers of their own country was both more in their own power, and would serve them with the more zeal, since they themselves had such an interest in the success. And so he was against their hiring foreigners, unless it was to be common soldiers, to save their own people. But he did not enough consider the phlegm and covetousness of his countrymen; of which he felt the ill effects afterwards. This was his greatest error, and it turned fatally upon him. But for the administration of justice at home, and for the management of their trade, and their forces by sea, he was the ablest minister they ever had. He had a hereditary 395 hatred to the house of Orange. He thought it was impossible to maintain their liberty if they were still statholders. Therefore he did all that was possible to put an invincible bar in their way, by the perpetual edict. But at the same time he took great 113 care of preserving the young prince's fortune; and looked well to his education, and gave him, as the prince himself told me, very just notions of every thing relating to their state. For he said, he did not know, but that at some time or other he would be set over them: therefore he intended to render him fit to govern well[13] The town of Amsterdam became at that time very ungovernable. It was thought that the West India company had been given up chiefly by their means; for it was in value so equal to the East India company, that the actions of both were often exchanged for one another. When the bishop of Munster[14] began his pretensions on that city and on a great part of Westphalia, they offered themselves up to the States, if they would preserve them. But the town of Amsterdam would not consent to it, nor submit to the charge. Yet they never seemed to set up for a superiority over the rest, nor to break the credit of the courts at the Hague: only they were backward in every thing that was proposed and increased the charge, and were become so weary of De Witt, that he felt how much this miscarriage at sea had shaken his credit; since misfortunes are always imputed to the errors of those that govern. So he resolved to go on board. De Ruyter often said, that he was amazed to see how soon he came to a perfect understanding of all sea affairs. The winds were so long backward, that it was not easy 396 to get their great ships through the Zuyder Sea: so he went out in boats himself, and plummed it all so carefully, that he found many more ways of getting out by different winds, than was thought formerly practicable. He got out in time to be master of the sea before the end of the season: and so recovered the affront of the former loss, by keeping at sea after the English fleet was forced to put in. The earl of Sandwich was sent to the north with a great part of the fleet, to lie for the East India ships; but he was thought too remiss. They got, before he was aware of it, into Bergen in Norway. If he had followed them quick, he could have forced the port, and taken them all. But he observed forms, and sent to the viceroy of Norway demanding entrance. That was denied him. But while these messages went backward and forward, the Dutch had so fortified the entrance into the port, that, though it was attempted with great courage, yet Tiddiman, and those who composed that squadron, were beat off with great loss, and forced to let go a very rich fleet.
Here I will add a particular relation of a transaction relating to that affair, taken from the account given of it in a MS. that I have in my hands by sir Gilbert Talbot[15], then the king's envoy at the court of Denmark. That king did, in June 1665, open himself very freely to Talbot, complaining of the States, who, as he said, had drawn the Swedish war on him, on design that he might be forced to depend on them for supplies of money and shipping, and so to get the customs of Norway and the Sound into their hands for their security. Talbot upon that told him, that the Dutch Smyrna fleet was now in Bergen, besides many rich West India ships; and that they stayed there in expectation of a double East India fleet, and of De Ruyter, who was returning with the spoils of the coast of Guinea. So he said the king of Denmark might seize 397 those ships before the convoy came which they expected. The king of Denmark said, he had not strength to execute that. Talbot said, the king his master would send a force to effect it: but it was reasonable he should have the half of the spoil. To which the king of Denmark readily agreed, and ordered him to propose it to his master. So he immediately transmitted it to the king, who approved of it, and promised to send a fleet to put it in execution. The ministers of Denmark were appointed to concert the matter with Talbot; but nothing was put in writing, for the king of Denmark was ashamed to treat of such an affair otherwise than by word of mouth. Before the end of July, news came that De Ruyter, with the East India fleet, was on the coast of Norway. Soon after he came into Bergen. The riches then in that port were reckoned at many millions[16].
The earl of Sandwich was then in those seas[17]. So Talbot sent a vessel express to him with the news, but that vessel fell into the Dutch fleet, and was sent to Holland. The king of Denmark wrote to the viceroy of 398 Norway and to the governor of Bergen, ordering them to use all fair means to keep the Dutch still in their harbour, promising to send particular instructions in a few days to them how to proceed. Talbot sent letters with these, to be delivered secretly to the commanders of the English frigates, to let them know that they might boldly assault the Dutch in port; for the Danes would make no resistance, pretending a fear that the English might destroy their town: but that an account was to be kept of the prize, that the king of Denmark might have a just half of it. They were not to be surprised, if the Danes seemed at first to talk high: that was to be done for shew: but they would grow calmer when they should engage. The earl of Sandwich sent his secretary to Talbot, to know the particulars of the agreement with the king of Denmark. But the vessel that brought him was ordered, upon landing the secretary, to come back to the fleet, so that it was impossible to send by that vessel what was desired, and no other ship could be got to carry back the secretary. And thus the earl of Sandwich went to attack the Dutch fleet without staying for an answer from Talbot, or knowing what orders the governor of Bergen had yet received: for though the orders were sent, yet it was so great a way, ten or twelve days' journey, that they could not reach the place but after the English fleet had made the attack. The viceroy of Norway, who resided at Christiana, had his orders sooner, and sent out two galleys to communicate the agreement to the earl of Sandwich; but missed him, for he was then before Bergen. The governor of Bergen, not having yet the orders that the former express had promised him. sent a gentleman to the English fleet, desiring they would make no attack for two or three days; for by that time he expected his orders. Clifford was sent to the governor, who insisted that till he had orders he must defend the port, but that he expected them in a very little time. Upon Clifford's going back to the fleet, a council of war was called, in which the officers, animated with the 399 hope of a rich booty, resolved without further delay to attack the port, either doubting the sincerity of the Danish court, or unwilling to give them so large a share of that on which they reckoned as already their prize. Upon this Tiddiman began the attack, which ended fatally. Divers frigates were disabled, and many officers and seamen were killed. The squadron was thus ruined, and Tiddiman was ready to sink: so he was forced to slip his cables, and retire to the fleet, which lay without the rocks. This action was on the third of August: and on the fourth the governor received his orders. So he sent for Clifford, and shewed him his orders. But, as the English fleet had by their precipitation forced him to do what he had done, so he could not, upon what had happened the day before, execute these orders till he sent an account of what had passed to the court of Denmark, and had the king's second orders upon it. And, if the whole English fleet would not stay in those seas so long, he desired they would leave six frigates before the harbour, and he would engage the Dutch should not in the mean while go out to sea. But the English were sullen upon their disappointment, and sailed away. The king of Denmark was unspeakably troubled at the loss of the greatest treasure he was ever like to have in his hands. Thus a design well laid, that would have been as fatal to the Dutch as ignominious to the king of Denmark, was, by the impatient ravenousness of the English, lost without a possibility of recovering it. And indeed there was not one good step made after this in the whole progress of the war. The blame of the miscarriage was cast on the lord Sandwich, who was sent ambassador into Spain, that his disgrace might be a little softened by that employment[18]. The duke's conduct was much blamed, and it was said he was most in fault, but that the earl of Sandwich was made the sacrifice[19]. 400
England was at this time in a dismal state[20]. The plague continued for the most part of the summer in and about London, and began to spread over the country. The earl of Clarendon moved the king to go to Salisbury, but the plague broke out there: so the court removed to Oxford, where another session of parliament was held, and though the conduct at sea was severely reflected on, yet all that was necessary for carrying on the war another year was given[21]. The house of commons kept up still the ill humour they were in against the nonconformists. A great many of the ministers of London were driven away by the plague, though some few stayed. Many churches being shut up[22], when the inhabitants were in a more than ordinary disposition to profit by good sermons, some of the non-conformists went into the empty pulpits, and preached, as it was given out, with very good success: and in many other places they began to preach openly, 401 not without reflecting on the sins of the court, and on the ill usage that they themselves had met with. This was represented very odiously at Oxford. So a severe bill was brought in, requiring all the silenced ministers to take an oath, declaring it was not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the king, or any commissioned by him; and that they would not at any time endeavour an alteration in the government, in church or state[23]. Such as refused this were not to come within five miles of any city, or parliament borough, or of the church where they had served. This was much opposed in both houses, but more faintly in the house of commons. The earl of Southampton spoke vehemently against it in the house of lords; he said he could take no such oath himself: for, how firm soever he had always been to the church, yet, as things were managed, he did not know but he himself might see cause to endeavour an alteration. Dr. Earle, the bishop of Salisbury[24], died at that time, but before his death he declared himself much against the act. He was the man of all the clergy for whom the king had the greatest esteem: he had been his subtutor, and had followed him in all his exile, with so clear a character that the king could never see or hear of any one thing 402 amiss in him. So he, who had a secret pleasure in finding out any thing that lessened a man esteemed eminent for piety, had a value for him beyond all the men of his order. Sheldon and Ward were the bishops that acted and argued most for this act, which came to be called the five mile act. All that were the secret favourers of popery promoted it: their constant maxim being, to bring all the sectaries into so desperate a state, that they should be at mercy, and forced to desire a toleration on such terms as the king should think fit to grant it. Clifford began to make a great figure in the house of commons[25]. He was the son of a clergyman, born to a small fortune, but was a man of great vivacity. He was reconciled to the church of Rome before the restoration. Lord Clarendon had many spies among the priests, and the news of this was brought him among other things. So, when Clifford began first to appear in the house, he got one to recommend him to the lord Clarendon's favour. He looked into the advice that was brought him: and by comparing things together, he perceived that he 114 must be that man: so he excused himself the best he could. Upon this Clifford struck in with his enemies, and tied himself particularly to Bennet, made lord, and afterwards earl of Arlington. While the act was before the house of commons, Vaughan[26], made afterward chief justice of the common pleas, moved that the word legally might be added to the word commissioned by the king: but Finch[27], then attorney-general, said that was needless; since unless the commission was legal it was no commission, and, to 403 make it legal it must be issued out for a lawful occasion, and to persons capable of it, and must pass in the due form of law. The other insisted that the addition would clear all scruples, and procure an universal compliance. But that could not be obtained; for it was intended to lay difficulties in the way of those against whom the act was levelled[28]. When the bill came up to the lords, the earl of Southampton moved for the same addition; but was answered by the earl of Anglesea upon the same grounds on which Finch went. Yet this gave great satisfaction to many who heard of it, this being the avowed sense of the legislators; and the whole matter was so explained by Bridgeman, when Bates with a great many more came into the court of common pleas to take the oath. The act passed: and the nonconformists were put to great straits. They had no mind to take the oath, and they scarce knew how to dispose of themselves according to the terms of the act. Some moderate men took pains to persuade them to take the oath; it was said that by endeavour was only meant an unlawful endeavour; and that it was so declared in the debates in both houses. Some judges did on the bench expound it in that sense, and so some few of them took it; many more refused it, who were put to hard shifts to live, being so far separated from the places from which they draw their chief subsistence. Yet as all this severity in a time of war, and of such a public calamity, drew very hard censures on the promoters of it, so it raised the compassions of their party so much, that I have been told they were supplied more plentifully at that time than ever. There was better reason than perhaps those of Oxford knew to suspect practices against the state. 404
Algernon Sidney, and some others of the commonwealth party, came to De Witt, and pressed him to think of an invasion of England and Scotland, and gave him great assurances of a strong party: and they were bringing many officers to Holland to join in the undertaking. They dealt also with some in Amsterdam, who were particularly sharpened against the king, and were for turning England again into a commonwealth. The matter was for some time in agitation at the Hague: but De Witt was against it, and got it to be laid aside[29]. He said, their going into such a design would provoke France to turn against them: it might engage them in a long war, the consequences of which could not be foreseen: and, as there was no reason to think that, while the parliament was so firm to the king, any discontents could be carried so far as to a general rising, which these men undertook for, so, he said, what would the effect be of turning England into a commonwealth, if it could possibly be brought about, but the ruin of Holland ? It would naturally draw many of the Dutch to leave their country, that could not be kept and maintained but at a vast charge, and to exchange that with the plenty and security that England afforded. Therefore all that he would engage in was, to weaken the trade of England, and to destroy their fleet; in which he succeeded the following year beyond all expectation. The busy men in Scotland, being encouraged from Rotterdam, went about the country, to try if any men of weight would set themselves at the head of their designs for an insurrection. The earl of Cassillis and Lockhart were the two persons they resolved to try; but they did it at so great a distance, that, from the proposition, there was no danger of misprision. Lord Cassillis had given his word to the king, 405 that he would never engage in any plots: and he had got under the king's hand a promise, that he and his family should not be disturbed, let him serve God in what way he pleased: so he did not suffer them to come so far as to make him any proposition. Lockhart did the same. They seeing no other person that had credit enough in the country to bring the people about him, gave over all projects for that year. But, upon the informations that the king had of their caballing at Rotterdam, he raised those troops of which mention was formerly made[30].
An accident happened this winter at Oxford, too inconsiderable and too tender to be mentioned, if it were not that great effects were believed to have followed on it. The duke had always one private amour after another, in the managing of which he seemed to stand more in awe of the duchess, than, considering the inequality of their rank, could have been imagined. Talbot[31] was looked on as the chief manager of those intrigues. The duchess's deportment was unexceptionable, which made her authority the greater. At Oxford there was then a very graceful young man of quality that belonged to her court, whose service was so acceptable, that she was thought to look at him in a particular manner[32]. This was so represented to the duke, that he, being resolved to emancipate himself into more open practices, took up a jealousy, and put the person 406 out of his court with so much precipitation, that the thing became very public. By this means the duchess lost the power she had over him so entirely, that no method she could think on was like to recover it, except one. She began to discover what his religion was, though he still came not only to church but to sacrament. And upon that, she, to regain what she had lost, entered into private discourses with his priests; but in so secret a. manner, that there was not for some years after this the least suspicion given. She began by degrees to slacken in her constant coming to prayers and to sacrament, in which she had been before that regular, almost to superstition. She put that on her ill health: for she fell into an ill habit of body, which some imputed to the effect of some of the duke's distempers communicated to her. A story was set about, and generally believed, that the earl of Southesk[33], that had married a daughter of duke Hamilton, suspecting some familiarities between the duke and his wife, had taken a sure method to procure a disease to himself, which he communicated to his wife, and that was by that means set round till it 115 came to the duchess, who was so tainted with it, that it was the occasion of the death of all her children, except the two daughters, our two queens; and that was believed the cause of an illness under which she languished long, and died so corrupted, that in dressing her body after her death, one of her breasts burst, being a mass of corruption. Lord Southesk was for some years not ill pleased to have this believed; it looked like a peculiar strain of revenge, with which he seemed much delighted. But I knew he has to some of his friends denied the whole a story very solemnly. Another earl[34] acted a better part. He did not like a 407 commerce that he observed between the duke and his wife. He went and expostulated with him upon it. The duke fell a commending his wife much. He told him he came not to seek his wife's character from him: the most effectual way of his commending her, was to have nothing to do with her. He added, that if princes would do those wrongs to subjects, who could not demand such a reparation of honour as they could from their equals, it would put them on secreter methods of revenge: for there were injuries that men of honour could not bear. And, upon a new observation he made of the duke's designs upon his wife, he quitted a very good post, and went with her into the country, where he kept her till she died. Upon the whole matter the duke was often ill: the children were born with ulcers, or they broke out soon after: and all his sons died young and unhealthy[35]. This has, as far as any thing whatsoever that could be brought in the way of proof, prevailed to create a suspicion that so healthy a child as the pretended prince of Wales could neither be his, nor be born of any wife with whom he had lived long[36]. The violent pain that his eldest daughter had in her eyes, and the gout which has so early seized our present queen, are thought the dregs of a tainted original. Upon which, Willis, the great physician, being called to consult for one of his sons, gave his opinion in these words, Mala stamina vitæ; which gave such offence that he was never called for afterwards.
I know nothing of the councils of the year [16]66, nor 408 whose advices prevailed. It was resolved on that the duke should not go to sea, but that Monk[37] should command the great fleet of between fifty and sixty ships of line, and that prince Rupert should be sent with a squadron of about twenty-five ships to meet the French fleet, and to hinder their conjunction with the Dutch: for the French promised a fleet to join the Dutch, but never sent it[38]. Monk went out so certain of victory that he seemed only concerned for fear the Dutch should not come out. The court flattered themselves with the hopes of a very happy year. But it proved a fatal one: the Dutch came out, De Witt and some of the States being on board[39]. They engaged the English fleet for two days, in which they had a manifest superiority; but it cost them dear, for the English fought well. But the Dutch were superior in number[40], and were so well furnished with chained shot, 409 with a peculiar contrivance of which De Witt had the honour to be thought the inventor, that the English fleet was quite unrigged, and they were in no condition to work themselves off. So they must have all been taken, sunk, or burnt, if Prince Rupert, being yet in the Channel, and hearing that they were engaged by the continued roaring of guns, had not made all possible haste to get to them. He came in good time: and the Dutch, who had suffered much, seeing so great a force come up, steered off. He was in no condition to pursue them; but brought off our fleet, which saved us a great loss, that seemed otherwise unavoidable[41]. The court gave out that it was a victory: and public thanksgivings were ordered, which was a horrid mocking of God, and a lying to the world. We had in one respect reason to thank God, that we had not lost our whole fleet. But to complete the miseries of this year. The plague was so sunk in London that the inhabitants began to return to it, and brought with them a great deal 410 of manufacture, which was lying on the hands of the clothiers and others, now in the second year of the war, in which trade and all other consumption were very low. It was reckoned that a peace must come next winter[42]. The merchants were preparing to go to market as soon as possible. The summer had been the driest that was known of some years, and London being for the most part built of timber filled up with plaister, all was extreme dry. On the second of September a fire broke out, that raged for three days as if it had a commission to devour every thing that was in its way. On the fourth day it stopt, in the midst of very combustible matter[43].
I will not enlarge on the extent nor the destruction made by the fire: many books are full of it. That which is still a great secret is, whether it was casual, or raised on design. The English fleet had landed on the Vlie, an island lying near the Texel, and had burnt it: upon which some came to De Witt, and offered a revenge, that they would set London on fire, if they might be well furnished and well rewarded for it. He rejected the proposition: for he said he would not make the breach wider, nor the quarrel irreconcilable. He said it was brought him by one of the Labadists[44], as sent to him by some others. He made no farther reflections on the matter till the city was burnt. Then he began to suspect there had been a design, and that they had intended to draw him into it, and to lay the odium of it upon the Dutch. But he could 411 hear no news of those who had sent that proposition to him. In the April before, some commonwealth's men were found in a plot, and hanged; who at their execution confessed they had been spoke to to assist in a design of burning London on 116 the third of September. This was printed in the Gazette of that week, which I my self read[45]. Now the fire breaking out on the second, made all people conclude that there was a design some time before on foot for doing it. The papists[46] were generally charged with it. One Hubert, a French papist[47] , was seized on in Essex, as he was getting out of the way in great confusion: he 412 confessed he had begun the fire, and persisted in his confession to his death; for he was hanged upon no other evidence but that of his own confession. It is true he gave so broken an account of the whole matter that he was thought mad: yet he was blindfolded, and carried to several places of. the city: and then, his eyes being opened, he was asked if that was the place: and he being carried to wrong places, after he looked round about for some time, he then said that was not the place: but when he was brought to the place where it first broke out, he affirmed that was the true place. And Tillotson told me that Howell, then the recorder of London, was with him, and had much discourse with him; and he concluded it was impossible that it could be a melancholy dream. The horror of the fact, and the terror of death, and perhaps some engagements in confession, might put him in such disorder, that it was not possible to draw a clear account of any thing from him but of what related to himself. Tillotson, who believed the city was burnt on design, told me a circumstance that made the papists employing such a creased man in such a service more credible. Langhorn[48], the popish counsellor at law, who for many years passed for a protestant, was despatching a half-witted man to manage the elections in Kent before the Restoration. Tillotson being present, and observing what a sort of a man he was, asked Langhorn how he could employ him in such services. Langhorn answered, it was a maxim with him in dangerous services to employ none but half-witted men, if they could be but secret and obey orders: for if they should change their minds, and turn informers instead of agents, it would be easy to discredit them, and to carry off the weight of any discoveries they could make, and shew they were madmen, and so not like to be trusted in critical things. The most extraordinary passage, though it is but a presumption, was told me by doctor Lloyd and the countess of Clarendon, who had a great estate in the New River 413 that is brought from Ware to London, which is brought together at Islington, where there is a great room full of pipes that convey it through all the streets of London. The constant order of that matter was, to set all the pipes a running on Saturday night, that so the cisterns might be all full by Sunday morning, there being a more than ordinary consumption of water on Saturdays. There was one Grant, a papist[49], under whose name sir William Petty published his observations on the bills of mortality: he applied himself to Lloyd some time before, who had great credit with the countess of Clarendon[50], and said he could raise that estate considerably, if she would make him a trustee for her. His schemes were probable: and he was made one of the board that governed that matter: and by that he had a right to come as oft as he pleased, to view their works at Islington. He went thither the Saturday before the fire broke out, and called for the key of the place where the heads of the pipes were, and turned all the cocks that were then open, and stopped the water, and went away, and carried the key with him[51]. So when the fire broke out next morning, they opened the pipes 414 in the streets to find water, but there was none; so some hours were lost in sending to Islington, where the door was to be broke open, and the cocks turned; and it was long before the water got to London. Grant indeed denied that he had turned the cocks; but the officer of the works affirmed that he had, according to order, set them all a running, and that no person had got the keys from him besides Grant, who confessed he had carried away the keys, but pretended he did it without design[52]. There were many other stories set about, as that the papists in several places had asked if there was no news of the burning of London, and that it was talked of in many parts beyond sea, long before the news could get thither from London. In this matter I was much determined by what sir Thomas Littleton, the father, told me. He was treasurer of the navy in conjunction with Osborn, afterwards made lord treasurer, who supplanted him in that post, and got it all into his own hands[53]. He had a very bad opinion of the king; and thought that he had worse intentions than his brother, but that he had a more dexterous way of covering and managing them; only his 415 laziness made him less earnest in prosecuting them[54]. His chief estate lay in the city, not far from the place where the fire broke out, though it did not turn that way. He was one of the committee of the House of Commons that examined all the presumptions of the city's being burnt on design: and he often assured me that there was no clear presumption well made out about it, and that many stories that were published with great assurance came to nothing upon a strict examination[55]. He was at that time that the inquiry was made 117 in employment at court. So whether that biassed him or not, I cannot tell. There was so great a diversity of opinions in the matter that I must leave it under the same uncertainty in which I found it. If the French and Dutch had been at that time designing an impression elsewhere, it might have been more reasonable to suppose it was done on design, to distract our affairs: but it fell out at 416 a dead time, when no advantage could be made of it. And it did not seem probable that the papists engaged in the design merely to impoverish and ruin the nation, for they had nothing ready then to graft upon the confusion that this put all people in. Above twelve thousand houses were burnt down, with the greatest part of the furniture and merchandise that was in them. All means used to stop it proved ineffectual; though the blowing up of houses was the most effectual. But the wind was so high, that fleaks of fire and burning matter were carried in the air cross several streets, so that the fire spread not only in the next neighbourhood, but at a great distance. The king and the duke were almost all the day long on horseback, with the guards, seeing to all that could be done, either for quenching the fire, or for the carrying off persons and goods to the fields all about London[56]. The most astonishing circumstance of that dreadful conflagration was, that, notwithstanding the great destruction that was made, and the great confusion in the streets, I could never hear of any one person that was either burnt or trode to death. The king was never observed to be so much struck with any thing in his whole life as with this. But the citizens were not so well satisfied with the duke's behaviour; they thought it looked too gay and too little concerned. A jealousy of his being concerned in it was spread about with great industry, but with very little appearance of truth. Yet it grew to be generally believed, chiefly after he owned that he was a papist. 417
In Scotland the fermentation went very high. Turner was sent again into the west, in October this year, and he began to treat the country at the old rate[1]. The people were alarmed, and saw they were to be undone. They met together, and talked with some fiery ministers[2]; Semple, Maxwell, Welsh, and Guthrie were the chief incendiaries. Two gentlemen that had served in the wars, one a lieutenant-colonel, Wallace, and the other that had been a major, Learmouth, were the best officers they had to rely on[3]. The chief gentlemen of those counties were all 418 clapt up in prison, as was formerly told; so that preserved them: otherwise they must either have engaged with the people, or have lost their interest among them. The people were told that the fire of London had put things in that confusion at court, that any vigorous attempt would disorder all the king's affairs. If the new levied troops had not stood in their way, they would have been able to have carried all things before them: for the two troops of guards, with the regiment of foot guards, would not [have] been able to have kept their ground before them. The people, as some of them told me afterwards, were made to believe that the whole nation was in the same disposition. So on the thirteenth of November they run together: and two hundred of them went to Dumfries, where Turner then lay with a few soldiers about him; the greatest part of his men being then out in parties for the levying of fines. So they surprised him before he could get to his arms: otherwise, he told me, he would have been killed rather than taken, since he expected no mercy from them. With himself they seized his papers and instructions, by which it appeared he had been gentler than his orders were. So they resolved to keep him, and exchange him as occasion should be offered: but they did not tell him what they intended to do with him; so he thought they were keeping him till they might hang him up with the more solemnity. There was a considerable cash in his hands, partly for the pay of his men, partly of what he had raised in the country, that was seized: but he to whom they trusted the keeping of it run away with it[4]. They spread a report, which they have since printed, and it passed for some time current, that this rising was the effect of a sudden heat that the country was put in by seeing one of their neighbours tied 419 on a horse hand and foot, and carried away, only because he could not pay a high fine that was set upon him; and that upon this provocation, the neighbours, who did not know how soon such usage would fall to their own turn, run together, and rescued him; and that they, fearing some severe usage for that, they kept together, and that others coming in to them they went in and seized on Turner. But this was a story raised only to beget compassion: for, after the insurrection was quashed, the privy council sent some round the country, to examine the violences that had been committed, particularly in the parish where it was given out that this was done. I read the report they made to the council, and all the depositions that the people of the country brought before them: but this was not mentioned in any one of them.
