The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second - Volume 1 - Thomas Babington Macaulay (novel books to read TXT) 📗

And though, by a judicious mixture

of severity and kindness, he succeeded in restoring order, he saw

that it would be in the highest degree difficult and perilous to

contend against the rage of warriors, who regarded the fallen

tyrant as their foe, and as the foe of their God. At the same

time it became more evident than ever that the King could not be

trusted. The vices of Charles had grown upon him. They were,

indeed, vices which difficulties and perplexities generally bring

out in the strongest light. Cunning is the natural defence of the

weak. A prince, therefore, who is habitually a deceiver when at

the height of power, is not likely to learn frankness in the

midst of embarrassments and distresses. Charles was not only a

most unscrupulous but a most unlucky dissembler. There never was

a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought

home by undeniable evidence. He publicly recognised the Houses at

Westminster as a legal Parliament, and, at the same time, made a

private minute in council declaring the recognition null. He

publicly disclaimed all thought of calling in foreign aid against

his people: he privately solicited aid from France, from Denmark,

and from Lorraine. He publicly denied that he employed Papists:

at the same time he privately sent to his generals directions to

employ every Papist that would serve. He publicly took the

sacrament at Oxford, as a pledge that he never would even connive

at Popery. He privately assured his wife, that he intended to

tolerate Popery in England; and he authorised Lord Glamorgan to

promise that Popery should be established in Ireland. Then he

attempted to clear himself at his agent's expense. Glamorgan

received, in the Royal handwriting, reprimands intended to be

read by others, and eulogies which were to be seen only by

himself. To such an extent, indeed, had insincerity now tainted

the King's whole nature, that his most devoted friends could not

refrain from complaining to each other, with bitter grief and

shame, of his crooked politics. His defeats, they said, gave them

less pain than his intrigues. Since he had been a prisoner, there

was no section of the victorious party which had not been the

object both of his flatteries and of his machinations; but never

was he more unfortunate than when he attempted at once to cajole

and to undermine Cromwell.


Cromwell had to determine whether he would put to hazard the

attachment of his party, the attachment of his army, his own

greatness, nay his own life, in an attempt which would probably

have been vain, to save a prince whom no engagement could bind.

With many struggles and misgivings, and probably not without many

prayers, the decision was made. Charles was left to his fate. The

military saints resolved that, in defiance of the old laws of the

realm, and of the almost universal sentiment of the nation, the

King should expiate his crimes with his blood. He for a time

expected a death like that of his unhappy predecessors, Edward

the Second and Richard the Second. But he was in no danger of

such treason. Those who had him in their gripe were not midnight

stabbers. What they did they did in order that it might be a

spectacle to heaven and earth, and that it might be held in

everlasting remembrance. They enjoyed keenly the very scandal

which they gave. That the ancient constitution and the public

opinion of England were directly opposed to regicide made

regicide seem strangely fascinating to a party bent on effecting

a complete political and social revolution. In order to

accomplish their purpose, it was necessary that they should first

break in pieces every part of the machinery of the government;

and this necessity was rather agreeable than painful to them. The

Commons passed a vote tending to accommodation with the King. The

soldiers excluded the majority by force. The Lords unanimously

rejected the proposition that the King should be brought to

trial. Their house was instantly closed. No court, known to the

law, would take on itself the office of judging the fountain of

justice. A revolutionary tribunal was created. That tribunal

pronounced Charles a tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public

enemy; and his head was severed from his shoulders, before

thousands of spectators, in front of the banqueting hall of his

own palace.


In no long time it became manifest that those political and

religious zealots, to whom this deed is to be ascribed, had

committed, not only a crime, but an error. They had given to a

prince, hitherto known to his people chiefly by his faults, an

opportunity of displaying, on a great theatre, before the eyes of

all nations and all ages, some qualities which irresistibly call

forth the admiration and love of mankind, the high spirit of a

gallant gentleman, the patience and meekness of a penitent

Christian. Nay, they had so contrived their revenge that the very

man whose life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of

England now seemed to die a martyr in the cause of those

liberties. No demagogue ever produced such an impression on the

public mind as the captive King, who, retaining in that extremity

all his regal dignity, and confronting death with dauntless

courage, gave utterance to the feelings of his oppressed people,

manfully refused to plead before a court unknown to the law,

appealed from military violence to the principles of the

constitution, asked by what right the House of Commons had been

purged of its most respectable members and the House of Lords

deprived of its legislative functions, and told his weeping

hearers that he was defending, not only his own cause, but

theirs. His long misgovernment, his innumerable perfidies, were

forgotten. His memory was, in the minds of the great majority of

his subjects, associated with those free institutions which he

had, during many years, laboured to destroy: for those free

institutions had perished with him, and, amidst the mournful

silence of a community kept down by arms, had been defended by

his voice alone. From that day began a reaction in favour of

monarchy and of the exiled house, reaction which never ceased

till the throne had again been set up in all its old dignity.


