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differed widely from mercenary legions; they were citizen-soldiers, yeomen, and reputable burgesses, whom the defence of great principles had embodied, and converted from the quiet pursuits of civil life into saintly heroes, who rivalled in valour and holy fervour the crusaders.

The Protector Cromwell himself, however, at length discovered an indecency or desecration in the unbounded license of preaching. In 1653 a board of triors was appointed, thirty-eight in number, composed of the leading sects, to whom unlimited power was given of examining, approving, or rejecting any person chosen or nominated to any church living. This was equivalent to dividing the church among the different religious bodies, or so liberalising and extending it as to make it comprehend them all. Cromwell held forth the measure as one of a restrictive character-as designed to restrain the previous liberty, when any one might set up as a preacher and so give himself a chance of obtaining a benefice. The board continued to exercise its functions till after Cromwell's death, and its constitution evinced something of the straightforward justice and practical sense inherent in the Protector's character. It is needless to particularise the numerous sects and parties that sprang up under the unrestricted system; most of them have some surviving representative in existing divisions and denominations.

Pending the "Reign of the Saints," as they have been termed, not many infractions can be noted of their avowed principle of universal toleration. The most disparaging example of persecution under the Protectorate was that of James Naylor, a fanatic Quaker, who fancied himself, or was thought by others, to be the Holy Ghost. Naylor was a man of an imposing presence, of a quiet, amiable, and yielding temper, who seems, unsought by himself, to have

INTOLERANCE OF THE LONG PARLIAMENT.

215

been pushed into a perilous notoriety by the mistaken. enthusiasm of his disciples. His followers were chiefly females, or husbands led away by their wives; and he was not inaptly styled a "ladies' prophet." They considered him the true Messiah, worshipped him in prayer, and sang hymns in his glorification. His converts multiplied, and he made a public entry into Bristol amidst hosannas and the spreading of branches, in imitation of Christ's entry into Jerusalem. He was doubtless a visionary,- that was the extent of his aberration,— and more deluded probably by the mistaken adulation of those around him, than the infirmities of his own mind. His case demanded commiseration, instead of the cruel punishment awarded him by parliament, which thus degraded itself by sitting in judgment on so palpable a fascination.

A longer reign and more assured predominance might have made the parliamentarians as intolerant in religion as they were in politics. Against offences directed against the tenure of their own power they evinced restless severity. New governments have always bitter disappointments and enmities to grapple with, and a stringency and vigilance beyond that of ordinary times may be temporarily conceded to them; but the Commonwealth men in several cases seem to have entirely lost sight of the principles of liberty they professed and had conquered, and took some of the worst pages out of the "accursed book of despotism." They made it treason to affirm in speech or writing that the Commonwealth was unlawful, usurped, or tyrannical; treason to deny the supremacy of parliament; treason for any, not being of the army, to stir up mutiny or insubordination therein. Obnoxious words spoken were made capital, and simple sedition was converted into high treason. The press was put into its old shackles, and extreme punishments

declared against such as printed aught against the govern

ment.

As they undervalued human science they deprived themselves of one important means of correctly appreciating human conduct. The actions of man were viewed less in their relation to the indestructible principles of his being than in their relation to some conventional assumption of a perfect and orthodox religious character. Hence certain classes of offences, which, however revolting, have this extenuation to plead, that they form part of the strongest and most defensible propensities of our nature when lawfully indulged, were legislated against by them more in the spirit of anchorites or the primitive founders of monastic institutions than of an enlightened reason. There can be no doubt that a person who wantonly and wickedly seduces a married woman would, if he could perpetrate the offence with like impunity, pick the husband's pocket; but the Puritans were not satisfied with considering adultery, as they equitably might have done, on the same level of turpitude as larceny; they made it a capital offence, aggravating it into the same monstrous degree of atrocity as murder. stinct is outraged, and nature rebels against such barbarous edicts, and laws fall into nullity and contempt from judges and jurors, in complicity with offenders, uniting to evade them. But having thus outrageously assailed the higher description of sexual delinquency, they could not wholly overlook the next in degree; and fornication, if a first offence, was punishable by three months' imprisonment!

In

It is manifest the Puritans were not competent to govern men, and that their sphere of action was subordinate to that of ruling over a nation. Some further striking illustrations might be adduced from the history

ERRORS OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.

217

of the nonconformist settlers of the American states, to which they resorted, as they told Charles II., in quest of a "quiet life in a corner of the world." But their life was not quiet; it was signally perturbed and unhappy. The first and most ample experiment of religious freedom under their rule was made in New England by Roger Williams, and is supposed to have been the foundation of the religious liberty of North America. But in Rhode Island itself the results were unsatisfactory, and a contemporary author characterises the country by the description, bona terra, mala gens-"the land good, but the people bad." Bigotry and persecution were nowhere more rife than among the Pilgrim Fathers - themselves fugitives from the ecclesiastical tyranny of their native land. Their chief errors and miseries resulted from an unscientific ignorance of mankind and the laws of material nature. Witchcraft was relentlessly persecuted by them; and in their superstitious terrors they trembled like children from fancied spectral sights in mists and fogs, from forestal noises, and howling winds.

CHAPTER XIII.

RESTORATION OF CHARLES II.

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Precipitancy of the Restoration. - Conduct and Character of General Monk. - Trial and Treatment of the Regicides. — Restitution of Landed Property.—Ecclesiastical Conference at the Savoy Palace. Reactions. Act for enforcing Uniformity. — Establishment of a Standing Army.—Constitutional Securities respected.-Powers of the House of Lords.-Useful Commercial Legislation; Statutes of Frauds and of Distribution.—Corporation and Test Acts.—Settlement of the Poor.-Successes of the Dutch.-Exile of Lord Clarendon.-Treachery of the Court to the Nation.-Foreign Bribery of King and Parliament. Popish Plots and Protestant Fears. — Revolting Conduct of the King to Queen Catherine.-Court of Libertinism; its Influence on the Community.—Extreme Profligacy of the King, his Courtiers, and Mistresses.-Results on Civilisation.-Character of Charles II. - Useful Institutions. Men of Letters. - Costume.

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THE reforms consummated by the quiet growth of public opinion in their favour, if not so effectually curative as those of violence, are usually more enduring. Although it may happen that the vices of a state are so inveterate and pertinaciously clung to, that nothing short of revolutionary force is adequate to their removal, still it is a great drawback from the reforming power derived from the physical aid of the community, that the instrument evoked the irresistible Thor hammer, summoned into life-usually becomes as unbearable an oppression as that it has demolished. It was precisely such material intervention that perverted the course of parliamentary resistance to the crown; and the Long Parliament which, in the early stages of its progress, would have gladly compromised with the monarchy, was in the end over

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