The news of this rising was brought to Edinburgh, fame increasing their numbers to some thousands. And this happening to be near Carlisle, the governor of that place sent an express to court, in which the strength of the party was magnified, much beyond the truth. The earl of Rothes was then at court, who had assured the king that all things were so well managed in Scotland, that they were in perfect quiet: there were, he said, some stubborn fanatics still left, that would be soon subdued: but there was no danger from any thing that they or their party could do[5]. He gave no credit to the express from Carlisle: but two days after the news was confirmed by an express from Scotland[6]. Sharp was then at the head of the government: so he managed this little war, and gave all the orders and directions in it. Dalyel was commanded to draw all the force they had together, which lay then 420 dispersed in quarters. When that was done, he marched westward. A great many run to the rebels, who came to be called the Whigs[7]. 118 At Lanerick, in Clydesdale, they had a solemn fast day, in which, after much praying, they renewed the covenant, and set out their manifesto, in which they denied that they rose against the king; they complained of the oppression under which they had groaned; they desired that episcopacy might be put down, and that presbytery and the covenant might be set up, and their ministers restored again to them; and then they promised that they would be in all other things the king's most obedient subjects. The earl of Argyll raised fifteen hundred men, and wrote to the council that he was ready to march upon order. Sharp thought that if he came into the country, either he or his men would certainly join with the rebels: so he sent him no orders at all; but he was at the charge of keeping his men together to no purpose. Sharp was all the while in a dreadful consternation, and wrote dismal letters to court, praying that the forces which lay in the north of England might be ordered down; for he wrote they were surrounded with the rebels, and did not know what was become of the king's forces[8]. He also moved that the council would go and shut themselves up within the castle of Edinburgh; but that was opposed by the rest of the board, as an abandoning of the town, and the betraying an unbecoming fear, which might very much encourage both the rebels and all such as intended to 421 go over to them. Orders were given out for raising the country, but there was no militia yet formed. In the mean while Dalyel followed the rebels as close as he could. He published a proclamation of pardon, as he was ordered, to all that should in twenty-four hours' time return to their own houses, and declared all that continued any longer in arms rebels. He found the country was so well affected towards them, that he could get no sort of intelligence but what his own parties brought in to him[9]. The Whigs marched towards Edinburgh, and came within two mile of the town, but finding neither town nor country declared for them, and that all the hopes their leaders had given them proved false, they lost heart. From being once above two thousand, they were now come to be not above eight or nine hundred. So they resolved to return back to the west, where they knew the people were of their side, and where they could more easily disperse themselves, and get either into England or Ireland. The ministers were very busy in all those counties, plying people of all ranks not to forsake their brethren in this extremity; and they had got a company of about three or fourscore gentlemen together, who were marching towards them, when they heard of their defeat: and upon that they dispersed themselves. The rebels thought to have marched back by the way of Pentland hills. They were not much concerned for the few horses they had, and knew that Dalyel, whose horse was fatigued with a fortnight's constant march, could not follow them; and if they had gained but one night more in their march, they had got out of his reach. But on the twenty-eighth of November, about an hour before sun-set, he came up to them. They were posted on the top of a hill[10]: so he engaged with great disadvantage. They, 422 finding they could not get off, stopt their march. Their ministers did all they could by preaching and praying to infuse courage into them: and they sung the seventy-fourth and the seventy-eighth Psalms, and so they turned on the king's forces. They received the first charge that was given by the troop of guards very resolutely, and put them in disorder, but that was all the action; for immediately they lost all order, and run for their lives. It was now dark: about forty were killed on the spot, and a hundred and thirty were taken. The rest were favoured by the darkness of the night and the weariness of the king's troops, that were not in case to pursue them, and had no great heart to it: for they were a poor harmless company of men, become mad by oppression[11]: and they had taken nothing during all the time they had been together, but what had been freely given them by the country people. The rebellion was broke with the loss only of five of the king's side. The general came next day into Edinburgh with his prisoners. 423
The two archbishops were now delivered out of all their fears: and the common observation, that cruelty and cowardice go together, was too visibly verified on this occasion. Lord Rothes came down full of rage: and that being inflamed by the two archbishops, he resolved to proceed with the utmost severity against the prisoners. Burnet advised the hanging of all those who would not renounce the covenant, and would not promise to conform to the laws for the future: but that was thought too severe; yet he was sent up to London, to procure of the king an instruction that they should tender the declaration renouncing the covenant to all who were thought disaffected, and to proceed against those who refused that as against seditious persons. The best of the episcopal clergy set upon the bishops, to lay hold on this opportunity for regaining the affections of the country, by becoming intercessors for the prisoners, and for the country, that was like to be quartered on and eat up for the favour they had expressed to them. Many of the bishops went into this, and particularly Wishart of Edinburgh, though a rough man, and sharpened by ill usage[12]; yet upon this occasion he expressed a very Christian temper, such as became one who had felt what the rigours of a prison had been; for he sent every day very liberal supplies to the prisoners: which was indeed done by the whole town in so bountiful a manner, that many of them, who being shut up had neither air nor exercise, were in greater danger by their plenty, than they had been by all their unhappy campaign. But Sharp could not be 119 mollified. On the contrary, he encouraged the ministers in the disaffected counties to bring in all the informations they could gather, both against the prisoners and against all who had been among them, that they might be sought for and proceeded against. Most of those got over to Ireland. But the ministers 424 acted so ill a part, so unbecoming their character, that the aversion of the country to them was increased to all possible degrees. They looked on them now as wolves, and not as shepherds. It was a moving sight to see ten of the prisoners hanged upon one gibbet at Edinburgh: thirty-five more were sent to their countries, and hanged up before their own doors; their ministers all the while using them hardly, and declaring them damned for their rebellion. They might all have saved their lives, if they would have renounced the covenant. They did all at their death give their testimony, according to their phrase, to the covenant, and to all that had been done pursuant to it: and they expressed great joy in their sufferings. Most of them were but mean and inconsiderable men in all respects, yet even these were firm and inflexible in their persuasions[13]. Many of them escaped, notwithstanding the great search was made for them. Guthrie[14], the chief of their preachers, was hid in my mother's house, who was bred to her brother's principles, and could never be moved from them. He died next spring. One McKail, that was only a probationer preacher, who had been chaplain in sir James Stewart's house, had gone from Edinburgh to them, It was believed he was sent by the party in town, and that he knew their correspondents: so he was put to the torture, which in Scotland they call the boots; for they put a pair of iron boots close on the leg, and drive wedges between these and the leg. The common torture was only to drive these in the calf of the leg: but I have been told they were sometimes driven upon the chine bone. He bore the torture with great constancy: and either he could say nothing, or he had the firmness not to discover those who had trusted him. Every man of them could have saved his own life, if he would accuse any other: but they 425 were all true to their friends[15]. McKail, for all the pain of the torture, died as in a rapture of joy: his last words were, Farewell sun, moon, and stars, farewell kindred and friends, farewell world and time, farewell weak and frail body; welcome eternity, welcome angels and saints, welcome Saviour of the world, and welcome God the Judge of all: which he spoke with a voice and manner that struck all that heard it[16]. His death was the more censured, because it came to be known afterwards, that Burnet, who had come down before his execution, had brought with him a letter from the king, in which he approved of all that they had done, but added, that he thought there was blood enough shed, and therefore he ordered that such of the prisoners as would promise to obey the laws for the future should be set at liberty, and that the incorrigible should be sent to plantations[17]. Burnet let the execution go on, before he produced his letter, pretending there was no council-day between; but he, who knew the contents of it, ought to have moved the lord Rothes to call an extraordinary council to prevent the execution. So that blood was laid on him. He was, contrary to his natural temper, very violent at that time, much inflamed by his family, and by all about him. Thus this rebellion, that might have been so turned in the conclusion of it that the clergy might have gained reputation and honour by a wise and merciful conduct, did now exasperate the country more than ever against the church. The forces were ordered to lie in the west, where Dalyel acted the Muscovite too grossly[18]: he 426 threatened to spit men and to roast them, and killed some in cold blood, or rather in hot blood; for he was then drunk when he ordered one to be hanged, because he would not tell where his father was, for whom he was in search a . When he heard of any that did not go to church; he would not trouble himself to set a fine upon him, but he set as many soldiers upon him as should eat him up in a night. By this means all people were struck with such a terror that they came regularly to church. And the clergy were so delighted with it, that they used to speak of that time as the poets do of the golden age. They never interceded for any compassion to their people; nor did they take care to live more regularly, or to labour more carefully. They looked on the soldiery as their patrons: they were ever in their company, complying with them in their excesses, and, if they were not much wronged, they rather led them into them than checked them for them. Dalyel himself and his officers were so disgusted with them, that they increased the complaints, that had now more credit from them than from those of the country, who were looked on as their enemies. Things of so strange a pitch in vice were told of them, that they seemed scarce credible. The person, whom I believed the best as to all such things, was one sir John Cunningham, an eminent lawyer, 120 who had an estate in the country, and was the most extraordinary man of his profession in that kingdom[19]. He was episcopal beyond 427 most men in Scotland, who for the far greatest part thought that forms of government were in their own nature indifferent, and might be either good or bad according to the hands in which they fell; whereas he thought episcopacy was of divine right, settled by Christ. He was not only very learned in the civil and canon law, and in the philological learning, but was very universal in all other learning: he was a great divine, and well read in the fathers and ecclesiastical history. He was, above all, a man of eminent probity, and of a sweet temper, and indeed one of the piousest[20] men of the nation. The state of the church in those parts went to his heart: for it was not easy to know how to keep an even hand between the perverseness of the people on the one side, and the vices of the clergy on the other. They looked on all those that were sensible of their miscarriages, as enemies of the church. It was after all hard to believe all that was set about against them.
The king's affairs in England forced him to soften his government every where. So at this time the earls of Tweeddale and Kincardine went to court, and laid before the king the ill state the country was in. Sir Robert Moray talked often with him about it[21]. Lord Lauderdale was more cautious, by reason of the jealousy of his being a presbyterian. Upon all which, the king resolved to put Scotland into other hands. A convention of estates had been called the year before, to raise money for maintaining the troops. This was a very ancient practice in the Scottish 428 constitution: a convention was summoned to meet within twenty days: they could only levy money, and petition for the redress of grievances, but could make no new laws, and meddled only with that for which they were brought together. In the former convention Sharp had presided, being named by the earl of Rothes as the king's commissioner. In the winter [16]66, or rather in the spring [16]67, there was another convention called, in which the king by a special letter appointed duke Hamilton to preside. And the king in a letter to lord Rothes ordered him to write to Sharp to stay within his diocese, and to come no more to Edinburgh[22]. He upon this was struck with so deep a melancholy, that he shewed as great an abjectness under this slight disgrace, as he had shewed insolence before when he had more favour. The convention continued the assessment for another year at six thousand pounds a month. Sharp, finding himself under a cloud, studied to make himself popular, by looking after the education of the marquis of Huntly, now the duke of Gordon. He had an order long before from the king to look to his education, that he might be bred a protestant; for the strength of popery within that kingdom lay in his family; but, though this was ordered during the earl of Middleton's ministry, Sharp had not looked after it[23]. The earl of Rothes's mistress was a papist, and nearly related to the marquis of Huntly. So Sharp, either to make his court the better, or at the lord Rothes's desire, had 429 neglected it these four years: but now he called for him. He was then about fifteen, well hardened in his prejudices by the loss of so much time. What pains was taken on him I know not; but after a trial of some months Sharp said, he saw he was not to be wrought on, and so sent him back to his mother. So the interest that popery had in Scotland was believed to be chiefly owing to Sharp's compliance with the earl of Rothes's amours. The neglect of his duty in so important a matter was much blamed: but the not doing it upon such a motive was reckoned yet more infamous. After the convention was over, lord Rothes sent up Drummond to represent to the king the ill affection of the western parts[24]; and, to touch the king in a sensible point, he said the covenant stuck so deep in their hearts, that no good could be done till that was rooted out. So he proposed as an expedient, that the king would give the council a power to require all whom they suspected to renounce the covenant, and to proceed against such as refused it as traitors. Drummond had yet too much of the air of Russia about him, though not with Dalyel's fierceness[25]: he had a great measure of knowledge and learning, and some true impressions of religion: but he was ambitious and covetous, and he thought, that upon such a power granted, there would be great dealing in bribes and confiscations. A slight accident happened, which raised a jest that spoiled his errand. The king flung the cover of the letter into the fire, which was carried up all in a flame, and set the chimney on fire: upon which it was said that the Scottish letter had fired Whitehall: but it was answered, the cover had almost set Whitehall on fire, but the contents of it would certainly set Scotland all in a flame. It was said that the law for renouncing the covenant inferring only a forfeiture of employments to those who refused it, the stretching it so far as was now proposed would be liable to great exception. Yet in 430 compliance with a public message, the instruction was sent down, as it was desired: but by a private letter lord Rothes was ordered to make no use of it, except upon a special command; since the king had only given way to what was desired, to strike terror in the ill affected. The secret of it broke out: so it had no effect, but to make the lord Rothes and his party more odious. Burnet, upon Sharp's disgrace, grew to be more considered; so he was sent up with a proposition of a very extraordinary nature, that the western counties should be cantoned under a special government, and peculiar taxes, together with the quartering of soldiers. It was said that those counties put the nation to the charge of keeping up such a force, and therefore it seemed reasonable that the charge should lie wholly on them. He also proposed that a special council should be appointed to sit at Glasgow: and, among other reasons to enforce that motion, he said to the king, and afterwards to lord Lauderdale, that some at the council board were ill affected to the church, who favoured her enemies, 121 and that traitors had been pleaded for at that board. Lord Lauderdale writ this down presently to know what ground there was for it; since, if it was not true, he had Burnet at mercy for leasing-making, which was more criminal when the whole council was concerned in the lie that was made. The only ground for this was, that one of the rebels, excepted in the indemnity that was proclaimed some time before, being taken, and it being evident that his brain was turned, it was debated in council whether he should be proceeded against or not: some argued against that, and said it would be a reproach to the government to hang a madman. This could in no sort justify such a charge: so lord Lauderdale resolved to make use of it in due time. The proposition itself was rejected, as that which the king could not do by law. Burnet upon this went to the lord Clarendon, and laid before him the sad estate of their affairs in Scotland. He spoke to the king of it: and he set the English bishops on the king, with whom Burnet 431 had more credit, as more entirely theirs, than ever Sharp had. The earl of Clarendon's credit was then declining: and it was a clear sign of it when the king told lord Lauderdale all that he had said to him on Scottish affairs; which provoked him extremely. Burnet was sent down with good words: for the king was resolved to put the affairs of Scotland under another management. Lord Kincardine came down in April, and told me that Lord Rothes was to be stript of all his places, and to be only lord chancellor. The earl of Tweeddale and sir Robert Moray were to have the secret in their hands[26]. He told me the peace was as good as made: and when that was done, the army would be disbanded, and things would be managed with more temper both in church and state. This was then so great a secret, that neither the lord Rothes nor the two archbishops had the least hint of it. Some time after this, lord Rothes went to visit his mistress, who was obliged to live in the north; upon which an accident happened that hastened his fall. The Scots had during the war set out many privateers, and these had brought in very rich prizes. The Dutch, being provoked with this, sent Van Ghendt with a good fleet into the Frith, to burn the coast, and to recover such ships as were in port. He came into the Frith on the first of May. If he had at first hung out English colours, and attacked Leith harbour immediately, which was then full of ships, he might have done what mischief he pleased: for all were secure, and were looking for sir Jeremy Smith with some frigates for the defence of the coast, since the king set out no fleet this year[27]. There 432 had been such a dissipation of treasure, that, for all the money that was given, there was not enough left to set out a fleet[28]. But the court covered this by saying the peace was as good as ended at Breda, where the lord Holles and sir William Coventry[29] were treating it as plenipotentiaries: and, though no cessation was agreed on, yet they reckoned on it as sure. Upon this a saying of the earl of Northumberland's was much repeated: when it was said that the king's mistress was like to ruin the nation, he said it was she that saved the nation; while we had a house of commons that gave all the money that was asked, it was better to have the money squandered away in luxury and prodigality, than to have it saved for worse purposes. Van Ghendt did nothing in the Frith: for some hours he shot against Bruntisland, without doing any mischief. The country people run down to the coast, and made a great show. But this was only a feint, to divert the king from that which was chiefly intended: for he sailed out and joined De Ruyter[30]: and so the fatal attack was made upon the river of Medway: the chain at the mouth of it, which was then all its security, was broke: and the Dutch fleet sailed up to Chatham: of which I will say no more in this place, but go on with the affairs of Scotland.
Lord Rothes his being out of the way when the country 433 was in such danger was severely aggravated by the lord Lauderdale, and did bring on the change somewhat the sooner. In June Moray came down with a letter from the king, superseding lord Rothes's commission, putting the treasury in commission, and making lord Rothes lord chancellor. He excused himself from being raised to that post all he could, and so desired to continue lord treasurer: but he struggled in vain, and was forced to submit at last[31]. Now all was turned to a more sober and more moderate management. Even Sharp grew meek and humble: and said to my self, it was a great happiness to have to deal with sober and serious men, for lord Rothes and his crew were perpetually drunk. When the peace of Breda was concluded, the king wrote to the Scottish council, and communicated that to them; and with that signified it was his pleasure that the army should be disbanded. The earl of Rothes, Burnet, and all the officers, opposed this much. The rebellious disposition of the western counties was much aggravated: it seemed necessary to govern them by a military power. Several expedients were proposed on the other hand. Instead of renouncing the covenant, in which they pretended there were many points of religion concerned, a bond was proposed for keeping the peace, and against rising in arms[32]. This seemed the better test; since it secured the public quiet and the peace of the country, which was at present the most necessary: the religious part was to be left to time and good management. So an indemnity of a more comprehensive nature was proclaimed: 434 and the bond was all the security that was demanded. Many came into the bond: though there were some among them that pretended scruples, for it was said, peace was a word of a large extent: it might be pretended that obeying all the laws was implied in it. Yet the far greater number submitted to this. Those who were disturbed with scruples were a few melancholy inconsiderable persons.
In order to the disbanding the army with the more security, it was proposed that a county militia 122 should be raised, and trained for securing the public peace. The archbishops did not like this: they said, the commons, of whom the militia must be composed, being generally ill affected to the church, this would be a prejudice rather than a security[33]. But to content them, it was concluded that in counties that were ill affected there should be no foot raised, and only some troops of horse. Burnet complained openly, that he saw episcopacy was to be pulled down, and that in such an extremity he could not look on and be silent. He writ upon these matters a long and sorrowful letter to Sheldon, who upon that wrote a very long one to Sir R. Moray, which I read, and found more temper and moderation in it than I could have expected from him. Moray had got so far into his confidence, and he seemed to depend so entirely on his sincerity, that no informations against him could work upon Sheldon[34]. Upon Burnet's carrying things so high, Sharp was better used, and was brought again to the council board, where he began to talk of moderation: and in the debate concerning the disbanding the army, he said it was better to expose the bishops to whatsoever might happen, than to 435 have the kingdom governed for their sakes by a military power. Yet in private he studied to possess all people with prejudices against the persons then employed, as the enemies of the church[35]. At that time lord Lauderdale got the king to write to the privy council, letting them know that he had been informed traitors had been pleaded for at that board. This was levelled at Burnet. The council, in their answer, as they denied the imputation, so they desired to know who it was that had so aspersed them. Burnet, when the letter was offered to him to be signed by him, said he could not say traitors had never been pleaded for at that board, since he himself had once pleaded for one, and put them in mind of the particular case. After this, he saw how much he had exposed himself, and grew tamer. The army was disbanded: so lord Rothes's authority as general, as well as his commission, was now at an end, after it had lasted three years. The pretence of his commission was the preparing matters for a national synod: yet in all that time there was not one step made towards one: for the bishops seemed concerned only for their authority and their revenues, and took no care of regulating either worship or discipline. The earls of Rothes and Tweeddale went to court. The former tried what he could do by the duke of Monmouth's means, who had married his niece[36]: but he was then young, and was engaged in a mad ramble after pleasure, and minded no business. So he saw the necessity of applying himself to lord Lauderdale: and he did dissemble his discontent so dexterously, that he seemed well pleased to be freed from the load of business that lay so heavy upon him. He moved to have his accounts of the treasury passed, to 436 which great exceptions might have been made; and to have an approbation passed under the great seal of all he had done while he was the king's commissioner. Lord Tweeddale was against both and moved that he should be for some time kept under the lash: he knew that, how humble soever he was at that time, he would be no sooner secured from being called to an account for what was passed, than he would set up a cabal in opposition to every thing; whereas they were sure of his good behaviour, as long as he continued so obnoxious. The king loved lord Rothes: so the earl of Lauderdale consented to all he asked. But they quickly saw good cause to repent of their forwardness.
