The Diary of Thomas Burton: 28 February 1658-9

Diary of Thomas Burton Esq: Volume 3, January - March 1659. Originally published by H Colburn, London, 1828.

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'The Diary of Thomas Burton: 28 February 1658-9', in Diary of Thomas Burton Esq: Volume 3, January - March 1659, ed. John Towill Rutt( London, 1828), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/burton-diaries/vol3/pp503-548 [accessed 8 October 2024].

'The Diary of Thomas Burton: 28 February 1658-9', in Diary of Thomas Burton Esq: Volume 3, January - March 1659. Edited by John Towill Rutt( London, 1828), British History Online, accessed October 8, 2024, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/burton-diaries/vol3/pp503-548.

"The Diary of Thomas Burton: 28 February 1658-9". Diary of Thomas Burton Esq: Volume 3, January - March 1659. Ed. John Towill Rutt(London, 1828), , British History Online. Web. 8 October 2024. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/burton-diaries/vol3/pp503-548.

In this section

Monday, February 28, 1658–9.

Mr. Speaker took the chair at nine.

Mr. Cooler prayed.

Out of the Journals.

Colonel Bennet reported from the Committee to whom the Petition of Mrs. Elizabeth Lilburne, widow, late wife of Mr. John Lilburne, (fn. 1) deceased, was referred, the proceedings of the late Parliament, in January 1651, concerning Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne, deceased, entered in the Journalbook of that Parliament, which were read. (fn. 2)

He farther reported, that the 22nd January, 1658, it was moved by the Council, that his Highness, in respect of Mrs. Lilburne's poverty, would, by his pardon under the great seal, discharge the fine of 3000l. imposed on Lieutenantcolonel Lilburne, payable to his Highness and the Commonwealth. That Sir Arthur Haslerigge had, by deed under his hand and seal, released the 2000l. given to him; that Mr. Squib, by like writing under his hand and seal, had released the fine set to be paid to him; that Mr. Molyns had referred himself to the award of Colonel Okey and Colonel Bennet, as to the fine set to be paid to him; and that Mrs. Lilburne had likewise submitted to, and undertaken to perform their award; and also, to deliver such papers to Colonel Bennet as she had in her custody, relating to the matters for which the fines were imposed, to be burnt, without keeping any copies of them; that Mr. Winslowe, to whom a fine was likewise set to be paid, was since dead at Jamaica, without any heir, executor, or administrator in England; and that neither himself in his lifetime, nor any other since his death, had ever made any demand of it: that Mr. James Russell, to whom a fine was also set to be paid, was likewise dead, and that the fine set to be paid to him, was never demanded either in his lifetime, or since his death : that Mrs. Russell, his widow, had notice to attend the Committee, but neglected to do it, as not intending to have any benefit by that fine.

He reported also the opinion of the said Committee; That a Bill be brought in, and offered to the House, to repeal the Act of January 30, 1651–2, concerning Mr. Lilburne. (fn. 3)

He offered a Bill to that purpose; in regard Sir Arthur Haslerigge, Mr. Squib, and Mr. Molyns, who had fines given them by that act, had remitted them.

Mr. Knightley. I move to put off this business till some morning, then bring in a Bill.

Mr. Bacon. Before a Bill can be brought in, you must resolve to agree with the Committee.

Sir Arthur Haslerigge. I move that you would only declare that the Bill is void, in regard there was no prosecution upon it.

Mr. Raleigh. I move that the Bill be brought in. Mr. Winslowe and Mr. Russell, who had part of the fines, are dead, and no executors to be heard of. Winslowe died in Jamaica; yet, unless they were satisfied, you cannot repeal that part as to them.

Sir William Wheeler. You cannot absolutely take their rights away.

Mr. Onslow. Such hasty acts of Parliament deserve a repeal. There was no entry nor engrossing of it. If it appears to be an Act, then it will be worthy, your pains to repeal it.

Sir Walter Earle. You may give order to bring in a Bill to repeal that Act, and then may add what proviso you please, to save Mr. Winslowe's and Mr. Russell's rights, which is but reasonable.

Sir John Northcote. You allow it to be an Act, if you order an act to be brought in to repeal it. I doubt it was no Act. It wanted the formality of passing. I believe it was not ab initio an Act.

Mr. Knightley. I move that an Act be brought in for annulling the judgment and proceedings against John Lilburne, so by that means you do not allow it to be an Act.

Resolved, that a Bill be brought in for annulling the sentence and proceeding had in this House against Lieutenantcolonel John Lilburne, and that a Committee do prepare such a Bill for the House.

Mr. Knightley, Sir William Wheeler, Colonel Birch, Mr. Raleigh, Mr. Swinfen, Sir Anthony Cooper, Sir Walter Earle, Sir John Copplestone, and Mr. Edward Turner, are appointed to be a Committee: and they, or any four or more of them are to peruse the Journal-book of the House on every Saturday weekly, or oftener; and to inform the House (if there shall be cause) concerning the entries of the orders and proceedings of this House, whether the same be duly made and kept, or not.