At first, however, the slayers of the King seemed to have derived

new energy from that sacrament of blood by which they had bound

themselves closely together, and separated themselves for ever

from the great body of their countrymen. England was declared a

commonwealth. The House of Commons, reduced to a small number of

members, was nominally the supreme power in the state. In fact,

the army and its great chief governed everything. Oliver had made

his choice. He had kept the hearts of his soldiers, and had

broken with almost every other class of his fellow citizens.

Beyond the limits of his camps and fortresses he could scarcely

be said to have a party. Those elements of force which, when the

civil war broke out, had appeared arrayed against each other,

were combined against him; all the Cavaliers, the great majority

of the Roundheads, the Anglican Church, the Presbyterian Church,

the Roman Catholic Church, England, Scotland, Ireland. Yet such,

was his genius and resolution that he was able to overpower and

crush everything that crossed his path, to make himself more

absolute master of his country than any of her legitimate Kings

had been, and to make his country more dreaded and respected than

she had been during many generations under the rule of her

legitimate Kings.


England had already ceased to struggle. But the two other

kingdoms which had been governed by the Stuarts were hostile to

the new republic. The Independent party was equally odious to the

Roman Catholics of Ireland and to the Presbyterians of Scotland.

Both those countries, lately in rebellion against Charles the

First, now acknowledged the authority of Charles the Second.


But everything yielded to the vigour and ability of Cromwell. In

a few months he subjugated Ireland, as Ireland had never been

subjugated during the five centuries of slaughter which had

elapsed since the landing of the first Norman settlers. He

resolved to put an end to that conflict of races and religions

which had so long distracted the island, by making the English

and Protestant population decidedly predominant. For this end he

gave the rein to the fierce enthusiasm of his followers, waged

war resembling that which Israel waged on the Canaanites, smote

the idolaters with the edge of the sword, so that great cities

were left without inhabitants, drove many thousands to the

Continent, shipped off many thousands to the West Indies, and

supplied the void thus made by pouring in numerous colonists, of

Saxon blood, and of Calvinistic faith. Strange to say, under that

iron rule, the conquered country began to wear an outward face of

prosperity. Districts, which had recently been as wild as those

where the first white settlers of Connecticut were contending

with the red men, were in a few years transformed into the

likeness of Kent and Norfolk. New buildings, roads, and

plantations were everywhere seen. The rent of estates rose fast;

and soon the English landowners began to complain that they were

met in every market by the products of Ireland, and to clamour

for protecting laws.


From Ireland the victorious chief, who was now in name, as he had

long been in reality, Lord General of the armies of the

Commonwealth, turned to Scotland. The Young King was there. He

had consented to profess himself a Presbyterian, and to subscribe

the Covenant; and, in return for these concessions, the austere

Puritans who bore sway at Edinburgh had permitted him to assume

the crown, and to hold, under their inspection and control, a

solemn and melancholy court. This mock royalty was of short

duration. In two great battles Cromwell annihilated the military

force of Scotland. Charles fled for his life, and, with extreme

difficulty, escaped the fate of his father. The ancient kingdom

of the Stuarts was reduced, for the first time, to profound

submission. Of that independence, so manfully defended against

the mightiest and ablest of the Plantagenets, no vestige was

left. The English Parliament made laws for Scotland. English

judges held assizes in Scotland. Even that stubborn Church, which

has held its own against so many governments, scarce dared to

utter an audible murmur.


Thus far there had been at least the semblance of harmony between

the warriors who had subjugated Ireland and Scotland and the

politicians who sate at Westminster: but the alliance which had

been cemented by danger was dissolved by victory. The Parliament

forgot that it was but the creature of the army. The army was

less disposed than ever to submit to the dictation of the

Parliament. Indeed the few members