At this time a great change happened in the course of the earl of Lauderdale's life, which made the latter part of it very different from what the former had been. Mr. Murray[37] of the bedchamber had been page and whipping-boy to king Charles I, and had great credit with him, not only in procuring private favours but in all his counsels. He was well turned for a court, very insinuating, but very false; and of so revengeful a temper that rather than any of the counsels given by his enemies should succeed, he would have revealed and betrayed both the king and them. It was generally believed that he discovered the most important of all his secrets to his enemies[38]. He had one particular quality, that when he 437 was drunk, which was very often, he was upon a most exact reserve, though he was pretty open at all other times. He got a warrant to be an earl, which was signed at Newcastle, yet he got the king to antedate it, as if it had been signed at Oxford, to get the precedence of some whom he hated: but he did not pass it under the great seal during the king's life, but did it after his death, though his warrant not being passed, it died with the king. His eldest daughter, to whom his honour, such as it was, descended, married sir Lionel Tollemasche of Suffolk,[38] a man of a noble family. After her father's death, she took the title of countess of Dysart. She was a woman of great beauty, but of far greater parts. She had a wonderful quickness of apprehension, and an amazing vivacity in conversation. She had studied not only divinity and history, but mathematics and philosophy. She was violent in every thing she set about, a violent friend, but a much more violent enemy. She had a restless ambition, lived at a vast expense, and was ravenously covetous; and would have stuck at nothing by which she might compass her ends [39]. She had blemishes of another kind, which she 438 seemed to despise, and to take little care of the decencies of her sex. She had been early in a correspondence with lord Lauderdale, that had given occasion to censure. When he was a prisoner after Worcester fight, she made him believe he was in great danger of his life, and that she saved it by her intrigues with Cromwell: which was not a little taken notice of. Cromwell was certainly fond of her, and she took care to entertain him in it, till he, finding what was said upon it, broke it off[40]. Upon the king's restoration, she thought that lord Lauderdale made not those returns that she expected; so they lived for some years at a distance. But upon her husband's death she made up all quarrels: so that lord Lauderdale and she 123 lived so much together, that his lady was offended at it, and went to Paris, where she died about three years after[41]. The lady Dysart came to have so absolute a power over the lord Lauderdale, that it lessened him much in the esteem of all the world; for he delivered himself up to all her humours and passions. All applications were made to her: she took upon her to determine every thing. She sold all places, and was wanting in no methods that could bring her money, which she lavished out in a most profuse vanity. As the conceit took her, she made him fall out with all his friends, one after another: with the earls of Argyll, Tweeddale, and Kincardine, with duke Hamilton, the marquis of Athol, and sir Robert Moray, who all had their turns in her displeasure, which very quickly drew lord Lauderdale's after it. If after such names it is not a presumption to name my self, I had my share likewise. So that from this time to the end of his days he became quite another sort of man than he had 439 been in all the former parts of his life. Sir Robert Moray had been designed by her father to be her husband, and was long her true friend. She knew his integrity was proof to all attempts. He had been hitherto the lord Lauderdale's chief friend and main support. He had great esteem paid him, both by the king and by the whole court: and he employed it all for the earl of Lauderdale's service. He used great freedom with him at proper times; and was a faithful adviser, and reprover as much as the other could bear it. Lady Dysart laid hold on his absence in Scotland to make a breach between them. She made lord Lauderdale believe that Moray assumed the praise of all that was done to himself, and was not ill pleased to pass as his governor. Lord Lauderdale's pride was soon fired with those ill impressions[42]
The government of Scotland had now another face. All payments were regularly made: there was an overplus of l0,000l. of the revenue saved every year: a magazine of arms was bought with it: and there were several projects set on foot for the encouragement of trade and manufactures. Lord Tweeddale and sir Robert Moray were so entirely united, that, as they never disagreed, so all plied before them. Lord Tweeddale was made a privy councillor in England: and his son having married the earl of Lauderdale's only child[43], they seemed to be inseparably united. When he came down from London, he brought a letter from the king to the council, recommending the concerns of the church to their care: in particular, he charged them to suppress conventicles, which began to spread generally through the western counties: for upon the disbanding the army, the country, being delivered from that terror, did now forsake their churches, and got their old ministers to come among them; and they were not 440 wanting in holding conventicles from place to place. The king wrote also by him a letter to Sharp with his own pen, in which he assured him of his zeal for the church, and of his favour to himself[44]. Lord Tweeddale hoped this would have gained him to his side: but he was deceived in it, for Sharp quickly returned to his former insolence. Upon the earl of Tweeddale's return, there was a great application to public business: no vice was in reputation: justice was impartially administered: and a commission was sent to the western counties to examine into all the complaints of unjust and illegal oppressions by Turner[45], Dalyel[46], and others. Turner's warrants for his proceedings had been seized with himself; and though upon the defeat given the whigs he was left by them, so that, beyond all men's expectations, he escaped out of their hands, yet he had nothing to justify himself by. The truth is, this inquiry was chiefly levelled at lord Rothes and Burnet, to cast the odium of the late rebellion on their injustice and ill conduct. And it was intended that Turner should accuse them: but he had no vouchers to shew. These were believed to be withdrawn by an artifice of the lord Rothes. But, before the matter was quite ended, those in whose hands his papers were left, sent them sealed up to his lodgings; yet he was by that time broken: so, since the government had used him hardly, he, who was a man of spirit, would not shew his 441 vouchers nor expose his friends. So that matter was carried no further. And the people of the country cried out against those censures. It was said that when by such violent proceedings men had been inflamed to a rebellion, upon which so much blood was shed, all the reparation given was that an officer or two were broken; and a great man was taken down a little upon it, without making any public examples for the deterring others. Sir Robert Moray went through the west of Scotland; but when he came back, he told me the clergy were such a set of men, so ignorant and so scandalous, that it was not possible to support them, unless the greatest part of them could be turned out, and better men found to put in their places. But it was not easy to know how this could be done. Burnet had placed them all: and he thought himself in some sort bound to protect them. The clergy were so linked together, that none of them could be got to concur in getting proofs of crimes brought against their brethren. And the people of the country pretended scruples. They said, to accuse a minister before a bishop was an acknowledging his jurisdiction over his clergy, or, to use a hard word much in use among them, it was a homologating his power. So Moray proposed that a court should be constituted, by a special commission from the king, made up of some of the laity as well as the clergy, to try the truth of these scandalous reports that went upon the clergy: and he writ about it to Sheldon, who approved of it[47]. Sharp also seemed well pleased with it, though he abhorred it in his heart: for he thought it struck at the root of their authority, and was Erastianism in the highest degree. Burnet said it was a turning him out of his bishopric, and the declaring him either incapable of judging his clergy. or unworthy of that trust. His clergy cried out upon it, and said 124 it was a delivering them up to the rage of their enemies, who hated them only for the sake of their functions and for their obedience to the laws; and that 442 if irregular methods were taken to encourage them, they would get any thing, true or false, to be sworn against them. The difficulties that arose upon this put a stop to it. And the earl of Lauderdale's aversion to sir Robert Moray began a disjointing of all the councils of Scotland. Lord Tweeddale had the chief confidence, and next him lord Kincardine was most trusted. The presbyterians, seeing a softening in the execution of the law, and observing that the archbishops were jealous of lord Tweeddale, fancied he was theirs in his heart: upon that they grew very insolent. The clergy was in many places ill used by them[48]. They despaired of any farther protection from the government. They saw designs were forming to turn them out: and, hearing that they might be better provided for in Ireland, they were in many places bought out, and prevailed on to desert their cures[49]. The people of the country hoped that upon their leaving them they might have their old ministers again, and upon that were willing enough to enter into those bargains with them: and so in a very little time there were many vacancies made all over those counties. The lord Tweeddale took 443 great pains to engage Leighton into the same counsels with him. He had magnified him highly to the king, as the much greatest man of the Scottish clergy; and the lord Tweeddale's chief aim with relation to church matters was to set him at the head of them: for he often said to me, that more than two parts in three of the whole business of the government related to the church. So he studied to bring in a set of episcopal men of another stamp, and to set Leighton at their head. He studied to draw in Mr. Charteris, but he had such sad thoughts of mankind, and such humble ones of himself, that he thought little good could be done, and that, as to that little, he was not a proper instrument. Leighton was prevailed on to go to London, where, as he told me, he had two full audiences of the king. He laid before him the madness of the former administration of church affairs, and the necessity of turning to more moderate counsels: in particular, he proposed a comprehension of the presbyterian party, by altering the terms of the laws a little, and by such abatements as might preserve the whole for the future, by granting somewhat for the present[50]. But he entered into no expedients: only he studied to fix the king in the design that the course of his affairs led him to, though contrary to his own inclinations, both in England and Scotland[51]. In order to the opening this, I must change the scene. 444
The Dutch war had turned so fatally on the king, that it made it necessary for him to try how to recover the affections and esteem of his people. He found a slackening the execution of the law went a great way in the city of London, and with the trading part of the nation. The house of commons continued still in their fierceness, and aversion to all moderate propositions; but in the intervals of parliament the execution was softened. The earl of Clarendon found his credit was declining, that all the secrets of state were trusted to Bennet, and that he had no other share in them than his post required[1]. The lady Castlemaine set herself most violently against him[2]; and the duke of Buckingham[3], as oft as he was admitted to 445 any familiarities with the king, studied with all his wit and humour to make lord Clarendon and all his counsels appear ridiculous[4], and lively jests were at all times apt to take with the king. The earl of Clarendon fell under two other misfortunes before the war broke out. The king had granted him a large piece of ground near St. James's to build a house on. He intended a good ordinary house, but, not understanding those matters himself, he put the managing of that into the hands of others, who run him into a vast charge of about 50,000l., three times as much as he had designed to lay out upon it[5]. During the war, and in the plague year, he had about three hundred men at work, which he thought would have been an acceptable thing, when so many men were kept at work, and so much money, as was duly paid, did circulate about. But it had a contrary effect: it raised a great outcry against him[6]. 446 Some called it Dunkirk house, intimating that it was out of his share of the price of Dunkirk. Others called it Holland house, because he was believed to be no friend to the war: so it was given out that he had the money from the Dutch. It was visible that in a time of public calamity he was building a very noble palace. Another accident was, that before the war there were some designs on foot for the repairing of St. Paul's, and many stones were brought thither. That project was laid aside during the war. He upon that bought the stones, and made use of them in building his own house. This, how slight soever it may seem to be, yet had a great effect by the management of his enemies. His other misfortune was, that he lost his chief friend, to whom he trusted most, and who was his greatest support, the earl of Southampton. The pain of the stone grew upon him to such a degree, that he had resolved to be cut: but a woman came to him who pretended she had an infallible secret for dissolving the stone, and brought such vouchers to him that he put himself into her hands. The medicine had a great operation, though it ended fatally: for he passed great quantities of gravel, that looked like the coats of a stone sliced off. This encouraged him to go on, till his pains increased so that no man was ever seen die in such torment; which made him oft tremble all over, so that the bed shook with it; yet he bore it with an astonishing patience. He not only kept himself from saying any indecent thing, but endured all that misery with the firmness of a great man and the submission of a good Christian. The cause of all appeared when he was opened after his death: for the medicine had stripped the stone of its outward slimy coats, which made it lie soft and easy 125 upon the muscles of the bladder; whereas when these were dissolved, the inner and harder parts of the stone, that were all ragged by the dissolution 447 that was begun, as the stone fell down, lay upon the neck of the bladder, which raised those violent pains of which he died. The court was now delivered of a great man, whom they did not much love, and who they knew did not love them. The treasury was put in commission: and the earl of Clarendon had no interest there. He saw the war, though managed by other counsels, yet was like to end in his ruin: for all errors were cast on him. The business of Chatham was a terrible blow: and though the loss was great, the infamy was greater. The parliament had given above five millions towards the war: but, through the luxury and waste of the court, this money was so squandered away, that the king could neither set out a fleet nor defend his coast[7]. Upon the news of the Dutch fleet's being in the river, the king did not ride down himself, nor appear at the head of his people, who were then in such imminent danger. He only sent the duke of Albemarle 448 and was intending to retire to Windsor, but that looked so like a. flying from danger, that he was prevailed on to stay. And it was given out that he was very cheerful that night at supper with his mistress[8], which drew many libels upon him, that were writ with as much wit as malice, and brought him under a general contempt. He was compared to Nero, who sung while Rome was burning. A day or two after that, he rode through London, accompanied with the most popular men of his court, and assured the citizens he would live and die with his people, upon which there were some acclamations, but the matter went heavily. The city was yet in ashes, and the jealousy of burning it on design had got so among them that the king himself was not free from suspicion[9]. If the Dutch had pursued their advantage in the first consternation, they might have done more mischief, and have come a great way up the Thames, and burnt many merchant ships: but they thought they had done enough, and so they sailed away.
The court was at a stand what to do: for the French assured them the treaty was as good as finished. Whether the French set this on, as that which would both weaken the fleet of England, and alienate the king so entirely from the Dutch that he would be easily engaged into new alliances to revenge this affront, as many believe, I cannot 449 pretend to determine. The earl of Essex was at that time in Paris, on his way home from the waters of Bourbon: and he told me the queen-mother of England sent for him, as being one of her son's privy council, and told him the Irish had sent over some to the court of France, desiring money and arms with some officers, and they undertook to put that island into the hands of the French[10]. He told me, he found the queen was in her inclinations and advices true to her son's interest: but he was amused to see,, that a woman who in a drawing-room was the liveliest woman of the age, and had a vivacity of imagination that surprised all who came near her, yet after all her practice in affairs, had so little either of judgment or conduct that he did not wonder at the miscarriage of all the late king's counsels, since she had such a share in them. But the French had then greater things in view. The king of Spain was dead. And now, after they had managed the war so that they had been at no part of the expense of it, nor brought a ship to the assistance of the Dutch, and that both England and Holland had made great losses both in ships and treasure, they resolved to manage the treaty so, as to oblige the king 450 by giving him a peace, when he was in no condition to carry on the war[11]. I enter not into our negotiation with the bishop of Munster[12], nor his treacherous departing from his engagements, since I know nothing of that matter, but what is in print.
As soon as the peace was made, the king saw with what
disadvantage he was like to meet his parliament. So he
thought the disgracing a public minister, who, by being
long in so high a post had drawn upon himself much envy
and many enemies, would cover himself and the rest of his
court[13]. Other things concurred to set this forward. The
king was grown very weary of the queen: and it was
451
believed, he had a great mind to be rid of her. The load
of that marriage was cast on the lord Clarendon, as made
on design to raise his own grandchildren. Many members
of the house of commons, such as Clifford, Osborne, Carr,
Lyttleton, and Seymour, were brought to the king, who
all assured him that upon his restoration they intended
both to have raised his authority and to have increased
his revenue, but that the earl of Clarendon had discouraged
it, and that all his creatures had possessed the house with
such jealousies of the king, that they thought it was not fit
to trust him too much nor too far.
This made a deep
impression on the king, who was weary of lord Clarendon's
imposing way, and had a mind to be freed from the
authority, to which he had been so long accustomed, that
it was not easy to keep him within bounds[14]. Yet the king
was so afraid to engage himself too deep in his own affairs,
that it was a doubt whether he would dismiss him or not,
if a concern of one of his amours had not sharpened his
resentments. What other considerations could not do,
was brought about by an ill-grounded jealousy. Mistress
Stewart had gained so much on the king, and yet had
kept her ground with so much firmness, that the king
seemed
126
to design, if possible, to legitimate his addresses
to her, since he saw no hope of succeeding any other way[15].
452
The duke of Richmond, being a widower, courted her[16]. The king seemed to give way to it; and pretended to take such care of her, that he would have good settlements made for her. He hoped by that means to have broke the matter decently, for he knew the duke of Richmond's affairs were in disorder. So the king ordered lord Clarendon to examine the estate he pretended to settle. But he was told, whether true or false I cannot tell, that lord Clarendon told her that the duke of Richmond's affairs, it is true, were not very clear; but that a family so nearly related to the king could never be left in distress, and that such a match would not come in her way every day; so she had best consider well before she rejected it. This was carried to the king, as a design he had that the crown might descend to his own grandchildren; and that he was afraid lest strange methods should be taken to get rid of the queen, and to make way for her. When the king saw that she had a mind to marry the duke of Richmond, he offered to make her a duchess, and to settle an estate on her. Upon this she said, she then saw that she must either marry him, or suffer much in the opinion of the world. And she was prevailed on by the duke of Richmond, who was passionately in love with her, to go privately from Whitehall, and marry him without giving the king notice. The earl of Clarendon's son, the lord Cornbury, was going to her lodgings upon some assignation that she had given him about her affairs, knowing nothing of her intentions. He met the king in the door, coming out full of fury[17]; and 453 he, suspecting that lord Cornbury was in the design, spake to him as one in a rage, that forgot all decency, and for some time would not hear lord Cornbury speak in his own defence. In the afternoon he heard him with more temper, as he [lord Cornbury] himself told me. Yet this made so deep an impression, that he resolved to take the seals from his father[18]. The king said to lord Lauderdale, that he had talked of the matter with Sheldon, and that he convinced him that it was necessary to remove lord Clarendon from his post. And as soon as it was done, the king sent for Sheldon, and told him what he had done; but he answered nothing. When the king insisted to oblige him to declare himself, he said, Sir, I wish you would put away this woman that you keep. The king upon that replied sharply, why had he never talked to him of that sooner, but took this occasion now to speak of it[19]? Lauderdale told me, he had all this from the king: and that the king and Sheldon had gone into such expostulations upon it, that from that day forward Sheldon could never recover the king's confidence[20]. 454
The seals were given to sir Orlando Bridgeman[21], lord chief justice of the common pleas, then in great esteem, which he did not maintain long after his advancement. His study and practice lay so entirely in the common law, that he never seemed to apprehend what equity was: nor had he a head made for business or for such a court. He was a man of great integrity, and had very serious impressions of religion on his mind. He had been always on the side of the church, yet he had great tenderness for the nonconformists: and the bishops having all declared for lord Clarendon, except one or two, he and the new scene of the ministry were inclined to favour them. The duke of Buckingham, who had been in high disgrace before lord Clarendon's fall, came upon that into high favour, and set up for a patron of liberty of conscience and of all the sects. The see of Chester happened to fall vacant soon after: Wilkins was by his means promoted to that see, and it was no small prejudice to him that he was recommended by so 455 bad a man[22]. He had a courage in him that could stand against a current, and against all the reproaches with which ill-natured clergymen studied to load him. He said, he was called for by the king, without any motion of his own, to a public station, in which he would endeavour to do all the good he could, without considering the ill effects that it might have on himself. The king had such a command of himself, that when his interest led him to serve any end, or court any sort of men, he did it so dexterously, and with such an air of sincerity, that till men were well practised with him, he was apt to impose on them. He seemed now to go into moderation and comprehension with so much heartiness, that both Bridgeman and Wilkins believed he was in earnest in it: though there was nothing that the popish counsels were more fixed in, than to oppose all motions of that kind. But the king saw it was necessary to recover the affections of his people: and since the church of England was now gone off from him. upon lord Clarendon's disgrace, he resolved to shew some favour to the sects, both to soften them, and to force the others to come back to their dependence upon him.
He began also to express his concerns in the affairs of Europe: and as he brought about the peace between Castile and Portugal[23], so now that the king of France pretended that by the law of Brabant his queen, as the heir of the king of Spain's first marriage, though a daughter, was to be preferred to the young king of Spain, as the heir of the second venter, without any regard to the renunciation 456 of any succession to his queen, stipulated by the peace of the Pyrenees, he was upon that pretension like to overrun the Netherlands[24] Temple was sent over to enter into an alliance with the Dutch, by which some parts of Flanders were yielded up to France, but a barrier was preserved for the security of Holland. Into this the king of Sweden, then a child, was engaged: from whence it was called the Triple Alliance. I will say no 127 more of that, since so particular an account is given of it by him who could do it best, Temple himself. It was certainly the masterpiece of king Charles's life: and, if he had stuck to it, it would have been both the strength and the glory of his reign[25]. This disposed his people to be ready to forgive all that was passed, and to renew their confidence in the king, which was much shaken by the whole conduct of the Dutch war.
The parliament were upon their first opening set on to destroy lord Clarendon. Some of his friends went to him a few days before the parliament met, and told him many were at work to find out matter of accusation against him[26]. 457 He best knew what could be brought against him with any truth; for falsehood was infinite, and could not be guessed at. They desired he would trust some of them with what might break out, since probably nothing could lie concealed against so strict a search; and the method in which his friends must manage for him, if there was any mixture or allay in him, was to be very different from that they would use if he was sure that nothing could be brought out against him. The lord Burlington and bishop Morley both told me they talked to this purpose to him. Lord Clarendon upon that told them, that if either in matters of justice or in any negotiations abroad he had ever received a farthing, he gave them leave to disown all friendship to him. The French king, hearing he had sent for all the books of the Louvre impression, had prevented him and sent these to him, which he took, as thinking it a trifle, as indeed it was: and this was the only present he ever had from any foreign prince. He had never taken any thing by virtue of his office, but what his predecessors had claimed as a right. But now hue and cry was, as it were, sent out against him: and all persons who had heard him say any thing that could bear an ill construction were examined. Some thought they had matters of great weight against him: and, when they were told these would not amount to high treason, they desired to know what would amount to it[27]. 458 When twenty-three articles were brought into the house against him, the next day he desired his second son, the now earl of Rochester[28], to acquaint the house, that he, hearing what articles were brought against him, did, in order to the despatch of the business, desire that those who knew best what their evidence was, would single out any one of all the articles that they thought could be best proved; and if they proved that, he would submit to the censure due upon them all. But those who had the secret of this in their hands, and knew they could make nothing of it, resolved to put the matter upon a preliminary, in which they hoped to find cause to hang up the whole matter, and fix upon the lords the denial of justice. So, according to some few and late precedents, they sent up a general impeachment to the lords' bar of high treason, without any special matter, and demanded that upon that he might be committed to prison. They had reason to believe the lords would not grant this: and they resolved to insist on it, and reckoned that, when so much money was to be given, the king would prevail with the lords. Upon this occasion it appeared, that the private animosities of a court could carry them to establish the most destructive precedent that could have been thought on. For if this had passed, then every minister upon a general impeachment 459 was to be ruined, though no special matter was laid against him. Yet the king himself pressed this vehemently. It was said, the very suspicions of a house of commons, especially such a one as this was, was enough to blast a man, and to secure him: for there was reason to think that every person so charged would run away, if at liberty. Lord Clarendon's enemies had now gone so far that they thought they were not safe till his head was off: and they apprehended, that if he were once in prison, it would be easy either to find, or at least to bring, witnesses against him. This matter is all in print: so I will go no further in the particulars. The duke was at this time taken with the small-pox: so he was out of the whole debate. The peers thought that a general accusation was only a clamour, and that their dignities signified little if a clamour was enough to send them to prison. All the earl of Clarendon's friends pressed the king much on his behalf, that he might be suffered to go off gently, and without censure, since he had served both his father and himself so long, so faithfully, and with such success. But the king was now so sharpened against him, that, though he named no particulars, he expressed a violent and an irreconcileable aversion to him; which did the king much hurt in the opinion of all that were not engaged in the party. The affair of the king's marriage was the most talked of, as that which indeed was the only thing that could in any sort justify such a severity. Lord Clarendon did protest, as some that had it from himself told me, that he had no other hand in that matter than as a counsellor: and in that he appealed to the king himself. After many debates and conferences and protestations, in which the whole court went in visibly to that which was so plainly destructive both to the king and to the ministry, the majority of the house stood firm, and adhered to their Nov. 20 first resolution against commitment[29]. The commons were 460 upon that like to carry the matter far against them, as denying justice. The king, seeing this, spoke to the duke 128 to persuade lord Clarendon to go beyond sea[30], as the only expedient that was left to make up the breach between the two houses: and he let fall some words of kindness, in case he should comply with this. The earl of Clarendon was all obedience and submission; and was charmed with those tender words that the king had said of him. So, partly to serve the king and save himself and his family, but chiefly that he might not be the occasion of any difference between the king and the duke, who had heartily espoused his interest, he went privately beyond sea; and writ a letter from Calais to the house of lords, protesting his innocence in all the points objected to him, and that he had not gone out of the kingdom for fear, or out of any consciousness of guilt, but only that he might not be the unhappy occasion of any difference between the two houses, or of obstructing public business[31]. This put an end to the dispute. But his enemies called it a confession of guilt, and a flying from justice: such colours will people give to the most innocent actions[32]. A bill was brought in, banishing him the king's dominions, under pain of treason if he should return: and it was made treason to correspond with him without leave from the king. This act did not pass without much opposition. It was said, there was a known course of law when any man fled from 461 justice: and it seemed against the common course of justice to make all corresponding with him treason, when he himself was not attainted of treason[33]: nor could it be just to banish him unless a day were given him to come in: and then, if he did not come in, he might incur the punishment upon contempt. The duke, whom the king had employed to prevail with him to withdraw himself, thought he was bound in honour to press the matter home on the king; which he did so warmly, that for some time a coldness between them was very visible. The part the king had acted in this matter came to be known, and was much censured, as there was just cause for it. The vehemence that he shewed in this whole matter was imputed by many to very different causes. Those who knew him best, but esteemed him least, said to me on this occasion, that all the indignation that appeared in him on this head was founded on no reason at all; but was an effect of that easiness, or rather laziness, of nature that made him comply with every person that had the greatest credit with him. The mistress, and the whole bedchamber, were perpetually railing at him[34]. This, by a sort of infection, possessed the king, who, without giving himself the trouble of much thinking, did commonly go into any thing that was at the present time the easiest, without considering what might at any other time follow on it. Thus the lord Clarendon fell under the common fate of great ministers, whose employments expose them to envy, and draw upon them the 462 indignation of all who are disappointed in their pretensions[35]. Their friends do generally shew that they are only the friends of their fortunes: and upon the change of favour, they not only forsake them in their extremity, but, that they may secure to themselves the protection of a new favourite, they will redeem all that is past, by turning as violently against them as they formerly fawned abjectly on them: and princes are so little sensible of merit or great services, that they sacrifice their best servants, not only when their affairs seem to require it, but to gratify the humour of a mistress or the passion of a rising favourite[36].
I will end this relation of lord Clarendon's fall with an account of his two sons. The eldest, now the earl of Clarendon, is a man naturally sincere: except in the payment of his debts; in which he has a particular art, upon his breaking his promises, which he does very often, to have a plausible excuse, and a new promise ever ready at hand: in which he has run longer than one could think possible. He is a friendly and good-natured man. He keeps an exact journal of all that passes[37], and is punctual to tediousness in all that he relates. He was very early engaged in great secrets: for his father, apprehending of 463 what fatal consequence it would have been to the king's affairs, if his correspondence had been discovered by unfaithful secretaries, engaged him when very young to write all his letters to England in cipher; so that he was generally half the day writing in cipher, or deciphering, and was so discreet, as well as faithful, that nothing was ever discovered by him. He continued to be still the person whom his father trusted most: and was the most beloved of all the family; for he was humble and obliging, but was peevish and splenetic[38]. His judgment was not to be much depended on; for he was much carried by vulgar prejudices and false notions. He was much[39] in the queen's favour, and was her chamberlain long. His father's being so violently prosecuted on the 129 account of her marriage, made that she thought herself bound to protect him in a particular manner. He was so provoked at the ill usage his father met with, that he struck in violently with the party that opposed the court: and the king spoke always of him with great sharpness and much scorn. His brother, now earl of Rochester, is a man of far greater parts. He has a very good pen, but speaks not gracefully[40]. He was thought the smoothest man in the court: and during all the dispute concerning his father, he made his court so dexterously, that no resentments appeared on that head. When he came into business, and rose to high posts, he grew both violent and insolent: but was thought by many an incorrupt man. He has high notions of government, and thinks it must be maintained with great severity. He delivers up his own notions to his party, that he may lead them; and on all occasions he is wilful and imperious. 464 He passes for a sincere man, and seems to have too much heat to be false. This natural heat is inflamed by frequent excesses in drinking. Morley was long dean of the chapel: but he stuck so to the lord Clarendon, that he was sent into his diocese: and Crofts, bishop of Hereford, was made dean in his room. He was a warm devout man, but of no discretion in his conduct: so he lost ground quickly. He used much freedom with the king; but it was in the wrong place, not in private but in the pulpit.
The king was highly offended at the behaviour of most of the bishops[41], and he took occasion to vent it at the council board, upon the complaints that were made of some disorders, and of some conventicles. He said the clergy were chiefly to blame for these disorders; for if they had lived well, and had gone about their parishes, and taken pains to convince the nonconformists, the nation might have been by that time well settled; but they thought of nothing but to get good benefices, and to keep a good table. This I read in a letter that sir Robert Moray writ down to Scotland: and it agrees with a conversation that the king was pleased to have with my self once, when I was alone with him in his closet. While we were talking of the ill state the church was in, I was struck to hear a prince of his course of life so much disgusted at the ambition, covetousness, and the scandals of the clergy. He said, if the clergy had done their part, it had been an easy thing to have run down the nonconformists: but he added, they will do nothing, and will have me do every thing: and most of them do worse than if they did nothing. He told me he had a chaplain that was a very honest man, but a very great blockhead, to whom he had given a living in Suffolk, that was full of that sort of people: he had gone about among them from house to house, though he could not imagine what he could say to them, for, he said, he was 465 a very silly fellow, but that he believed his nonsense suited their nonsense; yet he had brought them all to church: and, in reward of his diligence, he had given him a bishopric in Ireland[42].
Bridgeman and Wilkins set on foot a treaty, for a comprehension of such of the dissenters as could be brought into the communion of the church, and a toleration of the rest[1]. Hale, the chief justice, concurred with them in the 466 design. Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Burton[2] joined also in it. Bates, Manton, and Baxter were called for on the side of the presbyterians; and a project was prepared, consisting chiefly of those things that the king had promised by his declaration in the year 1660. Only in the point of reordination this temper was proposed, that those who had presbyterian ordination should be received to serve in the church by an imposition of hands, accompanied with words which imported that the person so ordained was received to serve as a minister in the church of England. This treaty became a common subject of discourse. Many books were printed upon it. All lord Clarendon's friends cried out that the church was undermined and betrayed. It was said the cause of the church was given up if we yielded any of those points about which there had been so much disputing: if the sectaries were humble and modest, and would tell what would satisfy them, there might be some colour for granting some concessions: but it was unworthy of the church to go and court, or treat with, enemies, when there was no reason to think that, after we had departed from our grounds, which was to confess we had been in the wrong, that we should gain much by it. unless it were to bring scorn and contempt on ourselves. On the other hand it was said, the nonconformists could not legally meet together to offer any schemes in the name of their party: it was well enough known what they had always excepted to, and what would probably bring over most of the presbyterians: such a yielding 130 in some lesser matters would be no reproach, but an honour to the church; that, how much soever superior she might be both in point of argument and of power, [she] would yet of her own accord, and for peace sake, yield a great deal in matters indifferent. The apostles complying with many of the observances of the Jews, and the offers that the church of Africk made to the Donatists, 467 were much insisted on. The fears of popery, and the progress that atheism was making, did alarm good and wise men, and they thought every thing that could be done without sin ought to be done towards the healing our divisions. Many books were upon that occasion writ to expose the presbyterians as men of false notions in religion, which led to Antinomianism, and that would soon carry them into a dissolution of morals, under a pretence of being justified by faith only, without works. The three volumes of the Friendly Debate, though writ by a very good man[3], and with a good intent, had an ill effect in sharpening people's spirits too much against them. But the most virulent of all that writ against the sects was Parker, afterwards made bishop of Oxford by king James, who was full of satirical vivacity, and was considerably learned; but was a man of no judgment, and of as little virtue, and as to religion he seemed rather to have become quite impious. After he had for some years entertained the nation with several virulent books, writ with much life, he was attacked by the liveliest droll of the age, who writ in a burlesque strain, but with so peculiar and so entertaining a conduct, that from the king down to the tradesman his book was read with great pleasure. That not only humbled Parker, but the whole party: for the author of the Rehearsal Transprosed[4] had all the men of wit (or, 468 as the French phrase it, all the laughers) of his side. But what advantages soever the men of comprehension might have in any other respect, the majority in the house of commons was so possessed against them, that when it was known, in a succeeding session, that a bill was ready to be offered to the house for that end, a very extraordinary vote passed that no bill to that purpose should be received[5].
An act passed in this session that gave lord chief justice Hale great reputation, for rebuilding the city of London, which was drawn with so true a judgment, and so great foresight, that the whole city was raised out of its ashes without any suits of law; which, if that bill had not prevented them, would have brought a second charge on the city, not much less than the fire it self had been. And upon that, to the amazement of all Europe, London was in 469 four years' time rebuilt[6], with so much beauty and magnificence, that we who saw it in both states, before and after the fire, cannot reflect on it without wondering where the wealth could be found to bear so vast a loss as was made by the fire, and so prodigious an expense as was laid out in the rebuilding it. This did demonstrate that the intrinsic wealth of the nation was very high when it could answer such a dead charge.
I return to the intrigues of the court. Lord Clarendon's enemies thought they were not safe as long as the duke had so much credit with the king, and the duchess had so much power over him: so they fell on propositions of a strange nature to ruin them. The duke of Buckingham[7] pressed the king to own a marriage with the duke of Monmouth's mother, and he undertook to get witnesses to attest it. The duke of York told me, in general, that there was much talk about it, but he did not descend to particulars. The earl of Carlisle offered to begin the matter in the house of lords[8]. The king would not consent to this, yet he put it 470 by in such a manner as made them all conclude he wished it might be done, but did not know how to bring it about. These discourses were all carried to the duke of Monmouth, and got fatally into his head. When the duke talked of this matter to me in the year [16]73 I asked him if he thought the king had still the same inclinations? He said he believed not: he thought the duke of Monmouth had not spirit enough to think of it, and he commended the duchess of Monmouth so highly, as to say to me that the hopes of a crown could not work on her to do an unjust thing. I thought he gave that matter too much countenance by calling the duke of Monmouth nephew: but he said he knew it pleased the king. When the party saw they could make nothing of the business of the duke of Monmouth, they tried next by what methods they could get rid of the queen, that so the king might marry another wife: for the king had children by so many different creatures, that they hoped for issue if he had a wife fit or capable of any. Some thought the queen and he were not legally married: but the avowing a marriage, and the living many years in that state, did certainly supply any defect in point of form. Others pretended she was barren from a natural cause, and that seemed equivalent to frigidity in men; but the king had often said he was sure she had once miscarried. This, though not overthrown by such an evidence, could never be proved, unless the having no children was to be concluded a barrenness: and the dissolving 131 a marriage on such an account could neither be justified in law nor conscience. Other stories were given out of the queen's person, which were false, for I saw in a letter under the king's own hand that the marriage was consummated[9]. Others talked of polygamy: and officious persons were ready to thrust themselves into any thing that could contribute to their advancement. Lord Lauderdale and sir Robert Moray asked my opinion of these 471 things. I said I knew speculative people could say a great deal in the way of argument for polygamy and divorce: yet these things were so decried, that they were rejected by all Christian societies: so that all such propositions would throw us into great convulsions, and entail wars upon us if any issue came from a marriage so grounded[10].
An accident happened at that time that made the discoursing of those matters the common subject of conversation. The lord Roos, now earl of Rutland, brought proofs of adultery against his wife, and obtained a sentence of divorce in the spiritual court; which amounting only to a separation from bed and board, he moved for a bill dissolving the bond, and enabling him to marry another wife. The duke and all his party apprehended the consequences of a parliamentary divorce: so they opposed this with great heat, and almost all the bishops were of that side: only Cosins and Wilkins, the bishops of Durham and Chester, were for it[11]; and the king was as earnest in the 472 setting it on as the duke was in opposing it. The zeal which the two brothers expressed on that occasion made all people conclude that they had a particular concern in the matter. The bill passed: and upon that precedent some moved the king that he would order a bill to be brought in to divorce him from the queen. This went so far that a day was agreed on for making the motion in the house of commons, as Mr. May of the privy purse told me, who had the greatest and the longest share in the king's secret confidence of any man in that time; for it was never broke off, though often shaken, he being in his notions against every thing that the king was for, both France, popery, and arbitrary government: but a particular sympathy of temper, and his serving the king in his vices[12], created a confidence much envied, and often attempted to be broke, but never with any success beyond a short coldness. But he added, when he told me of this design, that 473 three days before the motion was to be made, the king called for him, and told him that matter must be let alone, for it would not do. This disturbed him much, for he had engaged himself far in laying the thing, and in managing those who were to undertake the debate.
At this time the court fell into much extravagance in masquerading; both king and queen, and all the court, went about masked, and came into houses unknown, and danced[13]. People were so disguised, that without being on the secret none could distinguish them[14]. They were carried about in hackney chairs. Once the queen's chairmen, not knowing who she was, went from her: so she was alone, and was much disturbed, and came to Whitehall in a hackney coach: some said it was in a cart. The duke of Buckingham proposed to the king, that if he would give him leave he would steal her away, and send her to a plantation, where she should be well and carefully looked to, but never heard of any more; so it should be given out that she had deserted; and upon that it would fall in with some principles to carry an act for a divorce, grounded upon the pretence of a wilful desertion[15]. Sir Robert Moray told me that the king himself rejected this with horror. He said it was 474 a wicked thing to make a poor lady miserable, only because she was his wife, and had no children by him, which was no fault of hers. The hints of this broke out: for the duke of Buckingham could conceal nothing. And upon that the earl of Manchester, then lord chamberlain, told the queen, it was neither decent nor safe for her to go about in such a manner as she had done of late: so she gave it over. But at last all these schemes settled in a proposition into which the king went, which was to deal with the queen's confessor, that he might persuade her to leave the world, and to turn religious: upon which the parliament would have been easily prevailed on to pass a divorce. This came to be known: but what steps were made in it were never known. It was believed that upon this the duchess of York sent an express to Rome with the notice of her conversion; and that orders were sent from Rome to all about the queen to persuade her against such a proposition, if any should suggest it to her. She herself had no mind to be a nun, and the duchess was afraid of seeing another queen: and the mistress, created at that time duchess of Cleveland, knew that she must be the first sacrifice to a beloved queen: and she reconciled herself upon this to the duchess of York[16]. The duke of Buckingham upon that broke with her, and studied to take the king from her by new amours: and because he thought a gaiety of humour would take much with the king, he engaged him to entertain two players one after another, Davis and Gwyn. The first did not keep her hold long; but Gwyn, the indiscreetest and wildest creature that ever was in a court[17], yet continued 132 to the end of the king's life in great favour, and was maintained at a vast expense. The duke of Buckingham told me, that when she was first 475 brought to the king she asked only five hundred pounds a year, and the king refused it; but when he told me this, about four years after, he said she had got of the king above sixty thousand pounds. She acted all persons in so lively a manner, and was such a constant diversion to the king, that even a new mistress could not drive her away. But after all, he never treated her with the decencies of a mistress[18], but rather with the lewdness of a prostitute, as she had been indeed to a great many: and therefore she called the king her Charles the third, since she had been formerly kept by two of that name. The king had another mistress, that was managed by Shaftesbury[19], that was the daughter of a clergyman, Robarts; in whom her first education had so deep a root, that, though she fell into many scandalous disorders, with very dismal adventures in them all, yet a principle of religion was so deep laid in her, that, howsoever it did not restrain her, yet it kept alive in her such a constant horror at sin, that she was never easy in an ill course, and died with a great sense of. her former ill life, for I was often with her the last three months of her life[20]. The duchess of Cleveland, finding that she had lost the king[21], abandoned herself to great disorders: one of which, by the artifice of the duke of Buckingham, was discovered by the king in person, the party concerned leaping out at the window[22]. She also spoke of the king to all people 476 in such a manner, as brought him under much contempt. But he seemed insensible: and though libels of all sorts had then a very free course, yet he was never disturbed at it.
The three most eminent wits of that time, on whom all the lively libels were fastened, were the earls of Dorset and Rochester, and sir Charles Sedley. Lord Dorset was a generous good-natured and modest man. He was so oppressed with phlegm, that till he was a little heated with wine he scarce ever spoke, but was upon that exaltation a very lively man. Never was so much ill nature in a pen as in his, joined with so much good nature as is in himself, even to excess, for he is against all punishing, even of malefactors. He is bountiful, even to run himself into difficulties, and charitable to a fault; for he commonly gives all he has about him, when he meets an object that moves him. But he was so lazy, that, though the king seemed to court him to be a favourite, he would not give himself the trouble that belonged to that post. He hated the court, and despised the king, when he saw he was neither generous nor tender hearted. Wilmot, earl of Rochester, was naturally modest, till the court corrupted him. His wit had a peculiar brightness, to which none could ever arrive. He gave himself up to all sorts of extravagance, and to the wildest frolics that a wanton wit could devise. He would have gone about the streets as a beggar, and made love as a porter. He set up a stage as an Italian mountebank. He was for some years always drunk, and was ever doing some mischief. The king loved his company for the diversion it afforded, better than his person: and there was no love lost between them[23]. He took his revenges in many libels. He found out a footman that knew all the court, and he furnished him with a red coat and a musket as a sentinel, and kept him all the 477 winter long every night at the doors of such ladies as he believed might be in intrigues. In the court a sentinel is little minded, and is believed to be posted by a captain of the guards to hinder a combat: so this man saw who walked about and visited at forbidden hours. By this means lord Rochester made many discoveries, and when he was well furnished with materials, he used to retire into the country for a month or two to write libels. Once being drunk, he intended to give the king a libel that he had writ on some ladies, but by a mistake he gave him one wrote on himself[24]. He fell into an ill habit of body, and in several fits of sickness he had deep remorses; for he was guilty both of much impiety and of great immoralities. But as he recovered he threw these off, and turned again to his former ill courses. In the last year of his life I was much with him, and have writ a book of what passed between him and me. I do verily believe, he was then so entirely changed, that if he had recovered he would have made good all his resolutions[25]. Sedley had a more sudden and copious wit, which furnished a perpetual run of discourse: but it was not so correct as lord Dorset's, nor so sparkling as lord Rochester's. The duke of Buckingham loved to have these much about him: and he gave himself up into a monstrous course of studied immoralities of the worst kinds. He was so full of mercury that he could not fix long in any friendship or to any design. Bennet[26], now made lord Arlington, and he fell out[27]: the one was all 478 cunning and artifice, and so could not hold long with him who was so open that he blabbed out every thing. Lord Arlington was engaged in a great intimacy with Clifford, Lyttleton, and Duncombe. I have already given some account of the two first. Duncombe was a judicious man, but very haughty, and apt to raise enemies against himself: he was an able parliament man, but could not go in to all the designs of the court; for he had a sense of religion, and a zeal for the liberty of his country[28]. The duke of Buckingham's chief friends were the earls of Shaftesbury and Lauderdale, but above all sir Thomas Osborn, raised afterwards to be lord treasurer and earl of Danby, and made duke of Leeds by the late king[29].
133 The king took sir William Coventry from the duke, and put him in the treasury. He was in a fair way to be the chief minister, and deserved it more than all the rest did. But he was too honest to engage into the designs into which the court was resolved to turn, as soon as it had recovered a little reputation, which was sunk very low by the ill management of the Dutch war, and the squandering away of the money given to it. He was the man of the finest parts and the best temper that belonged to the court. 479 The duke of Buckingham and he fell out, I know not for what reason, and a challenge passed between them: upon which he was forbid the court[30]; and he upon that seemed to retire very willingly. And he became a very religious man when I knew him. He was offered after that the best posts in the court, oftener than once: but he would never engage again[31]. He saw what was at bottom, and was resolved not to go through with it; and so continued to his death in a retired course of life. 480
The duke of Ormond continued still in the government of Ireland, though several interests joined together against him; the earls of Orrery and Ranelagh on the one hand, and Talbot on the other. Lord Orrery[32] was a deceitful and vain man, who loved to appear in business, but dealt so much underhand that he had not much credit with any side. Lord Ranelagh[33] was a young man of great parts, and as great vices: he had a pleasantness in his conversation that took much with the king, and he had great dexterity in business. Many complaints were secretly brought against the duke of Ormond. The king loved him, and he accommodated himself much to the king's humour. Yet the king was, with much difficulty, prevailed on to put an end to his government of Ireland[34], and to put lord Robarts[35], afterwards made earl of Radnor, in his place; 481 who was a sullen and morose man, believed to be severely just, and as wise as a cynical humour could allow him to be[36]. The manner of removing the duke of Ormond will give a particular character of the king's temper. He sent lord Arlington to him for his commission. The duke of Ormond said he had received it from the king's own hand, and he would go and deliver it to him. When he carried it to the king, he denied he had sent him any such message. Two days after that, lord Arlington was sent again with the same message: and he had the same answer, and the king disowned it again to him. So the king declared in the privy council the change of the government of Ireland, and made Robarts lord-lieutenant[37]. And it flew abroad as a piece of news. The duke of Ormond hearing that, came to the king in great wrath, to expostulate upon it; and the king denied the whole thing, and so sent him away: but he sent for Fitzpatrick, who had married his sister, and who told me the whole story, and sent him to the duke of Ormond to tell him the king had denied the matter, though it was true, for he observed he was in such a heat, that he was afraid he might have said indecent things: and he was resolved not to fall out with him: for, though his affairs made it necessary to change the government of Ireland, yet he would still be kind to him, and continue him lord steward. Radnor did not continue long in Ireland: he was cynical in the whole administration, and uneasy to the king in every thing: and in one of his peevish humours he writ to the king that he had but one thing to ask of him, which if it might be granted, he should never ask another, and that was, to be discharged of his 482 employment. The lord Berkeley[38] succeeded him, who was brother to the lord Fitzharding, and from small beginnings had risen up to the greatest posts a subject was capable of. In the war he was governor of Exeter for the king, and one of his generals. He was named by him governor to the duke of York. He was now made lord-lieutenant of Ireland, and was afterwards sent ambassador to France, and plenipotentiary to Nimeguen. He was a bold assuming man in whom it appeared with how little true judgment courts distribute favours and honours. He had a positive way of undertaking and determining in every thing, and looked fierce and big: but was both a very weak and a very proud man, and corrupt without shame or decency[39].
The court delivered itself up to vice[40]: so the house of commons lost all respect in the nation, for they gave still all the money that was asked[41]. Yet those who opposed the court carried one great point, that a committee should be named to examine the accounts of the money that was given during the Dutch war[42]. It was carried that they should be 483 all men who were out of the house. Lord Brereton was the chief of them, and had the chair. He was a philosophical man, and was all his life long in search of the philosopher's stone, by which he neglected his own affairs; but was a man of great integrity, and was not to be gained by the flatteries, hopes, or threatenings of the court. Sir William 134 Turner was another of the committee, who had been lord mayor of London the former year, under whose wise and just administration the rebuilding of the city advanced so fast, that he would have been chosen lord mayor for the ensuing year, if he had not declined it. Pierpoint was likewise of this committee: so was sir James Langham, a very weak man, famed only for his readiness of speaking florid Latin, which he had attained to a degree beyond any man of the age; but he was become a pedant with it, and his style was too poetical, and full of epithets and figures[43].
I name sir George Savile last, because he deserves a more copious character[44]. He rose afterwards to be 484 viscount, earl, and marquis of Halifax. He was a man of a great and ready wit, full of life, and very pleasant, much turned to satire[45]. He let his wit run much on matters of religion, so that he passed for a bold and determined atheist; though he often protested to me he was not one; and said he believed there was not one in the world. He confessed he could not swallow down every thing that divines imposed on the world. He was a Christian in submission, and he believed as much as he could, and he hoped God would not lay it to his charge if he could not digest iron, as an ostrich did, nor take into his belief things that must burst him: if he had any scruples, they were not sought for, nor cherished by him; for he never read an atheistical book. These were his excuses, but I could not quite believe him; yet in a fit of sickness I knew him very much touched with a sense of religion. I was then oft with him: he seemed full of good purposes: but they went off with his sickness. He was always talking of morality and friendship. He was punctual in all payments, and just in all his private dealings; but with relation to the public he went backwards and forwards, and changed sides so often, that in conclusion no side trusted him. He seemed full of commonwealth notions, yet he went in to the worst part of king Charles's reign. He was out of measure vain and ambitious. The liveliness of his imagination 485 was always too hard for his judgment. A severe jest was preferred by him to all arguments whatsoever; and he was endless in consultations. For when after much discourse a point was settled, if he could find a new jest to make even that which was suggested by himself seem ridiculous, he could not hold, but would study to raise the credit of his wit, though it made others call his judgment in question[46]. When he talked to me as a philosopher of his contempt of the world, I asked him what he meant, to be getting so many new titles, which I called the hanging himself about with bells and tinsel. He had no other excuse for it but this, that, since the world were such fools as to value those matters, a man must be a fool for company: he considered them but as rattles: yet rattles please children: so these might be of use to his family. His heart was much set on raising his family: but though he made a vast estate for them, he buried two of his sons himself, and almost all his grandchildren. The son that survived was an honest man, but far inferior to him, which appeared the more sensibly because he affected to imitate him; but the distance was too wide. I do not remember who besides these were of that committee, that, because it sat in Brookhouse, was called by the name of that house.
The court was much troubled to see an inquiry of this kind set on foot. It was said the king was basely treated, when all his expense was to be looked into. On the other hand it was answered that the parliament did not look into his revenue, but only to the distribution of that treasure 486 that was trusted to him for carrying on the war[47]. I was told that, after all the most shameful items that could be put into an account, there was no account offered for about 800,000l.; but I was not then in England: so I was very imperfectly informed as to this matter. The chief men that promoted this were taken off, (as the word then was for corrupting members,) in which the court made so great a progress, that it was thought the king could never have been prevailed on to part with a parliament so much practised on, and where every man's price was known; for as a man rose in his credit in the house, he raised his price, and expected to be treated accordingly. In all this inquiry the carelessness and luxury of the court came to be so much exposed, that the king's spirit was much sharpened upon it[48]. All the flatterers about him magnified foreign 487 governments, where the princes were absolute, that in France more particularly. Many, to please him, said it was a very easy thing to shake off the restraints of law, if the king would but set about it. The crown of Denmark was elective, and subject to a senate, and yet was in one day, without any visible force, changed to be both hereditary and absolute, no rebellion nor convulsion of state following on it. The king loved the project in general, but would not give himself the trouble of laying or managing it; and therefore till his affairs were made easier, and the prospect grew clearer, he resolved to keep all things close within himself, and went on in the common maxim, to balance party against party, and by doing popular things to get money of his parliament, under the pretence of supporting the triple alliance. So money-bills passed easily in the house of commons, which by a strange reverse came to be opposed in the 135 house of lords; who began to complain that the money-bills came up so thick, that it was said there was no end of their giving; end signifying purpose as well as a measure, this passed as a severe jest at that time. It is true sir John Coventry made a gross reflection on the king's amours. He was one of those who struggled much against the giving money. The common method is, after those who oppose such bills fail in the main vote, the next thing they endeavour is to lay the money on funds that will be unacceptable, and will prove deficient. So these men proposed the laying a tax on the playhouses, which in so dissolute a time were become nests of prostitution, and the stage was defiled beyond all example, Dryden, the great master at dramatic poesy, being a monster of immodesty and of impurity of all sorts. This was opposed by the court: it was said the players were the king's servants, and a part of his pleasure. Coventry asked, whether did the king's pleasure lie among the men or the women that acted? This was carried with great indignation to the court. It was said this was the first time that the king was personally reflected on: if it 488 was passed over, more of the same kind would follow, and it would grow a fashion to talk so. It was therefore fit to take such severe notice of this, that nobody should dare to talk at that rate for the future. The duke of York told me he said all he could to the king to divert him from the resolution he took; which was to send some of the guards, and watch in the streets where sir John lodged, and leave a mark upon him. Sands and O' Brian[49], and some others, went; and as Coventry was going home they drew about him: he stood up to the wall, and snatched the flambeau out of his servant's hand, and with that in the one hand, and his sword in the other, he defended himself so well, that he got more credit by it than by all the actions of his life. He wounded some of them, but was soon disarmed: and then they cut his nose to the bone, to teach him to remember what respect he owed to the king: and so they left him, and went back to the duke of Monmouth's, where O'Brian's arm was dressed. That matter was executed by orders from the duke of Monmouth: for which he was severely censured, because he lived then in professions of friendship with Coventry; so that his subjection to the king was not thought an excuse for directing so vile an attempt on his friend without sending him secret notice of what was designed. Coventry had his nose so well needled up, that the scar was scarce to be discerned[50]. This put the 489 house of commons in a furious uproar[51]. They passed a bill of banishment against the actors of it; and put a clause in it that it should not be in the king's power to pardon them[52]. This gave great advantages to all those that opposed the court, and was often remembered and much improved by all the angry men. At this time the names of the Court and Country party, which till now had seemed to be forgotten, were again revived.
When the city was pretty well rebuilt, they began to take care of the churches, which had lain in ashes some years; and in that time conventicles abounded in all the parts of the city[53]. It was thought hard to hinder men from worshipping God any way as they could, when there were no churches, nor ministers to look after them. But now they began to raise churches of boards, till the public allowance should be raised towards the building the churches. These they called tabernacles, and they fitted them up with pews and galleries as churches. So now an 490 act was proposed reviving the former act against conventicles[54], with some new clauses in it. One was very extraordinary, that if any doubt should arise concerning the meaning of any part of this act, it was to be determined in the sense that was the most contrary to conventicles, it being the intention of the house to repress them in the most effectual manner possible. The other was, the laying a heavy fine on such justices of the peace as should not execute the law, when informations were brought them[55]. 491 Upon this, many who would not be the instruments of such severities left the bench, and would sit there no longer. This act was executed in the city very severely in Starlin[g]'s mayoralty[56]; and put things in such disorder, that many of the trading men of the city began to talk of removing with their stock over to Holland: but the king ordered a stop to be put to further severities. Many of the sects either discontinued their meetings, or held them very secretly with small numbers, and not in the hours of the public worship; yet informers were encouraged, and were every where at work. The behaviour of the quakers was more particular, and had something in it that looked bold. They met at the same place and at the same hour as before; and when they were seized, none of them would go out of the way: they went altogether to prison: they staid there till they were dismissed, for they would not petition to be set at liberty, nor would they pay the fines set on them, nor so much as the jail fees, calling these the wages of unrighteousness. And as soon as they were let out, they went to their meeting-houses again: and when they found these were shut up by order, they held their meetings on the streets, before the doors of those houses. They said they would not disown or be ashamed of their meeting together to worship God: but, in imitation of Daniel, they would do it the more publicly, because they were forbidden doing it. Some called this obstinacy, while others called it firmness. But by it they carried their point, for the government 136 grew weary of dealing with so much perverseness, and so began with letting them alone[57]. 492
The king had by this time got all the money that he
expected from the house of commons, and that after great
practice on both lords and commons. Many bones were
thrown in, to create differences between the two houses,
to try if by both houses insisting on them the
moneybills might fall. But to prevent all trouble from the lords,
the king was advised to go and be present at all their
debates. Lord Lauderdale valued himself to me on this
advice, which he said he gave. At first the king sat
decently in the chair, on the throne; that was a great
restraint on the freedom of debate, which had some effect
for a while: but afterwards many of the lords seemed to
speak with the more boldness, because, they said, one
heard it to whom they had no other access but in that
493
place; and they took the more liberty because what they
said could not be reported wrong. The king, who was
often weary of time, and did not know how to get round
the day, liked the going to the house, as a pleasant
diversion. So he went constantly[58]: and he quickly left
the throne, and stood by the fire; which drew a crowd
about him. that broke all the decency of that house. For
before that time every lord sat regularly in his place: but
the king's coming broke the order of their sitting as
became senators. The king's going thither had a much
worse effect: for he became a common solicitor, not only
in public affairs, but even in private matters of justice. He
would in a very little time have gone round the house,
and spoke to every man that he thought worth speaking
to; and he was apt to do that upon the solicitation of any
of the ladies in favour, or of any that had credit with him.
He knew well on whom he could prevail: so being once
in a matter of justice desired to speak to the earl of Essex
and lord Holles, he said they were stiff and sullen men:
but when he was next desired to solicit two others, he
undertook to do it, and said, they are men of no conscience,
so I will take the government of their conscience
into my own hands.
Yet when any of the lords told him
plainly that they could not vote as he desired, he seemed
to take it well from them. When the act against
conventicles was in that house, Wilkins argued long against it.
The king was much for having it pass, not that he intended
to execute it, but he was glad to have that body of men
at mercy, and to force them to concur in the design for
a general toleration[59]. He spoke to Wilkins not to oppose
494
it. He answered, he thought it an ill thing both in
conscience and policy: therefore, both as he was an Englishman
and a bishop, he was bound to oppose it. The king then
desired him not to come to the house while it depended.
He said, by the law and constitution of England, and by
his majesty's favour, he had a right to debate and vote:
and he was neither afraid nor ashamed to own his opinion
in that matter, and to act pursuant to it. So he went on:
and the king was not offended with his freedom. But
though he bore with such a frank refusing to comply with
his desire, yet if any had made him such a general answer
as led him to believe they intended to be compliant, and
had not in all things done as he expected, he called that
a juggling with him, and he was apt to speak hardly of
them on that account, of which bishop Ward felt a very
heavy share. No sooner was the king at ease, and had
his fleet put in good case, and his stores and magazines
well furnished, than he immediately fell a negotiating with
France, both to ruin Holland and to subvert the
government of England. The Brook-house business, as well as
the burning his fleet, stuck as deep as any thing could go
into his heart. He resolved to revenge the one, and to
free himself from the apprehensions of the other's returning
upon him: though the house of commons were so far
practised on, that the report of Brook-house was let fall, and
that matter was no more insisted on. Yet he abhorred
the precedent, and the discoveries that had been made
upon it.
The prince of Orange came over to him in the winter [16]69[60]. He was then in the twentieth year of his age, 495 near being of full age: so he came over both to see how the king intended to pay the great debt that he owed him, which had been contracted by his father on his account, and likewise to try what offices the king would do in order to his advancement to the stadtholdership[61]. The king treated him civilly. He assured him he would pay the debt, but did not lay down any method of doing it: so these were only good words. He tried the prince, as he himself told me, in the point of religion: he spoke of all the protestants as a factious body, broken among themselves ever since they had broke off from the main body; and wished that he would take more pains, and look into these things better, and not be led by his Dutch blockheads. The prince told all this to Zulesteyn, his natural uncle. They were both amazed at it, and wondered how the king could trust so great a secret as his being a papist to so young a person. The prince told me that he never spoke of this to any other person till after his [the king's] death: but he carried it always in his own mind, and could not hinder himself from judging of all the king's intentions after that; nor did he, upon his not compliance with that proposition, expect any real assistance of the king, but general intercessions which signified nothing: and that was all he obtained.
137 So far have I carried on the thread of the affairs of 496 England down from the peace of Breda to the year [16]70, in which the negotiation with the court of France was set on foot[62]. I am not sure that every thing is told in a just order, because I was all the while very much retired from the world and from company. But I am confident I have given a true representation of things, since I had most of these matters from persons who knew them well, and who were not like to deceive me.
But now I return to my own country, where the same spirit appeared in the administration.
The king was now upon measures of moderation and comprehension: so these were also pursued in Scotland. Leighton was the only person among the bishops that declared for these methods: and he made no step without talking it over to me. A great many churches were already vacant. They fell off entirely from all the episcopal clergy in the western counties: and a set of hot fiery young teachers went about among the people, inflaming them more and more. So it was necessary to find a remedy for this[1]. 497 Leighton proposed that a treaty should be set on foot, in order to the accommodating our differences, and for changing the laws that had carried the episcopal authority much higher than any of the bishops themselves put in practice. He saw both church and state were rent: religion was like to be lost: popery, or rather barbarity, was like to come in upon us: and therefore he proposed such a scheme as he thought might have taken in the soberest men of presbyterian principles; reckoning that if the schism could be once healed, and order be once restored, it might be easy to bring things into such a management, that the concessions then to be offered should do no great hurt in present, and should die with that generation. He observed the extraordinary concessions made by the African church to the Donatists, who were every whit as wild and extravagant as our people were. Therefore he went indeed very far to the extenuating the episcopal authority: but he thought it would be easy afterwards to recover what seemed necessary to be yielded at present.
He proposed that the church should be governed by the bishops and their clergy mixing together in the church judicatories, in which the bishop should act only as president, and be determined by the majority of his presbyters, both in matters of jurisdiction and ordination: and that the presbyterians should be allowed, when they sat down first in these judicatories, to declare that their sitting under a bishop was submitted to by them only for peace sake, with a reservation of their opinion with relation to any such presidency: and that no negative vote should be claimed by the bishop: that bishops should go to the churches where such as were to be ordained were to serve, and hear and discuss any exceptions that were made to them, and ordain them with the concurrence of the presbytery: that such as were to be ordained should have leave to declare their opinion, if they thought the bishop was only the head of the presbyters. And he also 498 proposed that there should be provincial synods, to sit in course every third year, or oftener if the king should summon them; in which complaints of the bishops should be received, and they should be censured accordingly. The laws that settled episcopacy and the authority of a national synod were to be altered according to this scheme. To justify, or rather to excuse, these concessions, which left little more than the name of a bishop, he said, as for their protestation, it would be little minded and soon forgotten: the world would see the union that would be again settled among us, and the protestation would lie dead in the books, and die with those that made it: as for the negative vote, bishops generally managed matters so that they had no occasion for it: but if it should be found necessary, it might be lodged in the king's name with some secular person, who should interpose it as often as the bishop saw it was expedient to use it. And if the present race could be but laid in their graves in peace, all those heats would abate, if not quite fall off. He also thought it was a much decenter thing for bishops to go upon the place where the minister was to serve, and to ordain, after solemn fasting and prayer, than to huddle it up at their cathedrals, with no solemnity, and scarce with common decency. It seemed also reasonable that bishops should be liable to censure, as well as other people, and that in a fixed court, which was to consist of bishops and deans, and two chosen from every presbytery. The liberty offered to such as were to be ordained to declare their opinion, was the hardest part of the whole: it looked like the perpetuating a factious and irregular humour; but few would make use of it. All the churches in the gift of the king or of the bishops would go to men of other principles. But though some things of an ill digestion were at such a time admitted, yet, if by these means the schism could be once healed, and the nation again settled in a peaceable state, the advantage of that would balance all that was lost by 138 those abatements that were to be made in the 499 episcopal authority, which had been raised too high, and to correct that was now to be let fall too low, if it were not for the good that was to be hoped for from this accommodation: for this came to be the word, as comprehension was in England. He proposed that a treaty might be set on foot for bringing the presbyterians to accept of those concessions. The earl of Kincardine was against all treating with them: they were a trifling sort of disputatious people, that loved logic and sophistry. They would fall into much wrangling, and would subdivide among themselves: and the young and ignorant men among them, that were accustomed to popular declamations, would say, here was a bargain made to sell Christ's kingdom and his prerogative. He therefore proposed, that since we knew both their principles and their tempers, we ought to carry the concessions as far as was either reasonable or expedient, and pass these into laws: and then they would submit to a settlement that was made, and that could not be helped, more easily than give a consent beforehand to any thing that seemed to entrench on that which they called the liberty of the church. Leighton did fully agree with him. But lord Lauderdale would never consent to that. He said, a law that did so entirely change the constitution of the church, when it came to be passed and printed, would be construed in England as a pulling down of episcopacy, unless he could have this to say in excuse for it, that the presbyterians were willing to come under that model. So he said, since the load of what was to be done in Scotland would fall heaviest on him, he would not expose himself so much as the passing any such act must certainly do, till he knew what effects would follow on it. So we were forced to try how to deal with them in a treaty. I was sent to propose this scheme to Hutchinson[2], who was esteemed the learnedest man 500 among them: but I was only to try him, and to talk of it as a notion of my own. He had married my cousin-germain, and I had been long acquainted with him. He looked on it as a project that would never take effect: so he would not give his opinion about it. He said, when these concessions were passed into laws, he would know what he should think of them, but he was one of many; so he avoided the engaging himself. The next thing under consideration was, how to dispose of the many vacancies, and how to put a stop to conventicles. Leighton proposed that they should be kept still vacant, while the treaty was on foot, and that the presbyterians should see how much the government was in earnest in the design of bringing them to serve in the church, when so many places were kept open for them. The earl of Tweeddale thought the treaty would run into a great length and to many niceties, and would probably come to nothing in conclusion: so he proposed the granting the outed ministers leave to go and serve in those parishes by an act of the king's Indulgence[3]. Leighton was against this. He thought nothing would bring on the presbyterians to a treaty so much as the hopes of being again suffered to return to their benefices; whereas, if they were once admitted to them, they would reckon they had gained their point, and would grow more backward. I was desired to go into the western parts, and to give a true account of matters, as I found them there. So I went, as in a visit to the duke of Hamilton, whose duchess was a woman of great piety and great parts[4]. She had much credit among them, for she passed for a zealous presbyterian, though she protested to me she never entered into the points of controversy, and had no settled opinion about forms of government; only she thought their ministers were good men, who kept the country in great quiet and order: they were, she said, blameless in their lives, devout 501 in their way, and diligent in their labours. The people were all in a phrenzy, and were in no disposition to any treaty. The furiousest men among them were busy in conventicles, inflaming them against all agreement: so she thought that if the more moderate presbyterians were put in vacant churches, the people would grow tamer, and be taken out of the hands of the mad preachers, that were then most in vogue. This would likewise create a confidence in them: for they were now so possessed with prejudices, as to believe that all that was proposed was only an artifice to make them fall out among themselves, and to deceive them at last. This seemed reasonable: and she got many of the more moderate of them to come to me, and they all talked in the same strain.
A strange accident happened to Sharp in July [16]68. As he was going into his coach in full daylight, and the bishop of Orkney with him, a man came up to the coach, and discharged a pistol at him with a brace of bullets in it[5]; as the bishop was going up into the coach, he intended to shoot through his cloak at Sharp as he was mounting up: but the bullets stuck in the bishop of Orkney's arm, and shattered it so, that, 139 though he lived some years after that, they were forced to open it every year for a new exfoliation. Sharp was so universally hated, that, though this was done in full daylight, and on the high street, yet nobody offered to seize on the assassin. So he walked off, and went home, and shifted himself of an odd wig, which he was not accustomed to wear, and came out, and walked on the streets immediately[6]. But Sharp had viewed him that he believed was the person so narrowly, that he discovered him afterwards, as shall be mentioned in its proper 502 place. I lived then much out of the world: yet I thought it decent to go and congratulate on this occasion. He was much touched with it, and put on a shew of devotion upon it. He said with a very serious look, My times are wholly in thy hand, O thou the God of my life! This was the single expression savouring of piety that ever fell from him in all the conversation that passed between him and me. Proclamations were issued out with great rewards for discovering the actor, but nothing followed on them. On this occasion it was thought proper that he should be called to court, and have some marks of the king's favour put on him. He promised to make many good motions, and he talked for a while like a changed man: and went out of his way, as he was going to court, to visit me at my parsonage house, and seemed resolved to turn to other methods. The king, as he had a particular talent that way when he had a mind to it, treated him with special characters of favour and respect: but he made no propositions to the king, only in general terms he approved of the methods of gentleness and moderation then in vogue.
When he came back to Scotland he moved in council that an indulgence might be granted to some of the Public Resolutioners, with some rules and restraints[7]; such as, that they should not speak or preach against episcopacy, and that they should not admit to either of the sacraments any of the neighbouring parishes without a desire from their own ministers; and that they should engage themselves to observe these rules. He knew that this proposition, for all the shew of moderation that was in it, could have no effect: for the Resolutioners and the Protestors had laid down their old disputes, and were resolved to come under no discrimination on that account; nor would they engage to observe any limitations that should be laid on them. They said the government might lay restraints on them, and punish them if they broke through them, and 503 they would obey them, or not, at their peril. But they laid down this for a maxim, that they had received a complete ministry from Christ, and that the judicatories of the church had only power to govern them in the exercise of their function. If the king should lay any limitations on them, they might obey these, as prudence should direct: but they would not bind themselves up by any engagement of their own. Burnet and his clergy, (for the diocese of Glasgow is above the fourth part of all Scotland,) came to Edinburgh full of high complaints, that the churches were universally forsaken, and that conventicles abounded in every corner of the country. A proclamation was upon that issued out in imitation of the English act[8], setting a fine of 50l. upon every landlord on whose grounds any conventicle was held, which he might recover as he could of those who were at any such conventicle. This was plainly against law; for the council had no power by their authority to set arbitrary fines. It was pretended, on the other hand, that the act of parliament that had restored episcopacy had a clause in it recommending the execution of that act to the privy council by all the best ways they could think of. But the lawyers at the council-board said, that in matter of property their power was certainly tied up to the direction of the law: and the clause mentioned related only to particular methods, but could not be construed so far as this proclamation carried the matter. The proclamation went out, but was never executed. It was sent up to London, and had a shew of zeal; and so was made use of by the earl of Lauderdale, to bear down the clamour that was raised against him and his party in Scotland, as if they designed to pull down episcopacy. The model of the county militia was now executed: and about 20,000 horse and foot were armed and trained, and cast into independent regiments and troops, who were all to be under such orders as the council issued out. All this was against law: for the king had only 504 a power upon an extraordinary occasion to raise and march such a body of men as he should summon together, and that at his own charge: but the converting this into a standing militia, which carried with it a standing charge, was thought a great stretch of prerogative. Yet it was resolved on; though great exceptions were made to it by the lawyers, chiefly by sir John Nisbet, the king's advocate, a man of great learning, both in law and in many other things, chiefly in the Greek learning: he was a person of great integrity, only he loved money too much: but he always stood firm to the law[9]. The true secret of this was, that lord Lauderdale was now pressing to get into the management of the affairs of England, and he saw what the court was aiming at: so he had a mind to make himself considerable by this, that he had in his hand a great army, with a magazine of arms, and a stock of money laid up in Scotland for any accident that might happen[10]. So all his creatures, and lady Dysart more than all the rest, had this up in all companies, that none before him ever dreamt how to make Scotland considerable to the king: but now it began to make a great figure. An army, a magazine, and a treasure, were words of a high sound; chiefly now that the 140 house of commons was like to grow so intractable, that the duke of Buckingham despaired of being able to manage them. He moved the dissolving the parliament, and calling a new one, and thought the nation would choose men less zealous for the church, who were all against him. But the king would not venture on it: he knew the house of commons was either firm to him by their own principles, or by his management they could be 505 made so, and therefore he would not run the risk of any new election. He had the dissenters much in his power, by the severe laws under which they lay at his mercy: but he did not know what influence they might have in elections, and in a new parliament: these he knew were in their hearts enemies to prerogative, which he believed they would shew as soon as they got themselves to be delivered from the laws that then put them in the king's power. Lord Tweeddale was then at London: and he set on foot a proposition, that came to nothing, but made so much noise, and was of such importance, that it deserves to be enlarged on. It was for the union of both kingdoms[11]. The king liked it; because he reckoned that, at least for his time, he would be sure of all the members that should be sent up from Scotland. The duke of Buckingham went in easily to a new thing: and lord keeper Bridgeman was much for it. The lord Lauderdale pressed it vehemently. It made it necessary to hold a parliament in Scotland, where he intended to be the king's commissioner[12]. The earl of Tweeddale was for it on other accounts, both to settle the establishment of the militia, and to get some alterations made in the laws that related to the church: but he really drove at the union, as a thing which as he hoped might be brought about. Scotland was even then under great uneasiness, though the king knew the state of that kingdom: but when another king should 506 reign that knew not Joseph, (so he expressed it,) the nation would be delivered up to favourites, and be devoured by them. Rich provinces, like those that belonged to Spain, could hold out long, even under oppression; but a poor country would be soon dispeopled, if much oppressed. And if a king of deep designs against public liberty should caress the Scots, he might easily engage them; since a poor country may be supposed willing to change their seats, and to break in upon a richer. There was indeed no fear of that at present; for the dotage of the nation on presbytery, and the firmness with which the government supported episcopacy, set them so far from one another, that no engagement of that sort could be attempted. But if a king should take a dexterous method for putting that out of the way, he might carry Scotland to any design he thought fit to engage in. Lord Tweeddale blamed sir Francis Bacon much for laying it down as a maxim, that Scotland was to be reckoned as the third part of the island[13], and to be treated accordingly: whereas he assured me Scotland for numbers of people was not above a tenth part, and for wealth not above a twentieth part of the island.
The discourse of the union was kept up till it was resolved to summon a new parliament in Scotland; but then lord Lauderdale made the king reflect on the old scheme he had laid before him at the restoration, and he undertook to manage the parliament so as to make it answer that end more effectually than any before him had ever done. This was resolved on in the summer [16]69; and then it was that I being at Hamilton, and having got the best information of the state of the country that I could, wrote a long account of all I had heard to the lord Tweeddale, and concluded it with an advice to put some of the more moderate of the presbyterians into the vacant churches. Sir Robert Moray told me the letter was so well liked, that it was read to the king. Such a letter would have signified nothing, if lord Tweeddale had not 507 been fixed in the same notion: he had now a plausible thing to support it. So my principles, and zeal for the church, and I know not what besides, were raised, to make my advice signify somewhat, and it was said I was the man that went most entirely into all Leighton's maxims. So this indiscreet letter of mine, sent without communicating it to Leighton, gave the deciding stroke; and, as may be easily believed, it drew much hatred on me from all that either knew it, or did suspect it. The king wrote a letter to the privy council, ordering them to indulge such of the presbyterians as were peaceable and loyal, so far as to suffer them to serve in vacant churches, though they did not submit to the present establishment: and he required them to set them such rules as might preserve order and peace, and to look well to the execution of them: and as for such as could not be provided to churches at that time, he ordered a pension of twenty pounds sterling a year to be paid to every one of them, as long as they lived orderly. Nothing followed on the second article of this letter. The presbyterians looked on this as the king's hire to be silent, and not to do their duty, and none of them would accept of it. But as to the first part of the letter, on the first council day after it was read, twelve of the old ministers were indulged: they had parishes assigned them: and about thirty more were afterwards indulged in the same manner: and then a stop was put for some time. With the warrants that they had for their churches, there was a paper of rules likewise put in their hands. Hutcheson, in all their names, made a speech to the council: he began with decent expressions of thanks to the king and to their lordships, and he said they should at all times give such obedience to 141 laws and orders as could stand with a good conscience[14]. And so they were dismissed. As for those of them that were allowed to go to the churches where they had served before, no difficulty could be made: but those 508 of them that were named to other churches would not enter on the serving them, till the church sessions and the inhabitants of the parish met, and made choice of them for their pastors, and gave them a call (as they worded it) to serve among them. But upon this, scruples arose among some, who said the people's choice ought to be free, whereas they were now limited to the person named by the council, so that this looked like an election upon a congé d'eliré with a letter naming the person, with which they had often diverted themselves. But scruples are mighty things when they concur with inclination or interest: and when they are not supported by these, men learn distinctions to get free from them. So it happened in this case: for though some few were startled at these things, yet they lay in no man's way; for every man went, and was possessed of the churches marked out for them. And at first the people of the country run to them with a sort of transport of joy. Yet this was soon cooled[15]. It was hoped that they would have begun their ministry with a public testimony against all [that] had been done in opposition to what they were accustomed to call the work of God; but they were silent at this time, and preached only the doctrines of Christianity. This disgusted all those who loved to hear their ministers preach to the times, as they call it. The stop put to the indulgence made many conclude that those who had obtained the favour had entered into secret engagements. So they came to call them the king's curates, as they had called the clergy in derision the bishops' curates. Their caution brought them under a worse character, of dumb dogs, that could not bark. Those who by their fierce behaviour had shut themselves out from a share in the indulgence, began to call this Erastianism, and the civil magistrate's assuming the power of sacred matters. They said this was visibly an artifice to lay things asleep, with the present generation; and was one of the depths of 509 Satan, to give a present quiet, in order to the certain destruction of presbytery. And it was also said, that there was a visible departing of the divine assistance from those preachers: they preached no more with the power and authority that had accompanied them at conventicles. So many began to fall off from them, and to go again to conventicles. Many of the preachers confessed to me that they found an ignorance and a deadness among those who had been the hottest upon their meetings, beyond what could have been imagined. Those that could have argued about the intrinsic power of the church, and episcopacy, and presbytery, upon which all their sermons had chiefly run for several years, knew very little of the essentials of religion. But the indulged preachers, instead of setting themselves with the zeal and courage that became them against the follies of the people, of which they confessed to my self they were very sensible, took a different method; and studied by mean compliances to gain upon their affections, and to take them out of the hands of some fiery men that were going up and down among them. The tempers of some brought them under this servile popularity, into which others went out of craft and a desire to live easy.
The indulgence was settled in a hurry: but when it came to be descanted on, it appeared to be plainly against law. For by the act restoring episcopacy, none were capable of benefices but such as should own the authority of bishops, and be instituted by them. So now the episcopal party, that were wont to put all authority in the king, as long as he was for them, began to talk of law[16]. They said the king's power was bounded by the law, and that these proceedings were the trampling of law under foot. For all parties, as they need the shelter of law or the stretches of the prerogative, are apt by turns to magnify the one or the other. Burnet and his clergy were out of measure enraged at it. They were not only abandoned, but ill used by the people, who were beginning to threaten, or to buy them out 510 of their churches, that they also might have the benefit of the indulgence. The synod of the clergy was held at Glasgow in October: and they moved that an address might be drawn up, representing to the king the miseries they were under, occasioned by the indulgence: they complained of it as illegal, and as like to be fatal to the church[17]. So this was, according to the words in some of their acts of parliament, a misrepresenting the king's proceedings, in order to the alienating the hearts of his subjects from him; which was made capital, as may appear by the account given in the former book of the proceedings against the lord Balmerino[18]. He that drew this was one Ross, afterwards archbishop, first of Glasgow, and then of St. Andrews; who is yet alive, and was always a proud, ill-natured, and ignorant man, covetous, and violent out of measure[19]. So it was drawn full of acrimony. Yet they resolved to keep it secret till advice should be taken upon it; and accordingly to present it to the privy council, or not. A copy of this was procured by indirect methods: and it was sent up to court, after the earl of Lauderdale was come off, and was on his way to hold the parliament in Scotland. Lord Lauderdale had left all his concerns at court with sir Robert Moray: for though, at his mistress's instigation, he had used him 142 very unworthily, yet he had that opinion of his virtue and candour, that he left all his affairs to his care. As soon as the king saw the clergy's address, he said it was a new Western Remonstrance[20]: and ordered that Burnet should not be suffered to come to the parliament, and that he should be proceeded against as 511 far as the law could carry the matter. It was not easy to stretch this so far as to make it criminal. But Burnet being obnoxious on other accounts, they intended to frighten him to submit, and to resign his bishopric[21].
The parliament was opened in November. Lord Lauderdale's speech run upon two heads. The one was, the recommending to their care the preservation of the church, as established by law, upon which he took occasion to express great zeal for episcopacy. The other head related to the union of both kingdoms. All that was done relating to that was, that an act passed for a treaty[22]: and in the following summer, in a subsequent session, commissioners were named, who went up to treat about it, but they made no progress; and the thing fell so soon, that it was very visible it was never intended in good earnest. The two first acts passed in parliament were of more importance, and had a deeper design[23]. The first explained and asserted the king's supremacy: but they carried it, as they are apt to do in Scotland, in such general words, that it might have been stretched to every thing. It was declared that the settling all things relating to the external government of the church was a right of the crown; and that all things relating to ecclesiastical meetings, matters, and persons, were to be ordered according to such directions as the king should send to his privy council: and that these should be published by them, which should have the force of laws. Lord Lauderdale very probably knew the secret of the duke's religion[24], and had got into his favour; so it is very a likely that he intended to establish himself in it, 512 by putting the church of Scotland wholly in his power; but that was yet a secret to us all in Scotland. The method he took to get it passed was this. He told all those who loved the presbytery, or that did not much favour the bishops, that it was necessary to keep them under by making them depend absolutely on the king. This was indeed a transferring the whole legislature as to the matters of the church from the parliament, and the vesting it singly in the king: yet, he told them, if this were done as the circumstances might be favourable, the king might be prevailed on, if a dash of a pen would do it, to change all of the sudden: whereas that could never be hoped for, if it could not be brought about but by the pomp and ceremony of a parliament. He made the nobility see they needed fear no more the insolence of bishops, if they were at mercy, as this would make them. Sharp did not like it, but durst not oppose it[25] He made a long dark speech, copied out of doctor Taylor, distinguishing between the civil and the ecclesiastical authority, and voted for it: so did all the bishops that were present: some absented themselves. Leighton was against any such act, and got some words to be altered in it. He thought it might be stretched to ill ends, and so he was very averse to it; yet he gave his vote for it, not having sufficiently considered the extent of the words, and the consequences that might follow on such an act; for which he was very sorry as long as he lived. 513 But at that time there were no apprehensions in Scotland of the danger of popery. Many of the best of the episcopal clergy, Nairn and Charteris in particular, were highly offended at the act. They thought it plainly made the king our pope, as the presbyterians said it put him in Christ's stead. They said the king had already too much power in the matters of the church, and nothing ruined the clergy more than their being brought into servile compliances and a base dependance upon courts. I had no share in the counsels about this act. I only thought it was designed by lord Tweeddale to justify the Indulgence, which he protested to me was his chief end in it. And nobody could ever tell me how the word ecclesiastical matters was put in the act. Leighton thought he was sure[26] it was put in after the draught and form of the act was agreed on: so it was generally[27] charged on lord Lauderdale. And when the duke's religion came to be known, then all people saw how much the legal settlement of our religion was put in his power by this means. Yet the preamble of the act being only concerning the external government of the church, it was thought that matters were to be confined to the sense that was limited by the preamble.
The next act that passed was concerning the militia[28] all that had been done in raising it was approved, and it was enacted that it should still be kept up, and be ready 514 to march into any of the king's dominions, for any cause in which his majesty's authority, power, or greatness should be concerned; and that they should obey such orders as should be transmitted to them from the council-board, without any mention of orders from the king. Upon this great reflections were made. Some said, that by this the army was taken out of the king's power and command, and put under the power of the council: so that if the greater part of the council should again rebel, as they did in the year 1638, the army was by the words of this act bound to follow their orders. But when jealousies broke out in England of the ill designs that lay hid under this matter, it was thought that the intent of this clause was, that if the king should call in the Scottish army, it should not be necessary that he himself should send any orders for it: but that, upon a secret intimation, the council might do it without order, and then, if the design should miscarry, it should not lie on the king, but only on the council, whom in that case the king might disown; and so none about him should be liable for it. The earl of Lauderdale valued himself upon these acts, as if he had conquered kingdoms 143 by them. He wrote a letter to the king upon it, in which he said all Scotland was now in his power. The church of Scotland was now more subject to him than the church of England was. This militia was now an army ready upon call: and that every man in Scotland was ready to march whensoever he should order it, with several very ill insinuations in it. But so dangerous a thing it is to write such letters to princes, that this letter fell into duke Hamilton's hands some years after, and I had it in my hands for some days. It was intended to found an impeachment on it. But that happened at the time when the business of the exclusion of the duke from the succession to the crown was so hotly pursued, that this, which at another time would have made great noise, was not so 515 much considered as the importance of it might seem to deserve. The way how it came into such hands was this. The king, after he had read the letter, gave it to sir Robert Moray, and when he died it was found among his papers. He had been much trusted in the matter of the king's laboratory[29], and had several of the chymical processes in his hands. So the king after his death did order one to look over all his papers for chymical matters: but all the papers of state were let alone. So this, with many other papers, fell into the hands of his executors; and thus this letter came into hands that would have made an ill use of it, if greater matters had not been then in agitation. This is not the single instance that I have known of papers of great consequence falling into the hands of the executors of great ministers, that might have been turned to very bad uses, if they had fallen into ill hands. It seems of great concern, that when a minister or an ambassador dies, or is recalled, or disgraced, all papers relating to the secrets of their employment should be of right in the power of the government. But I of all men should complain the least of this, since by this remissness many papers of a high nature have fallen in my way.
By the act of supremacy the king was now master, and could turn out bishops at pleasure[30]. So this had its first effect on Burnet; who was offered a pension[31] if he would submit and resign, and threatened to be treated more severely if he stood out[32]. He complied, and retired to 516 a private state of life, and bore his disgrace better than he had done his honours. He lived four years in the shade, and was generally much pitied. He was of himself goodnatured and sincere, but was much in the power of others[33]. He meddled too much in that which did not belong to him, and that he did not understand; for he was not cut out for a court, or for the ministry: and he was too remiss in that which was properly his business, and that he understood to a good degree; for he took no manner of care of the spiritual part of his function.
At this time the university of Glasgow, to whom the choice of the professor of divinity does belong, chose me, though unknown to them all, to be professor there. There was no sort of artifice or management to bring this about: it came of themselves: and they did it without any recommendation from any person whatsoever. So I was advised by all my friends to change my post, and go thither. This engaged me both in much study and in a great deal of business. The clergy came all to me, thinking I had some credit with those that governed, and laid their grievances and complaints before me. They were very ill used, and were so entirely forsaken by their people that in most places they shut up their churches: they were also threatened and affronted on all occasions. On the other hand, the gentlemen of the country came as much to me, and told me such strange things of the vices of some, the follies of others, and the indiscretions of them all, that, though it was not reasonable to believe all that they said, yet it was impossible not to believe a great deal of it. And so I soon saw what a hard province I was like to have of it. Accounts of the state of those parts were expected from me, and were like to be believed. So it was 517 not easy to know what ought to be believed, nor how matters were to be represented: for I found lying and calumny was so equally practised on both sides, that I came to mistrust every thing that I heard. One thing was visible, that conventicles abounded, and strange doctrines were vented in them. The king's supremacy was now the chief subject of declamation. It was said, bishops were indeed enemies to the liberties of the church, but the king's little finger would be heavier than their loins had been. After I had been for some months among them, and had heard so much that I believed very little, I wrote to lord Tweeddale that disorders did certainly increase; but, as for any particulars, I did not know what to believe, much less could I offer to suggest what remedies seemed proper. I therefore proposed that a committee of council might be sent round the country to examine matters, and to give such orders as were at present necessary for the public quiet, and might prepare a report against the next session of parliament, that so proper remedies might be found out.
144 Duke Hamilton, lord Kincardine, Primrose, and Drummond, were sent to those parts. They met first at Hamilton, next at Glasgow: then they went to other parts, and came back, and ended their circuit at Glasgow. They punished some disorders, and threatened both the indulged ministers and the countries with greater severities, if they should grow still more and more insolent upon the favour that had been shewed them. I was blamed by the presbyterians for all they did, and by the episcopal party for all they did not; since these thought they did too little, as the others thought they did too much. They consulted much with me, and suffered me to intercede so effectually for all they had put in prison, that they were all set at liberty. The episcopal party thought I intended to make my self popular at their cost: so they began that strain of fury and calumny that has pursued me ever since from that sort of people[34], as a secret enemy to their interest, and an underminer of it. 518 But I am, and still was, an enemy to all force and violence in matters of conscience: and there is no principle that is more hated by bad, ill-natured clergymen, than that.
The earls of Lauderdale and Tweeddale pressed Leighton much to accept of the see of Glasgow[35]. He declined it with so much aversion that we were all uneasy at it. Nothing moved him to hearken to it but the hopes of bringing about the accommodation that was proposed; in which he had all assistance promised him from the government. The king ordered him to be sent for to court. He sent for me on his way, where he stopt a day, to know from me what prospect there was of doing any good. I could not much encourage him: yet I gave him all the hopes that I could raise my self to, and I was then inclined to think that the accommodation was not impracticable. Upon his coming to London, he found lord Lauderdale's temper was much inflamed: he was become fierce and intractable. But lord Tweeddale made everything as easy to him as was possible. They had turned out an archbishop: so it concerned them to put an eminent man in his room, who should order matters with such moderation, that the government should not be under perpetual disturbance by reason of complaints from those parts. But now the court was entering into new designs, into which lord Lauderdale was thrusting himself, with an obsequious, or rather an officious, zeal. I will dwell no longer at present on that, than just to name the duchess of Orleans' coming to Dover, of which a more particular account shall be given, after I have laid together all that relates to Scotland in the year 1670, and the whole business of the accommodation. Leighton proposed to the king his scheme of the accommodation, and the great advantages that his majesty's affairs would have, if that country could be brought into temper. The king was at this time gone off from the design of a comprehension in England. Toleration was 519 now thought the best way. Yet the earl of Lauderdale possessed him with the necessity of doing somewhat to soften the Scots, in order to the great designs he was then engaging in. Upon that the king, who seldom gave himself the trouble to think twice of any one thing, gave way to it. Leighton's paper was in some places corrected by sir R. Moray, and was turned into instructions, by which lord Lauderdale was authorized to pass the concessions that were to be offered into laws. This he would never own to me, though Leighton shewed me the copy of them. But it appeared probable, by his conduct afterwards, that he had secret directions to spoil the matter; and that he intended to deceive us all. Lord Tweeddale was more to be depended on; but he began to lose ground with lady Dysart, and so his interest did not continue strong enough to carry on such a matter. Leighton undertook the administration of the see of Glasgow, and it was a year after this before he was prevailed on to be translated thither[36]. He came upon this to Glasgow, and held a synod of his clergy; in which nothing was to be heard but complaints of desertion and ill usage from them all. Leighton, in a sermon that he preached to them, and in several discourses both in public and private, exhorted them to look up more to God, to consider themselves as the ministers of the cross of Christ, to bear the contempt and ill usage they met with as a cross laid on them for the exercise of their faith and patience, to lay aside all the appetites of revenge, to humble themselves before God, to have many days for secret fasting and prayer, and to meet often together that they might quicken and assist one another in those holy exercises: and then they might 145 expect a blessing from heaven upon their labours. This was a new strain to the clergy. They had nothing to say against it: but it was a comfortless doctrine to them, and they had not been accustomed to it. No speedy ways were proposed for forcing the people to come to church, nor for sending 520 soldiers among them, or raising the fines to which they were liable. So they went home as little edified with their new bishop, as he was with them. When this was over, he went round some parts of the country to the most eminent of the indulged ministers, and carried me with him. His business was to persuade them to hearken to propositions of peace. He told them some of them would be quickly sent for to Edinburgh, where terms would be offered them in order to the making up our differences. All was sincerely meant: they would meet with no artifices nor hardships: and if they received those offers heartily, they would be turned into laws, and all the vacancies then in the church would be filled by their brethren. They received this with so much indifference, or rather neglect, that it would have cooled any zeal that was less warm and less active than that good man's was. They were scarce civil, and did not so much as thank him for his tenderness and care. The more crafty among them, such as Hutcheson, said it was a thing of general concern, and they were but single men. Others were more metaphysical, and entertained us with some poor arguings and distinctions. Leighton began to lose heart; yet he resolved to set the negotiation on foot, and carry it as far as he could.
When lord Lauderdale came down letters were writ to six of them ordering them to come to town[37]. There was a long conference between Leighton and them, before the earls of Lauderdale, Rothes, Tweeddale, and Kincardine. Sharp would not be present at it, but he ordered Paterson, afterwards archbishop of Glasgow, to hear all, and to bring him an account of what passed. Leighton laid before them the mischief of our divisions, and of the schism that they had occasioned: many souls were lost, and many more were in danger by these means: so that every one ought to do all he could to heal this wide breach, that had already let in so many evils among us which were like to make way to many more. For his own part, he was persuaded that episcopacy, as an order distinct 521 from presbyters, had continued in the church ever since the days of the apostles; that the world had every where received the Christian religion from bishops, and that a parity among clergymen was never thought of in the church before the middle of the last century, and was then set up rather by accident than on design: yet, how much soever he was persuaded of this, since they were of another mind, he was now to offer a temper to them, by which both sides might still preserve their opinions, and yet unite in carrying on the ends of the gospel and of their ministry. They had moderators amongst them, which was no divine institution, but only a matter of order: the king therefore might name these: and the making them constant could be no such encroachment on their function, that the peace of the church must be broke on such an account. Nor could they say that the blessing of the men named to this function by an imposition of hands did degrade them from their former office, to say no more of it: so they were still at least ministers. It is true, others thought they had a new and special authority, more than a bare presidency: that did not concern them, who were not required to concur with them in any thing but in submitting to this presidency: and as to that, they should be allowed to declare their own opinion against it, in as full and as public a manner as they pleased. He laid it to their consciences to consider of the whole matter as in the presence of God, without any regard to party or popularity. He spoke in all near half an hour, with a gravity and force that made a very great impression on all who heard it. Hutcheson answered, and said their opinion for a parity among the clergy was well known: the presidency now spoke of had made way to a lordly dominion in the church: and therefore, how inconsiderable soever the thing might seem to be, yet the effects of it both had been and would be still very considerable: he therefore desired some time might be given them to consider well of the propositions now made, and to consult with their brethren about them: and since this might seem an assembling together 522 against law, he desired they might have the king's commissioners' leave for it. This was immediately granted. We had a second conference, in which matters were more fully opened, and pressed home on the grounds formerly mentioned. Lord Lauderdale made us all dine together, and came to us after dinner: but could scarce restrain himself from flying out, for their behaviour seemed both rude and crafty. But Leighton had prepared him for it, and pressed him not to give them a handle to excuse their flying off, by any roughness in his deportment towards them. The propositions offered them were now generally known. Sharp cried out that episcopacy was to be undermined, since the negative vote was to be let go. The inferior clergy thought that if it took effect, and that the presbyterians were to be generally brought into churches, they would be neglected, and that their people would forsake them: so they hated the whole thing. The bigot presbyterians thought it was a snare, to do that which 146 had a fair appearance at present, and was meant only to lay that generation in their graves in peace; by which means episcopacy, that was then shaking over all the nation, would come to have another root, and grow again out of that. But the far greater part of the nation approved of this design: and they reckoned, either we would gain our point and then all would be at quiet, or, if such offers were rejected by the presbyterians, it would discover their temper, and alienate all indifferent men from them, and the nation would be convinced how unreasonable and stubborn they were, and how unworthy they were of any further favour. All that was done in this session of parliament was the raising a tax, and the naming commissioners for the union with England. Two severe acts passed against conventicles.
There had been a great one held in Fife, near Dumfermline, where none had ever been held before. Some gentlemen of estates were among them, and the novelty of the thing drew a great crowd together; for intimation had been given of it some days before. Many of these came 523 in their ordinary arms. That gave a handle to call them the rendezvous of rebellion. Some of these were taken, and brought to Edinburgh, and pressed to name as many as they knew of their fellow conventiclers: but they refused to do it. This was sent up to court as the forerunner of rebellion. Upon which lord Lauderdale, hearing what use his enemies made of it, was transported almost to fits of rage. Severe acts passed upon it, by which their fines were raised higher, and they were made liable to arbitrary severities. The earl of Lauderdale with his own hand put in a word in the act that covered the papists, the fines being laid only on such of the reformed religion as went not to church. He pretended by this to merit with the popish party, the duke in particular; whose religion was yet a secret to us in Scotland, though it was none at court. He said to my self, he had put in these words on design, to let the party know that they were to be worse used than the papists themselves. All field conventicles were declared treasonable, and in the preacher they were made capital. The landlords on whose grounds they were held were to be severely fined: and all who were at them were to be punished arbitrarily, if they did not discover all that were present whom they knew. And house conventicles, crowded without the doors or at windows, were to be reckoned and punished as field conventicles. Sir Robert Moray told me that the king was very ill pleased with this act as extravagantly severe, chiefly in that of the preachers being to be punished by death. He said bloody laws did no good; he would never have passed it if he had known it beforehand. The half of the parliament abhorred this act; yet so abject were they in their submissions to lord Lauderdale, that the young earl of Cassillis was the single person that voted in the negative. He was heir to his father's stiffness, but not to his other virtues[38]. This passed 524 in parliament so suddenly, that Leighton knew nothing of it till it was too late. He expostulated with lord Tweeddale severely about it: he said the whole complex of it was so contrary to the common rules of humanity, not to say Christianity, that he was ashamed to mix in councils with those who could frame and pass such acts; and he thought it somewhat strange that neither he nor I had been advised with in it. The earl of Tweeddale said, the late field conventicle being a new thing, it had forced them to seventies that at another time could not be well excused: and he assured us there was no design to put it in execution. We wished, rather, that an act had passed upon such a disorder of less noise, but more proper to have its effect. Leighton sent to the western counties six episcopal divines, all, except my self, brought from other parts: Nairn and Charteris were two of them, the three others, Cook, Aird, and Paterson; all of them were the best that we could persuade to go round the country to preach in vacant churches, and to argue upon the grounds of the accommodation with such as should come to them. The episcopal clergy, who were yet left in the country, could not argue much for any thing, and would not at all argue in favour of a proposition that they hated. The people of the country came generally to hear us, though not in great crowds. We were indeed amazed to see a poor commonalty so capable to argue upon points of government, and on the bounds to be set to the power of princes in matters of religion. Upon all these topics they had texts of scripture at hand, and were ready with their answers to any thing that was said to them. This measure of knowledge was spread even among the meanest of them, their cottagers, and their servants. They were indeed vain of their knowledge, much conceited of themselves, and were 525 full of a most entangled scrupulosity; so that they found [or] made difficulties in every thing that could be laid before them. We stayed about three months in the country: and in that time there was a stand in the frequency of conventicles. But, as soon as we were gone, a set of those hot preachers went round all the places in which we had been, to defeat all the good we could hope to do. They told them the Devil was never so formidable, as when he was transformed into an angel of light. 147 The outed ministers had many meetings in several parts of the kingdom. They found themselves under great difficulties. The people had got it among them, that all that was now driven at was only to extinguish presbytery, by seeming concessions, with the present generation, and that if the ministers went into it they gave up their cause, that so they themselves might be provided for during their lives, and die at more ease. So they, who were strangely subdued by their desire of popularity, resolved to reject the propositions, though they could not well tell on what grounds they should justify it. A report was also spread among them, which they believed, and it had its full effect upon them: it was said the king was alienated from the church of England, and weary of supporting episcopacy in Scotland, and so was resolved not to clog his government any longer with it; and that the concessions now made did not arise from any tenderness we had for them, but from an artifice to preserve episcopacy: so they were made believe that their agreeing to them was really a strengthening of that government that was otherwise ready to fall with its own weight. And because a passage of Scripture according to its general sound was apt to work much on them, that of Touch not, taste not, handle not, was often repeated among them. So it was generally agreed on to reject the offers made them. The next debate among them was, about the reasons they were to give for rejecting them, or whether they should comply with another proposition which Leighton had made them, that if they did 526 not like the propositions he had made, that they would see if they could be more happy than he was, and offer at other propositions. In their meetings there was much sad stuff; they named in some of them two, to maintain the debate, pro and con. They disputed about the protestation that they were allowed to make: and protestatio contraria, facto was a maxim that was in great vogue among them. They argued upon the obligation by the covenant to maintain their church, as then established, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government: and so every thing that was contrary to that was represented as a breach of covenant: and none durst object to that. But that they might make a proposition that they were sure would not be hearkened to, they proposed that among the concessions to be insisted on, one might be, a liberty to ordain without the bishop. When we heard what their reasonings were, papers were writ and sent among them, in answer to them. But it is a vain thing to argue, when a resolution is taken up not founded on argument, and arguments are only sought for to justify that which is already resolved on. We pressed them with this, that, notwithstanding their covenant, they themselves had afterwards made many alterations much more important than this of submitting to a constant moderator, named by the king. Cromwell took from them the power of meeting in general assemblies: yet they went on doing the other duties of their function; though this, which they esteemed the greatest of all their rights, was denied them. When an order came out to sequester the half of the benefices of such as should still pray for the king, they upon that submitted, though before that they had asserted it was a duty to which they were bound by their covenant. They had discontinued their ministry in obedience to laws and proclamations, now for nine years: and those who had accepted the indulgence had come in by the king's authority, and had only a parochial government, but did not meet in presbyteries. From all which we inferred, that when they had a mind to lay down any 527 thing that they thought a duty, or to submit to any thing that they thought an invasion of their rights, they could find a distinction for it: and it was not easy to shew, why they were not as compliant in this particular. But all was lost labour. Hot men among them were positive, and all of them were full of contentious logic. So two passages of scripture were generally applied to them. To one sort of them, that in the Proverbs, The fool rageth, and is confident: and to the other sort, that in Micah, The best of them is as a briar, and the most upright of them is as a thornhedge. Duchess Hamilton sent for some of them, Hutcheson in particular. She said, she did not pretend to understand nice distinctions, and the terms of dispute: here was plain sense: the country might be again at quiet, and the rest of those that were outed admitted to churches, on terms that seemed to all reasonable men very easy. Their rejecting this would give a very ill character of them, and would have very bad effects, of which they might see cause to repent when it would be too late. She told me all that she could draw from him, that she understood, was, that he saw the generality of their party were resolved against all treaties, or any agreement: and that if a small number should break off from them, it would not heal the old breaches, but would create new ones; in conclusion, nothing was like to follow on this whole negotiation. We, who were engaged in it, had lost all our own side by offering at it; and the presbyterians would not make one step towards us. Leighton desired another meeting with them at Paisley, to which he carried me and one or two more. They were about thirty. We had two long conferences with them. Leighton laid out before them the obligations that lay 148 on them to seek for peace at all times, but more especially when we already saw the dismal effects of our contentions. There could be no agreement unless on both sides there was a disposition to make some abatements, and some steps towards one another. It appeared that we 528 were willing to make even unreasonable ones of our side: and would they abate nothing in theirs? Was their opinion so mathematically certain, that they could not dispense with any part of it for the peace of the church, and for the saving of souls? Many poor things were said on their side, which would have made a less mild man than he was lose all patience. But he bore with all their trifling impertinences, and urged this question on them, Would they have held communion with the church of God at the time of the council of Nice, or not? If they should say, not, he would be less desirous of entering into communion with them; since he must say of the church at that time, Let my soul be with theirs: if they said, they would; then he was sure they could not reject the offers now made them, which brought episcopacy much lower than it was at that time. One of the most learned among them had prepared a speech full of quotations, to prove the difference between the primitive episcopacy and ours at present. I was then full of those matters: so I answered all his speech, and every one of his quotations, and turned the whole upon him with advantages that were too evident to be so much as denied by their own party: and it seemed the person himself thought so, for he did not offer at one word of a reply. In conclusion, the presbyterians desired that the propositions might be given them in writing, for hitherto all had passed only verbally; and words, they said, might be misunderstood, misrepeated, and denied. Leighton had no mind to do it: yet, since it was plausible to say they had nothing but words to shew to their brethren, he writ them down, and gave me the original, that I still have in my hands; but suffered them to take as many copies of it as they pleased. At parting he desired they would come to a final resolution, as soon as they could; for he believed they would be called for by the next January to give their answer. And by the end of that month they were ordered to come to Edinburgh. I went thither at the same time upon Leighton's desire. 529
We met at the earl of Rothes's house, where all this treaty came to a short conclusion. Hutcheson, in all their name, said, they had considered the propositions made to them, but were not satisfied in their consciences to accept of them. Leighton desired to know upon what grounds they stood out. Hutcheson said, it was not safe to argue against laws. Leighton said, that since the government had set on a treaty with them, in order to the altering the laws, they were certainly left to a full freedom of arguing against them. These offers were no laws: so the arguing about them could not be called an arguing against law. He offered them a public conference upon them, in the hearing of all that had a mind to be rightly informed. He said, the people were drawn into those matters so far, as to make a schism upon them: he thought it was therefore very reasonable that they should likewise hear the grounds examined, upon which both sides went. Hutcheson refused this: he said he was but one man, and that what he said was in the name of his brethren, who had given him no further authority. Leighton then asked if they had nothing on their side to propose towards the healing of our breaches. Hutcheson answered, their principles were well enough known, but he had nothing to propose. Upon this Leighton, in a long discourse, told what was the design he had been driving at in all this negotiation; it was to procure peace and to promote religion. He had offered several things which he was persuaded were great diminutions of the just rights of episcopacy: yet since all church power was for edification, and not for destruction, he had thought that in our present circumstances it might have conduced as much to the interest of religion, that episcopacy should divest itself of a great part of the authority that belonged to it, as the bishops' using it in former ages had been an advantage to religion: his offers did not flow from any mistrust of the cause: he was persuaded episcopacy was handed down through all the ages of the church from the apostles' days: perhaps he had wronged the order 530 by the concessions he had made, yet he was confident God would forgive it, as he hoped his brethren would excuse it. Now they thought fit to reject these concessions, without either offering any reason for doing it, or any expedient on their side: therefore the continuance of our divisions must lie at their door, both before God and man: if ill effects followed upon this, he was free of all blame, and had done his part. Thus was this treaty broke off, to the amazement of all sober and dispassionate people, and to the great joy of Sharp, and the rest of the bishops; who now for a while seemed even pleased with us, because we had all along asserted episcopacy, and had pleaded for it in a very high and positive strain.
I hope this may be 149thought a useful part of the history of that time. None knew all the steps made in it better than my self. The fierce episcopal men will see how much they were to blame for accusing that apostolical man Leighton, as they did on this occasion, as if he had designed in this whole matter to betray his own order and to set up presbytery. The presbyterians may also see how much their behaviour in this affair disgusted all wise and moderate men, how little sincere and honest they were in it, when the desire of popularity made them reject propositions, that came so home even to the maxims they had set up, that nothing but the fear of offending, that is, of losing the credit they had with their party, could be so much as pretended for their refusing to agree to them. Our part in the whole negotiation was sincere and open. We were acted with no other principle, and had no other design, but to allay a violent agitation of men's spirits, that was throwing us into great distractions; and to heal a breach 2that was like to let in an inundation of miseries upon us, as has appeared but too evidently ever since. The high party, keeping still their old bias to persecution, and recovering afterwards their credit with the government, carried violent proceedings so far, that, after they had 531 thrown the nation into great convulsions, they drew upon themselves such a degree of fury from enraged multitudes, whom they had oppressed long and heavily, that, in conclusion, that order was put down with as much injustice and violence as had been practised in supporting it, as shall be told in its proper place. The roughness of our own side, and the perverseness of the presbyterians, did so much alienate me from both, that I resolved to withdraw my self from any further meddling, and to give my self wholly to study. I was then, and for three years after that offered to be made a bishop, but I refused it. I saw the counsels were altering above: so I resolved to look on, and see whither things would turn.
My acquaintance at Hamilton, and the favour and friendship I met with from both duke and duchess, made me offer my service to them, in order to the search of many papers that were very carefully preserved by them: for the duchess's uncle had charged her to keep them with the same care as she kept the writings of her estate, since in these a full justification of her father's public actings, and of his own, would be found, when she should put them in the hands of one that could set them in order and in a due light. She put them all in my hands, which I acknowledge was a very great trust: and I made no ill use of it. I found there materials for a very large history. I writ it with great sincerity; and concealed none of their errors. I did indeed conceal several things that related to the king. I left out some passages that were in his letters[39]; 532 in some of these was too much weakness, and in others too much craft and anger. And this I owe to truth to say, that by many indications that lay before me in those letters, I could not admire either the judgment and understanding, or the temper of that unfortunate prince. He had little regard to law, and seemed to think that he was not bound to observe promises or concessions, that were extorted from him by the necessity of his affairs. He had little tenderness in his nature; and probably his government would have been severe, if he had got the better in the war. His ministers had a hard time under him: he loved violent counsels, but conducted them so ill, that they saw they must all perish with him. Those who observed this, and advised him to make up matters with his parliaments by concessions, rather than venture on a war, were hated by him, even when the extremities to which he was driven made him follow their advices, though generally too late, and with so ill a grace that he lost the merit of his concessions in the awkward way of granting them. This was truly duke Hamilton's fate, who in the beginning of the troubles went in warmly enough into acceptable counsels; but when he saw how unhappy the king was in his conduct, he was ever after that against the king's venturing on a war, which he always believed would be fatal to him in conclusion. I got through that work in 533 a few months. When the earl of Lauderdale heard that I had finished it, he desired me to come up to him; for he was sure he could both rectify many things and enlarge on a great many more[40]. Upon which I went to court. His true design was to engage me to put in a great deal relating to himself in that work. I found another degree of kindness and confidence from him upon my coming up than ever before. I had nothing to ask for my self, but to be excused from the offer of two bishoprics; but whatsoever I asked for any other person was granted: and I was considered as his favourite. He trusted me with all secrets, and seemed to have no reserves with me. He indeed pressed me to give up with sir Robert 150 Moray: and I saw that upon my doing that, I would have as much credit with him as I could desire. Sir Robert himself apprehended this would be put to me, and pressed me to comply with them in it. But I hated servitude, as much as I loved him: so I refused it flatly. I told lord Lauderdale, that sir Robert had been as a second father or governor to me, and therefore I could not break friendship with him; but I promised to speak to him of nothing that he trusted to me; and this was all that he could ever bring me to, though he put it often to me. I was in great doubt whether it was fit for me to see his mistress. Sir Robert put an end to that; for he assured me there was nothing in that commerce that was between them besides a vast fondness. Yet I asked lord Lauderdale how he had parted with his wife[41]. He gave me a better account of it than I expected. I knew that she was an imperious and ill-tempered woman. He said she herself had desired it. and that she owned she was not at all jealous of his familiarities with lady Dysart, but that she could not endure it, because she hated her. I was thus persuaded to go to her, 534 and was treated by them both with an entire confidence. Applications were made to me: and everything that I proposed was done. I laid before him the ill state the affairs of Scotland were falling into by his throwing off so many of his friends. Duke Hamilton and he had been for some years in ill terms, I laid down a method for bringing them to a better understanding. I got kind letters to pass on both sides, and put their reconciliation in so fair a way that upon my return to Scotland it was for that time fully made up. I had authority from him to try how both the earls of Argyll and Tweeddale might return to their old friendship with him. The earl of Argyll was ready to do every thing, but the earl of Athol had proposed a match between his son and lady Dysart's daughter, and he had a hereditary hatred to the lord Argyll and his family: so that could not be so easily brought about. Lord Tweeddale was resolved to withdraw from business. The earl of Lauderdale had for many years treated his brother the lord Halton with as much contempt as he deserved; for he was both weak and violent, insolent and corrupt He had promised to settle his estate on his daughter, when lord Tweeddale's son married her; but his brother offered now every thing that lady Dysart desired, provided she would get his brother to settle his estate on him. So Halton was now taken into affairs, and had so much credit with his brother that all the dependance was upon him[42]. And thus the breach between the earls of Lauderdale and Tweeddale was irreconcileable; though I did all I could to make it up.
As to church affairs, lord Lauderdale asked my opinion concerning them. I gave it frankly to this purpose: there 535 were many vacancies in the disaffected counties, to which no conformable men of any worth could be prevailed on to go: so I proposed that the indulgence should be extended to them all, and that the ministers should be put into those parishes by couples, and have the benefice divided between them[43]; and in the churches where the indulgence had already taken place, that a second minister should be added, and have the half of the benefice. By this means I reckoned that all the outed ministers would be again employed, and kept from going round the uninfected parts of the kingdom. I said, if this was done, either the parishes would by gratuities mend their benefices, that so the two who had only the legal provision of one might subsist; and if they did this, as I had reason to doubt of it, it would be a settled tax on them, of which they would soon grow weary; but if they did it not, it would create quarrels, and at least a coldness among them. I also proposed that they should be confined to their parishes; not to stir out of them without leave from the bishop of the diocese, or a privy councillor; and that, upon their transgressing the rules that should be set them, a proportion of their benefice should be forfeited, and applied to some pious use. Lord Lauderdale heard me to an end, and then, without arguing one word upon any one branch of this scheme, he desired me to put it in writing; which I did. And the next year, when he came down again to Scotland, he made one write out my paper, and turned it into the style of Instructions[44]. So easily did he let himself be governed 536 by those whom he trusted, even in matters of great consequence. Four bishops happened to die that year, of which Edinburgh was one. I was desired to make my own choice: but I refused them all; yet I obtained a letter to be writ by the king's order to lord Rothes. that he should call the two archbishops, and four of the officers of state, and send up their opinion to the king of the persons fit to be promoted: and a private letter was writ to the lords, to join with Leighton in recommending the persons that he should name. Leighton was uneasy , when he found that Charteris and Nairn, as well as my self, could not be prevailed on to accept a bishopric. They had an ill opinion of the court[45], and could not be brought to leave their retirement. Leighton was troubled at this: he said, if his friends left the whole load on him 151 he must leave all to Providence; yet he named the best men he could think on, and, that Sharp might not have too public an affront put on him, Leighton agreed to one of his nomination. But now I go to open a scene of another nature.
The court was now going in to other measures. The parliament had given the king all the money that he had asked for repairing his fleet, and for supplying his stores and magazines[1]. Additional revenues were also given for 537 some years; and at their last sitting in the beginning of the year [16]70, it appeared that the house of commons was out of countenance for having given so much money, and seemed resolved to give no more. All was obtained under the pretence of maintaining the Triple Alliance. When the court saw how little reason they had to expect further supplies, the duke of Buckingham told the king, that now the time was come in which he might both revenge the attempt on Chatham and shake off the uneasy restraint of a house of commons: and he got leave from the king to send over sir Ellis Leighton to the court of France, to offer the project of a new alliance and a new war[2]. 538 Sir Ellis told me this himself; and was proud to think that he was the first man employed in those black and fatal designs. But, in the first proposition made by us, the subduing of England, and the toleration of popery here, was offered, as that with which the design must be begun. France, seeing England so inclined, resolved to push the matter further.
The king's sister, the duchess of Orleans[3], was thought the wittiest woman in France, but had no sort of virtue, and scarce retained common decency. The king of France had made love to her, which we had very readily entertained, and was highly incensed when she saw that this was only a pretence to cover his addresses to madamoiselle la Valliere, one of her maids of honour, whom he afterwards declared openly to be his mistress. Yet she had reconciled herself to the king, and was now so entirely trusted by him that he ordered her to propose an interview with her brother at Dover. The king went thither, and was so much charmed with his sister that it did not pass without the severest censures, every thing she proposed, and every 539 favour she asked, was granted[4]: the king could deny her nothing. She proposed an alliance in order to the conquest of Holland. The king had a mind to have begun at home[5]; but she diverted him from .that. It could not be foreseen what difficulties the king might meet with, upon the first opening the design: as it would alarm all his people, so it would send a great deal of wealth and trade, and perhaps much people, over to Holland: and by such an accession they would grow stronger, as he would grow weaker. So she proposed that they should begin with Holland, and attack it vigorously both by sea and land; and upon their success in that, all the rest would be an easy work. This account of that negotiation was printed twelve years after, at Paris, by one abbot Primi[5]. I had that part of the book in my hands in which this was contained. 540 Lord Preston was then the king's envoy at Paris: so he, knowing how great a prejudice the publishing this would be to his master's affairs, complained of it, and the book was upon that suppressed, and the writer was put in the Bastille. But he had drawn it out of the papers of Mr. le Tellier s office: so there is little reason to doubt of the truth of the thing. She, as this book said, prevailed to have her scheme settled, and so went back to France. The journey proved fatal to her: for the duke of Orleans had heard such things of her behaviour, that he ordered a great dose of sublimate to be given her in a glass of chicory water, of which she died in a few hours after in great torment: and when she was opened, her stomach was all ulcered[7]
Since I mention her death, I will set down one story of her, that was told me by Stoupe, who had it from some who were well informed of the matter[8]. The king of France had courted madame Soissons, and made a shew of courting madame; but his affections fixing on madamoiselle 541 la Valliere, she whom he had forsaken, as well as she whom he had deceived, resolved to be revenged: and they entered into a friendship in order to that. They had each of them a gallant: madame had the count de Guiche[9], and the other had the marquis des Vardes, then in great favour with the king, and a very graceful person. When the treaty of the king of France's marriage was on foot, there was an opinion generally received that the infanta of Spain was a woman of great genius, and would have a considerable stroke in all affairs: so, many young men of quality set themselves to learn the Spanish language, to give them the more credit with the young queen. All that fell to the ground, when it appeared how weak a woman she was[10]. These two were of that number. Count de Guiche watched an occasion, when a letter from the king of Spain was given to his daughter by the Spanish ambassador, and she tore the envelope, and let it fall. So he gathered up all the parcels of it, together with the seal. From these they learnt to imitate the king of Spain's writing; and they sent to Holland to get a seal graven from the impression on the wax. When all was prepared, a letter was writ, as in the name of the king of Spain, reproaching his daughter for her tameness in such an 152 affront as the king put on her amours, with reflections full both of contempt and anger upon the king. There was one Spanish lady left about the queen: so they forged another letter, as from the Spanish ambassador to her, with that to 542 the queen inclosed in it, desiring her to deliver it secretly into the queen's own hand. And they made a livery, such as the Spanish ambassador's pages wore, and a boy was sent in it with the letter. The lady suspected no forgery; but fancied the letter might be about some matter of state; so she thought it safest to carry it to the king, who, reading it, ordered an inquiry to be made about it. The Spanish ambassador saw he was abused in it. So the king spoke to the marquis des Vardes, not doubting that he was in it, and charged him to search after the author of this abuse that was intended to be put on him. The ladies now rejoiced that the looking after the discovery was put in the hands of a man so much concerned in it. He amused the king long with the inquiries that he was making, though he was ever in a wrong scent. But in all this time madame was so pleased with his conduct, that she came to like his person; and had so little command of herself, that she told madame Soissons she was her rival. The other readily complied with her; and, by an odd piece of extravagance, he was sent for, and madame Soissons told him, since he was in madame's favour, she released him of all obligations, and delivered him over to her. Marquis des Vardes thought this was only an artifice of gallantry, to try how faithful he was to his amours: so he declared himself incapable of changing, in terms full of respect for madame, and of passion for the other. This raised in madame so deep a resentment, that she resolved to sacrifice Des Vardes, but to save the count de Guiche. So she gave him notice, that the king had discovered the whole intrigue, and charged him to haste out of France. And as soon as she believed that he was in Flanders, she told all to the king of France; upon which Des Vardes was not only disgraced, but kept long a prisoner in Aigues Mortes, and afterwards he was suffered to come to Monpelier, and it was almost twenty year after before he was suffered to come to court. I was at court when he came first to it. He was much broke in his health, but was 543 become a philosopher, and was in great reputation among all Des Cartes's followers. Madame had an intrigue with another person, whom I knew well, the count of Treville. When she was in her agony, she said, Adieu Treville. He was so struck with this accident, that it had a good effect on him; for he went and lived many years among the fathers of the Oratory, and became both a very learned and devout man. He came afterwards out into the world. I saw him often. He was a man of a very sweet temper, only a little too formal for a Frenchman; but he was very sincere. He was a Jansenist: he hated the Jesuits, and had a very mean opinion of the king, which appeared in all the instances in which it was safe for him to shew it.
Upon madame's death, as the marshal Bellefonds came from France with the compliment to the court of England, so the duke of Buckingham was sent thither on pretence to return the compliment, but really to finish the treaty[11]. The king of France used him in so particular a manner, knowing his vanity, and caressed him to such a degree, that he went in without reserves into the interests of France: yet he protested to me that he never consented to the French fleet's coming into our seas and harbours. He said he was offered 40,000l. if he could persuade the king to yield to it: and he appealed to the earl of Dorset for this, who was on the secret[12]. He therefore concluded that since, 544 after all the uneasiness shewed at first, the king had yielded to it, that lord Arlington had the money. Lord Shaftesbury laid the blame of this chiefly on the duke of Buckingham: for he told me that he himself had writ a peremptory instruction to him from the king to give up all treaty, if the French did insist on the sending a fleet to our assistance; and therefore he blamed him as having yielded it up, since he ought to have broke all further treaty, upon their insisting on this. But the duke of York told me, there was no money given to corrupt the king's ministers; that the king and he had long insisted on having all their supplies from France in money, without a fleet; and that the French shewed them it was not possible for them to find a fonds for so great an expense, unless we took a squadron of their ships; since they could not both maintain their own fleet, and furnish us with the money that would be necessary if we took not their squadron. It was agreed that the king should have 350,000l. a year during the war, together with a fleet from France that was to be under the command of the English admiral. With this fleet England was to attack the Dutch by sea, while the king of France should invade them by land with a mighty army. It was not doubted, but that the States 153 would find it impossible to resist so great a force, and would therefore submit to the two kings. So the division they agreed on was, that England should have Zealand, and that the king of France should have all the rest, except Holland, which was to be given to the prince of Orange if he would come into the alliance: and it should 545 be still a trading country, but without any capital ships. Lord Lauderdale said upon that occasion to me, that whatsoever they intended to do they were resolved to do it effectually all at once; but he would not go into further particulars[13]. That the year [16]72 might be fatal to other commonwealths as well as to the States, the duke of Savoy was encouraged to make a conquest of Genoa[14], though he 546 afterwards failed in the attempt: and the king of Denmark was invited into the alliance, with the offer of the town of Hamborough, on which he had long set his heart. The duke of Richmond was sent to give a lustre to that negotiation, which was chiefly managed by Mr. Henshaw, who told me that we offered that king some ships to assist him in seizing on that rich town; but he was then in those engagements with the states of Holland, that even this offer did not prevail on him. Lockhart[15] was brought to court by lord Lauderdale, hoping that he would continue in an entire dependance on him, and be his creature. He was under so great a jealousy, that he was too easy to enter into any employment that might bring him into favour, not so much out of an ambition to rise, as from a desire to be safe, and to be no longer looked on as an enemy to the court: for when a foreign minister asked the king's leave to treat with him in his master's name, the king consented; but with this severe reflection, that he believed he would be true to any body but himself. He was sent to the courts of Brandenburg and Lunenburgh, either to draw them into the alliance, or, if that could not be done, at least to secure them from all apprehensions; but in this he had no success. And indeed when he saw into what a negotiation he was engaged, he became very uneasy: for though the blackest part of the secret was not trusted to him, as appeared to me by his instructions, which I read after his death, yet he saw whither things were going, and that affected him so deeply that it was believed to have contributed not a little to the languishing he soon fell under, that ended in his death two year after[16].
The war being thus resolved on, some pretences were in the next place to be sought out to excuse it[17]: for, though 547 the king of France went more roundly to work, and published that he was so ill satisfied with the conduct of the States, that it did not consist with his glory to bear it any longer, yet we thought it decent for us to name some particulars. It was said we had some pretensions on Surinam, not yet completely satisfied; and that the States harboured traitors that fled from justice, and lived in Holland: some medals were complained of that seemed dishonourable to the king, as also some pictures: and though these were not made by public order, yet a great noise was raised about them[18]. But an accident happened that the court laid great hold of[19]. The Dutch fleet lay off 548 the coast of England: and one of the king's yachts sailed by, and expected they should strike sail. They said they never refused it to any man of war: but they thought that honour did not belong to such an inconsiderable vessel. I was then at court: and I saw joy in the looks of those that were on the secret. Selden had in his Mare clausum raised this matter so high, that he had made it one of the chief rights and honours of the crown of England, as the acknowledgment of the king's empire in the four seas. The Dutch offered all satisfaction for the future in this matter, but they would not send their admiral over as a criminal. While France was treating with England, they continued to amuse the Dutch: and they so possessed De Groot[20], then the Dutch ambassador at Paris, or they corrupted him, into a belief that they had no design on them, that they were too secure, and depended too much on his advertisements. Yet the States entered into a negotiation, both with Spain and the emperor, and with the king of Denmark, the elector of Brandenburgh, and the dukes of Lunenburg[21]. The king of Sweden was yet under age: and the ministry there desired a neutrality. France and England sent two ambassadors to them, both men of great probity, Pomponne and Coventry[22], who were both recalled at the same time to be secretaries of state. Coventry was a man of wit and heat, and of spirit and candour. He never gave 549 bad advices: but when the king followed the ill advice that others gave, he thought himself bound to excuse, if not to justify them[23]. For this the duke of York commended him much to me: he said in that he was a pattern to all good subjects, since he defended all the king's counsels in public, even when he had blamed them most in private with the king himself. He had accustomed himself too much to the northern way of entertainments; and this grew upon him with age.
Our court having resolved on a war, did now look out for money to carry it on[24]. The king had been running in a great debt ever since his restoration. One branch of it was the pay of that fleet that had brought him over. 154 The main of it had been contracted during the former Dutch war. The king in order to the keeping his credit had dealt with some bankers, and had assigned over the revenue to them. They drove a great trade, and had made great advantage by it. The king paid them at the rate of 8 per cent.: and they paid those who put money in their hands only 6 per cent., and had great credit, for payments were made very punctually. The king had in some proclamations given his faith that he would continue to make good all his assignments till the whole debt should be paid, which was now grown up to almost a million and a half[25]. So one of the ways proposed for supplying the king with money was, that he should stop these payments 550 for a year, it being thought certain that by the end of a year the king would be out of all his necessities, by the hopes they had of success in the war[26]. The earl of Shaftesbury was the chief man in this advice[27]. He excused it to me, telling me what advantage the bankers had made, and how just it was for the king to bring them to an account for their usury and extortion: and added that he never meant the stop should run beyond the year. He certainly knew of it beforehand, and took all his own money out of the bankers' hands, and warned some of his friends to do the like[28]. Lord Lauderdale did about this time marry lady Dysart upon his lady's death, and she writ me a long account of the shutting up the exchequer, 551 as both just and necessary. The bankers were broke; and great multitudes, who had trusted their money in their hands, were ruined by this dishonourable and perfidious action. But this gave the king only his own revenue again: so other ways were to be found for an increase of treasure[29].
By the peace of Breda it was provided, that, in order to the security of trade, no merchant's ships should be for the future fallen on, till six months after a declaration of war[30]. The Dutch had a rich fleet coming from Smyrna, and other parts in the Mediterranean, under the convoy of two men of war. Our court had advice of this; and, that at the same time they might be equally infamous at home and abroad, Holmes was ordered to lie for them, and to take them near the Isle of Wight with eight men of war. As he was sailing thither he met Spragge, who was returning from the Straits with a squadron of our ships; and told him he had sailed along with the Dutch most of the way, and that 552 they would pass within a day or two. Holmes thought he was much too strong for them; so he did not acquaint Spragge with his design: for if he had stopped him to assist in the execution, probably the whole fleet had been taken, which was reckoned worth a million and a half. When they came up, Holmes fell upon them: but their convoy did their part so well, that not only the whole fleet sailed away, while they kept him in play, but they themselves got off at last, favoured by a mist: and there were only two ships taken, of so small a value, that they were not worth the powder that was spent in the action. This was a breach of faith, such as even Mahometans and pirates would have been ashamed of: the unsuccessfulness of it made it appear as ridiculous as it was base. Holmes was pressed to put it on the Dutch refusing to strike sail; yet that was so false, and there were so many witnesses to it, that he had not the impudence to affirm it[31].
To crown all, a declaration was ordered to be set out suspending the execution of all penal laws, both against papists and nonconformists[32]. Papists were no more to be 553 prosecuted for their way of worship in their own houses; and the nonconformists were allowed to have open meeting houses, for which they were to take out licenses, and none were to disturb those who should meet for worship by virtue of those licenses. Lord Keeper Bridgeman had lost all credit at court: so they were seeking an occasion to be rid of him, who had indeed lost all the reputation he had formerly acquired, by his being advanced to a post of which he was not capable. He refused to put the seal to the declaration, as judging it contrary to law. So he was dismissed[33], and the earl of Shaftesbury was made lord chancellor[34]. Lord Clifford was made lord treasurer: Arlington and Lauderdale had both of them the garter: and, as Arlington was made an earl, Lauderdale was made a duke: and this junto, together with the duke of Buckingham, being called the Cabal, it was observed, that Cabal proved a technical word, every letter in it being the initial 554 letter of those five, Clifford, Ashley, Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale. They had all of them great presents from France, besides what was openly given them: for the French ambassador gave them all a picture of the king of France set in diamonds, to the value of 3000l. Thus was the nation, and our religion, as well as the king's faith and honour, set to sale, and sold[35]. 155 Lord Shaftesbury resolved to recommend himself to the confidence of the court by a new strain never before thought of. He said, the writs for choosing the members of the house of commons might be issued out in the intervals of a sessions; and the elections made upon them were to be returned into chancery, and settled there. So the writs were issued out; and some elections were made upon them[36]. The house of commons intended to have impeached him for this among other things: but he had the foresight and skill both to see it and to prevent it. When the declaration for toleration was published, great endeavours were used by the court to persuade the nonconformists to make addresses and compliments upon it. Few were so blind as not to see what was aimed at by it.
The duke was now known to be a papist[37], and the 555 duchess was much suspected; yet the presbyterians came in a body, and Dr. Manton, in their name, thanked the king for it; which offended many of their best friends. There was also an order to pay the more eminent men among them a yearly pension, of fifty pounds to most of them, and of an hundred pounds a year to the chief of the party. Baxter sent back his pension, and would not touch it, but most of them took it. All this I say upon Dr. Stillingfleet's word, who assured me he knew the truth of it, and in particular he told me that Pool[37a], who wrote the Synopsis of the Critics, confessed to him that he had fifty pounds for two years. Thus the court hired them to be silent: and the greatest part of them was very silent and compliant[38]. But now the pulpits were full of a new strain. Popery was every where preached against, and the authority of laws was much magnified. The bishops, he of London[39] in particular, charged the clergy to preach against popery, and to inform the people aright in the controversies between us and the church of Rome. This alarmed the court as well as the city and the whole nation. Clifford began to shew the heat of his temper, and seemed a sort of a enthusiast for popery. The king complained to Sheldon of this preaching on controversy, as done on purpose to inflame the people, and to alienate them from him and his government. Upon this, he called some of the clergy together, to consider what answer he should make the king, if he pressed him any further on that head. Tillotson was 556 one of these: and he suggested this answer, that, since the king himself professed the protestant religion, it would be a thing without a precedent that he should forbid his clergy to preach in defence of a religion which they believed, while he himself said he was of it. But the king never renewed the motion[40].
While things were in this fermentation, the duchess of York died. It was observed that for fifteen months before that time she had not received the sacrament, and that upon all occasions she was excusing the errors that the church of Rome was charged with, and was giving them the best colours they were capable of[41]. An unmarried clergy was also a common topic with her. Morley had been her father confessor: for, he told me she practised secret confession to him from the time that she was twelve year old: and, when he was sent away from the court, he put her in the hands of Blanford, who died bishop of Worcester[42]. He also told me, that upon the reports that were brought him of her slackness in receiving the sacrament, she having been for many years punctual to once a month, he had spoke 557 plainly to her about it, and had told her what inferences were made upon it. She pretended ill health and business; but protested to him she had no scruples with relation to her religion, and was still of the church of England; and assured him that no popish priest had ever taken the confidence to speak to her of those matters. He took a solemn engagement of her, that if scruples should arise in her mind she would let him know them, and hear what he should offer to her upon all of them. And he protested to me, that to her death she never owned to him that she had any scruples, though she was for some days entertained by him at Farnham, after the date of the paper which was afterwards published in her name. All this passed between him and me, upon the duke's shewing me that paper all writ in her own hand, which was afterwards published by Maimbourg[42a]. He would not let me take a copy of it, but he gave me leave to read it twice; and I went immediately to Morley, and gave him an account of it, from whom I had all the particulars already mentioned. And upon that he concluded, that that unhappy princess had been prevailed on to set lies under her hand, and to pretend that these were the grounds of her conversion. A long decay of health came at last to a quicker crisis than had been apprehended[43]. All of the sudden she fell into the agony of death. Blanford was sent for to prepare her for it, and to offer her the sacrament. Before he could come, the queen came in and sat by her. He was modest and humble even to a fault; so he had not presence of mind enough to begin prayers, which probably would have driven the queen out of the room; but that not being done, she, pretending kindness, would not leave her. The bishop spoke but little, and fearfully[44]. He happened to say he hoped she continued still in the truth: upon which she 558 asked, What is truth: and 156 then, her agony increasing, she repeated the word truth, truth[45], very often, and died in a few minutes, very little beloved or lamented. Her haughtiness had raised her many enemies. She was indeed a firm and a kind friend: but the change of her religion made her friends reckon her death rather a blessing than a loss at that time to them all. Her father, when he heard of her shaking in her religion, was more troubled at it than at all his own misfortunes. He writ her a very good and long letter upon it, inclosed in one to the duke; but she was dead before it came into England. And thus I have set down all that I know concerning the fatal alliance with France, and our preparations for the second Dutch war.
But that I may open the scene more distinctly, I will give as particular an account as I was able to gather of the affairs of the States of Holland at this time; and because this was the fifth great crisis under which the whole protestant religion was brought, I will lead my reader through a full account of them all, since I may probably lay things before him that he may otherwise pass over, without making due reflections on them.
The first crisis was, when Charles V by defeating the duke of Saxony, and the getting him and the landgrave of Hesse into his hands, had subdued the Smalcaldick league, in which the strength of the protestant religion did then consist; that was weakened by the succeeding deaths of 559 Henry VIII and Francis I. Upon that defeat, all submitted to the emperor: only the town of Magdeburg stood out. The emperor should either not have trusted Maurice, or have used him better; but it seems that he reckoned Maurice had neither religion nor honour, since his ambition had made him betray his religion and abandon his party. When he had got the electorate, he made himself sure of the army, and entered into an alliance with France, and the other princes of the empire, and made so quick a turn on the emperor, that he had almost surprised him at Inchsprick, and of a sudden overturned all that design upon which the emperor had been labouring for many years. This ended in the edict of Passau, which settled the peace of Germany for that time.
The second crisis was towards the end of queen Mary's reign, when the protestant religion seemed extinguished in England; and the two cardinals of Lorrain and Granvell, then the chief ministers of the two crowns, designed a peace for that very end, that their masters might be at leisure to extirpate heresy, which was then spreading in both their dominions. But after they had formed their scheme queen Mary died, and was succeeded by queen Elizabeth in England. Soon after that the king of France was accidentally killed: so that kingdom fell under a long continuance of a minority and of civil wars. And the Netherlands felt from thence, and from England, such encouragement, that they made the longest and bravest resistance that is to be found in all history, which was in a great measure owing to the obstinate and implacable cruelty of Philip II, and his great distance from the scene of the war, and was past all possibility of being made up, by reason of his perfidious breach of all agreements, and his using those that served him well in so base a manner as he did both the duke of Alva and the prince of Parma.
The third crisis lasted from 1585 of that century to the 560 year 89. Then began the league of France[1]. The prince of Parma was victorious in the Netherlands; the prince of Orange was murdered; the States fell under great distractions; and Spain entered into a design of dethroning the queen of England, and putting the queen of Scots in her stead. In order to that, they were for some years preparing the greatest fleet that the world had ever seen, which came to be called the Invincible Armada. All Europe was amazed at these great preparations, and many conjectures were made concerning the design of such a vast fleet. Some thought of Constantinople; others talked of Egypt, in conjunction of the emperor of the Abissens [Abyssinians]; but that which was most probable, was that king Philip intended to make a great effort, and put an end to the war of the Netherlands in one campaign. At last the true intent of it was found out. Walsingham's chief spies were priests: he used always to say, an active but vicious priest was the best spy in the world. By one of these he had advice that the king of Spain had fixed on a resolution with relation to his fleet; but that it was not yet communicated to any of his ministers in foreign courts[2]. The king himself had indeed writ a letter about it to the pope, but it was not entered into any office: so this was all that the intelligence from Madrid could discover. Upon this one was sent to Venice, from whence the correspondence with Rome was held; and at Rome it was found out that one of the pope's chief confidants had a mistress, to whom twenty thousand crowns were given for a sight and copy of that letter. The copy was sent over soon after Christmas, in the winter [15]86. By it the king of Spain had acquainted the pope, that the design of his fleet was to land in England, to 561 destroy queen Elizabeth and heresy, and to set the queen of Scots on the throne. In this he had the concurrence of the house of Guise: and he also depended on the king of Scotland. This proved fatal to the queen of Scots. It is true king James sent one Stewart, the ancestor of the lord Blantyre, who was then of his bedchamber, with an earnest and threatening message to queen Elizabeth for saving his mother[3]. But in one of the intercepted letters of the French ambassadors then 157 in Scotland, found among Walsingham's papers, it appears that the king, young as he then was, was either very double, or very inconstant in his resolutions. The French ambassador assured him that Stewart had advised the queen to put a speedy end to that business, which way she pleased; and that for his master's anger, he would soon be pacified if she would but send him dogs and deer. The king was so offended at this, that he said he would hang him up in his boots, as soon as he came back; yet when he came back, it was so far from that that he lay all that night in the bedchamber[4]. As for the pompous embassy that was sent from France to protest against it, Maurier has told a very probable story of 562 Henry III's writing a letter with them to the queen, advising her to proceed with all haste to do that which the embassy was sent to prevent. He saw the house of Guise built a great part of their hopes on the prospect of their cousin's coming to the crown of England, which would cut off all the hopes the house of Bourbon had of assistance from thence. I have seen an original letter of the earl of Leicester's to the earl of Bedford, that had married his sister, and was then governor of Berwick, telling him that, how high soever the French ambassadors had talked in their harangues upon that occasion, calling any proceeding against the queen of Scots an open indignity as well as an act of hostility against France, since she was queen dowager of France, yet all this was only matter of form and decency, that was extorted from the king of France; and how high soever they might talk, they were well assured he would do nothing upon it. So that unfortunate queen fell at that time, by reason of the Spanish preparations to conquer England, under the pretence of setting her on the throne; and died much more decently than she had lived, in February [15]87[5].
But the court of England reckoned that if king Philip's fleet was in a condition to conquer England, he would not abandon the design for her being put out of the way, and that he certainly intended to conquer it for himself, and not for another. So orders were given to make all possible haste with a fleet. Yet they were so little provided for 563 such an invasion, that, though they had then twenty good ships upon the stocks, it was not possible to get them in a condition to serve that summer: and the design of Spain was to sail over in [15]87. So, unless by corruption or any other method, the attempt could be put off for that year, there was no strength ready to resist so powerful a fleet. But when it seemed not possible to divert the present execution of so great a design, a merchant of London, to their surprise, undertook it[6]. He was well acquainted with the state of the revenue of Spain, with all their charge, and all that they could raise. He knew all their fonds were so swallowed up, that it was impossible for them to victual and set out their fleet, but by their credit in the bank of Genoa. So he undertook to write to all the places of trade, and to get such remittances made on that bank, that he should by that means have it so entirely in his hands that there should be no money current there equal to the great occasion of victualling the fleet of Spain. He reckoned the keeping such a treasure dead in his hands till the season of victualling was over would be a loss of 40,000l.; and at that rate he would save England. He managed the matter with such secrecy and success that the fleet could not be set out that year. At so small a price, and with so skilful a management, was the nation saved at that time. This, it seems, was thought too great a mystery of state to be communicated to Cambden, or to be published by him, when the instructions were put in his hands for writing the history of that glorious reign. But the famous Boyle, earl of Cork, who had then a great share in the affairs of Ireland, came to know it, and told it to two of his children, from whom I had it. The story is so coherent, and agrees so well with the state of affairs at that time, that it seems highly credible; and if it is true, it is 564 certainly one of the curiousest passages in our whole English history. I return from this digression, which I hope will be no unacceptable entertainment to the reader. It is well known how the design of the Armada miscarried: and soon after that, the duke of Guise was stabbed: not long after, Henry III was also stabbed, and Henry IV succeeded, who broke the league, with which the great designs of Spain fell to the ground. So happily did this third crisis pass over.
The fourth crisis was from the battle of Prague to the year 1630, in which, as was told in the first book, not only the elector Palatine fell, but almost all the empire came under the Austrian yoke. All attempts to shake it off proved unsuccessful, and fatal to those who undertook it, till the young and great king of Sweden, Gustavus Adolphus, engaged in it. The wars of the Rochelle, together with the loss of that important place, seemed to threaten the destruction of the protestants of France. England fell under those unhappy jealousies, which begun a disjointing between the king and his people. And the States were much pressed by the Spaniards under Spinola. Breda was taken. But the worst of all was a quarrel that was raised between prince Maurice and Barneveld[7], that will require a fuller discussion than was offered in the former book. All agree that William prince of Orange was one of the 158 greatest men in story, who, after many attempts for the recovery of the liberty of the provinces, was in conclusion successful, and formed that republic. In the doing it he was guilty of one great error, if he was not forced to it by the necessity of his affairs; which was the settling a negative in every one of the towns of Holland, in the matters of religion, of taxes, and of peace and war. It had been much safer if it had been determined that such a number as two thirds in the conclave must concur, by which the government would have been much stronger. Some thought that he brought 565 in so many little towns to balance the greater, of whom he could not be sure; whereas he could more easily manage these smaller ones. Others have said that he was forced to it, to draw them to a more hearty concurrence in the war, since they were to have such a share of the government for the future. But as he had settled it, the corruption of any one small town may put all the affairs of Holland in great disorder. He was also blamed for raising the power of the stadtholder so high, that in many regards it was greater than the power of the counts of Holland had been; but this was balanced by its being made elective, and by the small appointments that he took to himself. It seems he designed to have settled that honour in his family: for after his death there were reversal letters found among his papers from the duke of Anjou when the provinces invited him to be their prince, by which he engaged himself to leave Holland and Zealand in the prince's hands. Before he died he had in a great measure lost the affections of the clergy: because he was very earnest for the toleration of papists, judging that necessary for the engaging men of all persuasions in the common concerns of liberty, and for encouraging the other provinces to come into the union. This was much opposed by the preachers in Holland, who were for more violent methods. Those who but a few years before had complained of the cruelty of the church of Rome, were no sooner delivered from that than they began to call for the same ways of prosecuting those who were of the other side. This made that great prince lose ground with the zealots of his own side before he died. With him all their affairs sunk so fast, that they saw the necessity of seeking protection elsewhere. Their ministers did of themselves, without the concurrence of the States, send to queen Elizabeth, to desire her to take them under her protection, on such terms as she should prescribe; and though the States were highly offended at this, yet they 566 durst not at that time complain of it, much less punish it, but were forced by the clamours of their people to follow an example that was so irregularly set them. This I had from Halewyn of Dort, of whom I shall have occasion to write afterwards[8]. When the queen sent over the earl of Leicester, with a new title, and an authority greater than was either in the counts of Holland or in the stadtholder, by the name of supreme governor, he as soon as he landed at Flushing went first to church, where he ordered prayers to be offered up for a blessing on his counsels, and desired that he might receive the sacrament next day: and there he made solemn protestations of his integrity and zeal. This pleased the people so much, that Barneveld and the States at the Hague thought it necessary to secure themselves from the effects of such a threatening popularity: so they sent for the count, afterwards prince, Maurice, who was then at Leyden, not yet eighteen, and chose him stadtholder of Holland and Zealand. There had been no provision made against that in their treaty with the earl of Leicester, yet he was highly offended at it. I will go no further into the errors of his government, and the end that the queen put to it; which she did as soon as it appeared that he was incapable of it, and was beginning to betray and sell their best places.
Prince Maurice and Barneveld continued long in a perfect conjunction of counsels: till upon the negotiations for a peace, or at least for a truce, they differed so much, that their friendship ended in a most violent hatred, and a jealousy that could never be made up[9]. Prince Maurice was for carrying on the war, which set him at the head of a great army; and he had so great an interest in the conquests they made, that for that very reason Barneveld infused it into the States, that they were now safe, and needed not fear the Spaniards any more; so there was no reason for continuing the war. Prince Maurice, on the other hand, 567 said their persecuted brethren in the popish provinces wanted their help to set them at liberty. The work seemed easy, and the prospect of success was great. In opposition to this it was said, since the seven provinces were now safe, why should they extend their territories? Those who loved their religion and liberty in the other provinces might come and live among them. This would increase both their numbers and their wealth: whereas the conquest of Antwerp might prove fatal to them: besides that both France and England interposed. They would not allow them to conquer more, nor become more formidable. All the zealous preachers were for continuing the war, and those that were for peace were branded as men of no religion, who had only carnal and political views. While this was in debate every where, the disputes began between Arminius and Gomarus, two famous professors at Leyden, concerning the decrees of God and the efficacy of grace; in which those two great men, Maurice and Barneveld, went in upon interest to lead 159 the two parties, from which they both differed in opinion. Prince Maurice in private always talked of the side of the Arminians: and Barneveld believed predestination firmly; but as he left reprobation out in his scheme, so he was against the unreasonable severity with which the ministers drove those points, and he found the Arminians the better patriots as he thought. The other side out of their zeal were for carrying on the war, so that they called all others indifferent as to all religions, and charged them as favourers of Spain and popery. I will go no further into the differences that followed concerning the authority of the states general over the several provinces. It is certain that every province is a separated state, and has an entire sovereignty within itself, and that the states general are only an assembly of the deputies of the several provinces, but without any authority over them. Yet it was pretended that extraordinary diseases required extraordinary remedies: and prince Maurice, by the assistance of a party that the ministers made for him among the people, 568 engaged the states general to assume an authority over the province of Holland, and to put the government in new hands. A court was erected by the same authority, to judge those who had been formerly in the magistracy. Barneveld was accused, together with Grotius and some others, as fomenters of sedition, and for raising distractions May 13, 1619. in the country. He was condemned, and beheaded: others were condemned to perpetual imprisonment; and every one of the judges had a great gold medal given them, in the reverse of which the synod of Dort was represented, which was called by the same authority. I saw one of these medals in the possession of the posterity of one of those judges. King James assisted prince Maurice in all this: so powerfully do the interests of princes carry them to concur in things that are most contrary to their own inclinations. The prevailing passion of that king was his hatred of the puritans. That made him hate these opinions into which the others went with great heat: and he encouraged all that were of the Arminian persuasion in his own dominions; yet he helped to crush them in Holland[10]. He hated Barneveld upon another score, for his getting the cautionary towns out of his hands: and, according to the nature of impotent passions, this carried him to procure his ruin. After this victory that prince Maurice had got over the party that opposed him, he did not study to carry it much further. He found quickly how much he had lost the hearts of the people, who had before that time made him their idol, and now looked at him with horror. He studied to make up matters the best he could, that he might engage the States in the Bohemian war; but all that was soon at an end. It was plain that he had no design upon their liberty, though he could not bear the opposition that he began to meet with from a free state.
His death put an end to all jealousies, and his brother, prince Henry Frederick, quickly settled the disputes of Arminianism by the toleration that was granted them, and 569 he was known to be a secret favourer of their tenets. He conducted their armies with so much success, and left them so much at liberty as to all their state affairs, that all the jealousies which his brother's conduct had raised were quite extinguished by him. The States made him great presents: he became very rich; and his son had the survivance of the stadtholdership, but he had more of his uncle's fire in him than of his father's temper. He opposed the peace of Munster all he could. The States came then to see that they had continued too long in their alliance with France against Spain, since France had got the ascendant by too visible a superiority; so that their interest led them now to support Spain against France. Prince William fell to be in ill terms with his mother[11]; and she, who had great credit with the States, set up such an open opposition to her son, that the peace of Munster was in a great measure the effect of their private quarrel. Prince William, being married into the royal family of England, did all he could to embroil the States with the new commonwealth, but he met with such opposition, that he, finding the States were resolved to dismiss a great part of their army, suffered himself to be carried to violent counsels. I need not enlarge on things that are so well known as his sending some of the States prisoners to Lovestein, and his design to change the government of Amsterdam, which was discovered by the postboy, who gave the alarm a few hours before the prince could get thither.
These things, and the effects that followed on them, are but too well known: as is also his death, which followed a few weeks after, in the most unhappy time possible for the princess royal's[12] big belly. For as she bore her son a week after his death, in the eighth month of her time, so he came into the world under great disadvantages. The States were possessed with great jealousies of the family, as if their aspiring to subdue the liberties of their country was 570 inherent, and inseparable from it. His private affairs were also in a very bad condition: two great jointures went out of his estate to his mother and grandmother, besides a vast debt that his father had contracted to assist the king. And who could have thought that an 160 infant, brought into the world with so much ill health, and under so many ill circumstances, was born for the preservation of Europe and of the protestant religion? So unlike do the events of things prove to their first appearances. And since I am writing of his birth, I will set down a story much to the honour of astrology, how little regard soever I my self have to it. I had it from the late queen's own mouth, and she directed me to some who were of the prince's court in that time, who confirmed it to me. An unknown person put a paper in the old princess's hands, which she took from him thinking it was a petition. When she looked into it, she found it was her son's nativity, together with the fortunes of his life, and a full deduction of many accidents, which followed very punctually as they were predicted. But that which was most particular was, that he was to have a son by a widow, and was to die of the small-pox in the twenty-fifth year of his age. So those who were apt to give credit to predictions of that sort fancied that the princess royal was to die, and that he was upon that to marry the widow of some other person. It was a common piece of raillery in the court, upon the death of any prince, to ask what a person his widow was. But when he was taken ill of the small-pox, then the deciphering the matter was obvious, and it struck his fancy so much that probably it had an ill effect upon him. Thus was the young prince born; who was some years after barred by the perpetual edict from all hopes of arriving at the stadtholdership.
The chief error in De Witt's administration was, that he did not again raise the authority of the council of state, since it was very inconvenient to have both the legislature and the execution in the same hands. It seemed necessary to put the conduct of affairs in a body of men, that should 571 indeed be accountable to the States, but should be bred to business. By this means their counsels might be both quick and secret; whereas, when all is to be determined by the States, they can have no secrets, and they must adjourn often to consult their principals; so their proceedings must be slow. During De Witt's ministry, the council of state was so sunk that it was considered only as one of the forms of the government. But the whole execution was brought to the States themselves. Certainly a great assembly is a very improper subject of the executive power. It is indeed very proper that such a body should be a check on those who have the executive power trusted to them. It is true De Witt found it so; which was occasioned by reason of the English ambassador's being once admitted to sit in that council. They pretend, indeed, that it was only on the account of the cautionary towns, which gave England a right to some share in their counsels. After these were restored, they did not think it decent to dispute the right of the ambassador's sitting any more there; but the easier way was the making that council to signify nothing, and to bring all matters immediately to the States. It had been happy for De Witt himself, and his country, if he had made use of the credit he had in the great turn upon prince William's death, to have brought things back to the state in which they had been anciently; since the established errors of a constitution and government can only be changed in a great revolution. He set up on a popular bottom: and so he was not only contented to suffer matters to go on in the channel in which he found them, but in many things he gave way to the raising the separated jurisdiction of the towns, and to the lessening the authority of the courts at the Hague. This raised his credit, but weakened the union of the province. The secret of all affairs, chiefly the foreign negotiations, lay in few hands. Others, who were not taken into the confidence, threw all miscarriages on him; which was fatal to him. The reputation he had got in the war with England, and the happy 572 conclusion of it, broke a party that was then formed against him. After that, he dictated to the States: and all submitted to him. The concluding the triple alliance in so short a time, and against the forms of their government, shewed how sure he was of a general concurrence with every thing that he proposed. In the negotiations between the States and France and England he fell into great errors. He still fancied that the king must see his own interest so visibly in the exaltation of the prince of Orange, that he reckoned that the worst that could happen was to raise him to that trust; since England could not gain so much by a conjunction with France, as by the king's having such an interest in their government when his nephew should be their stadtholder. So he thought he had a sure reserve to gain England at any time over to them. But he had no apprehension of the king's being a papist, and of his design to make himself absolute at home. And he was amazed to find that, though the court of England had talked much of that matter of the prince of Orange when the States were in no disposition to hearken to it, and so used it as a reproach, or a ground of a quarrel, yet when it came more in view, they took no sort of notice of it, and seemed not only cold but even displeased with it. The prince was left much to himself in his education; he was soon let loose to that idleness to which youth is naturally carried; 161 nor was he acquainted either with history or military matters; yet as his natural reservedness saved him from committing errors, so his gravity and other virtues recommended him much to the ministers and to the body of the people. The family of De Witt and the town of Amsterdam carried still the remembrance of what was passed fresh in their thoughts. They set it also up for a maxim, that the making of a stadtholder was the giving up their liberty, and that the consequence of it would be the putting the sovereignty of their country in him, or at least in his family. The long continuance of a ministry in one person, and that to so high a degree, must naturally 573 raise envy and beget discontent, especially in a popular government[13]. This made many become De Witt's enemies, and by consequence the prince's friends. And the preachers employed all their zeal to raise the respect of the people for a family under whom they had been so long easy and happy.
When he was of full age, it was proposed in so many places that he should have the supreme command of their armies and fleets, that De Witt saw the tide was too strong to be resisted. So, after he had opposed it long, he proposed some limitations that should be settled previous to his advancement[14]. The hardest of all was, that he should bind himself by oath never to pretend to be stadtholder, nor so much as to accept of it though it should be offered him. These conditions were not of an easy digestion; yet it was thought necessary that the prince should be once at the head of their armies: that would create a great dependence on him: and if God blessed him with success, it would not be possible to keep him so low as these limitations laid him. And the obligation never to accept of the stadtholdership could only be meant of his not accepting the offer from any tumultuary bodies of the populace or the army; but could not be a restraint on him, if the States should make the offer freely, since his oath was made to them, and by consequence it was in their power to release the obligation that did arise from it to themselves[15]. The court of England blamed him for submitting to such conditions; but he had no reason to rely much on the advices of those who had taken so little care of him during ail the credit they had with the States, while the triple alliance gave them a great interest in their affairs. As soon as he 574 was brought into the command of the armies, he told me that he spoke to De Witt, and desired to live in an entire confidence with him. His answer was cold: so that he saw he could not depend upon him. When he told me this, he added that he was certainly one of the greatest men of the age, and he believed he served his country faithfully[16]. De Witt reckoned that the French could not come to Holland but by the Meuse, and he had taken great care of the garrison of Maestricht, but very little of those that lay on the Rhine and the Isel, where the States had many places, but none of them good. They were ill fortified and ill supplied; but most of them were worse commanded, by men of no courage, nor practice in military affairs, who considered their governments as places of which they were to make all the advantage that they could.
Now I come to give an account of the fifth crisis brought on the whole reformation, which has been of the longest continuance, since we are yet in the agitations of it[1]. The design was first laid against the States, but the method of invading them was surprising and not looked for. The elector of Cologne was all his life long a very weak man: yet it was not thought that he could have been prevailed on to put the French in possession of his country, and to deliver himself with all his dominions over into their hands. When he did that, all upon the Rhine were struck with such a consternation, that there was no spirit nor courage left. It is true they could not 575 have made a great resistance. Yet if they had but gained a little time, that had given the States some leisure to look round them, to see what was to be done.
The king of France came down to Utrecht like a land flood. This struck the Dutch with so just a terror, that nothing but great errors in his management could have kept them from delivering themselves entirely up to him. Never was more applause given with less reason than the king of France had upon this campaign. His success was owing rather to De Witt's errors, than to his own conduct. He shewed so little heart as well as judgment in the management of that run of success[2], that, when that year is set out, as it may well be, it will appear to be one of the most infamous of his life[3]; though, when seen in a false light, it appears one of the most glorious in history. The conquest of the Netherlands at that time might have been so easily compassed, that if his understanding and his courage had not been equally defective, he could not have miscarried in it[4]. When his army passed the Rhine, upon which so much eloquence and poetry have been bestowed, as if all had been animated by his presence and direction, he was viewing it at a very safe distance: where he took the care that he has always done to preserve himself. When he came to Utrecht, he had neither the prince of Condé nor Mr. Turenne to advise with, and so was wholly left to his ministers. The prince of Condé was dangerously wounded as he passed the Rhine: and Turenne was sent against the elector of Brandenburg, who was coming down with his army, partly to save his own country of Cleves, but chiefly to assist his allies the Dutch. So the king had none about him to advise with, but 576 Pomponne and Louvois. When the Dutch sent to him to know what he demanded, 162 Pomponne's advice was wise and moderate, and would in conclusion have brought about all that he intended. He proposed that the king should restore all that belonged to the seven provinces, and require of them only the places that they had without them[5]; chiefly Maestricht, Bois-le-Duc, Breda, and Bergen-op-zoom: thus the king would maintain an appearance of preserving the seven provinces entire, which the crown of France had always protected. To this certainly the Dutch would have yielded without any difficulty. By this he had the Spanish Netherlands entirely in his power, separated from Holland and the empire, and might take them whensoever he pleased. This would have an appearance of moderation, and would stop the motion that all Germany was now in; which could have no effect, if the States did not pay and assist their troops. Louvois, on the other hand, proposed that the king should make use of the consternation the Dutch were then in, and put them out of a condition of opposing him for the future[6]. He therefore advised that the king should demand of them, besides all that Pomponne moved, the paying a vast sum for the charge of that campaign; the giving the chief church in every town for the exercise of the popish religion; and that they should put themselves under the protection of France, and should send an ambassador every year with 577 a medal acknowledging it; and should enter into no treaties or alliances but by the direction of France, or till his advice was asked and followed. The Dutch ambassadors were amazed when they saw that the demands rose to so extravagant a pitch. One of them swooned away, when he heard them read: he could neither think of yielding to them, nor see how they could resist them. There was an article put in for form, that they should give the king of England full satisfaction; but all the other demands were made without any concert with England, though Lockhart was then following the court.
I say nothing of the sea-fight at Solebay[7], in which De Ruyter had the glory of surprising the English fleet, when they were thinking less of engaging the enemy, than of an extravagant preparation for the usual disorders of the twenty-ninth of May, which he prevented, engaging them on the twenty-eighth, in one of the most obstinate sea-fights that has happened in our age; in which the French took more care of themselves than became gallant men; but it was believed they had orders to look on, and leave the English and Dutch to fight it out, while they preserved the force of France entire. Ruyter disabled the ship in which the duke was, whom some blamed for leaving his ship too soon; and then his personal courage began first to be called in question[8]. The. admiral of the blue squadron 578 was burnt by a fire-ship, after a long engagement with a Dutch ship much inferior to him in strength. In it the earl of Sandwich perished with a great many about him, who would not leave him, as he would not leave his ship[9], 579 by a piece of obstinate courage, to which he was provoked by an indecent reflection the duke made on an advice he had offered of drawing nearer the shore, and avoiding an engagement, as if in that he took more care of himself than of the king's honour. The duke of Buckingham came aboard the fleet: though it was observed that he made great haste away when he heard the Dutch fleet was in view. The duke (of York) told me, that he said to him, since they might engage the enemy quickly he intended to make sure of another world: so he desired to know who was the duke's priest, that he might reconcile himself to the church. The duke told him, Talbot would help him to a priest; and he brought one to him. They were for some time shut up together, and the priest said he had reconciled him according to their forms. Buckingham, who had no religion at heart, did this only to recommend himself to the duke's confidence.
It may easily be imagined that all things were at this time in great disorder at the Hague[10]. The French possessed themselves of Noerden: and a party had entered into Muyden, who had the keys of the gates brought to them, but they, seeing it was an inconsiderable place, not knowing the importance of it, by the command of the water that could drown all to Amsterdam, flung the keys in the ditch, and went back to Noerden. But when the consequence of the place was understood, another party was sent to secure it; but before their return, two battalions were sent from the prince of Orange, who secured the place, and by that means pr