The order of the day was read touching the bounds and powers of another House.

Altum Silentium, a pretty while.

Sir Arthur Haslerigge. I move that the Petition and Advice be read, as to the bounds and powers of the other House.

Sir Walter Earle propounded to take the perambulations, or bounds, mentioned in the honourable Petition and Advice.

Mr. Onslow. If you bound their powers according to law, I hope you will not forget to look into the good old laws, Magna Charta, and others; and not begin with the Petition and Advice, and conclude that a law, which is not yet determined to be a law.

Let us first debate whether the Petition and Advice be a law or no, before we take it for an Act.

Mr. Starkey. The chariot of our affairs moves slowly, because one wheel is yet wanting. Every thing invites you to a speedy resolution. I am neither for leaping over hedges and ditches, nor for so much retrospect as to look back upon the old peerage, nor to the right nor left-hand; but to look to the present establishment, the Petition and Advice that settled the other House, for the authority whereof I will say nothing.

I look upon it as the ark that has preserved us in the deluge of anarchy and confusion. I can comply with it, though haply I should not have had a hand in it. Allow it, at least, as a ladder for your building. Afford it a standing, until your fabric be finished.

I find another House embarked with you in this ark. They have honour given them by this Petition and Advice. I know not which is the elder brother. I never knew the House of Commons less honourable, because the House of Lords was right honourable. Do not take from them that patrimony, which their and your common ancestors hath given them. You cannot legitimate yourselves and deny them; you all claim from one common ancestor. We are twins. Why should we strive, therefore, being brethren. Let us not struggle in the womb, to destroy one another. Let us rather, like Harpocrates's twins, live and die together. Let us twist and unite. A three-fold cord is not easily broken. As they are our brethren, let us timely salute them, that so we may go hand in hand together, towards the finishing of a happy settlement.

Mr. Knight ley. You have a question before you, to bound, but the question is whether you can bound or no.

How should we bound this other House ? We go, like men of Gotham, to hedge in the cuckoo. Some talk of Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, and some will have the Petition and Advice to stand in competition with them. I think the Petition and Advice does not set up a House of Lords.

I see you cannot meddle with a horn or a hoof of this other House. They begin to take it ill already, that you come not up to them, if fame be true. Talk here these twelve months, and then say you cannot bound. They do you service. Let us look to our own House, not the other. There is another House already. We are called by writ; the writ says, to consult with the great men and nobles. (fn. 4) I know not where they are ; but there are some, and I doubt all our labour without them, will signify nothing.

If we cannot have what we would have, let us have what we can get. Let us stand as we are, and they as they are: else we may sow much, but we cannot reap. Were we tenants in fee, we might say something; but we are but tenants at will, on one foot with them, and have less than they have.

I would have this debate laid aside, else we can do nothing. If you please, let these sit as they are; but let us make a drawbridge, and propound a Bill to take down their number, and for the future, let none be called thither, but such as shall be allowed by this House. If in future we should see any thing in that constitution defective, we may mend it. Declare for the present, as part of the Bill, that no member hereafter be called to that House, but by your approbation, and that no member be chosen out of this House thither, without your consent, and that is my humble motion.

Altum silentium.

Colonel Cox. I cannot concur with the gentleman that spoke first, (fn. 5) that told you of Magna Charta, and a House of Lords. The old House of Lords was taken away by Act of Parliament, which had reason, law, and authority; as good a law as that Act was to take away the single person. If we bring in old Lords, we bring in old lines. You set open the doors. If that House be not taken away, I know not what takes away the interest of the King. If he, which was the fountain of their honour, be laid aside, much more may they be, which do but derive from him.

We talk of the Barons' wars. I have seen the pedigrees of most of the nobility, and there are not above six or seven families left, that can pretend any title from those that were in the Barons' wars. (fn. 6)

If you please by an Act, with concurrence of his Highness, let those that have fought for, and with you, and have stood faithful, be restored, and have right to sit in the other House, not upon any old account, but to have originacy from this House, and none to come in, but by approbation from hence. I would also have a number of men that have been faithful, and ventured their lives, of good estates, that may be a balance ; I would have his Highness to present three, and you take one, and likewise you three, and he choose one.

When at the rising of the House, in that Parliament, a Committee was named, touching the explanation of the Petition and Advice, they meddled with this clause concerning the Lords' house, which was not committed to them. (fn. 7)

As to taking that clause, which put the approbation of the other House in the Protector, I then told the Speaker, I suspected that many of these gentlemen that brought in that clause, had a mind themselves to be called to that House, and feared they should be left out. (fn. 8) I since find many of them there, I shall not say but they are persons of worth. I would have us know the men, before we debate their powers.

Colonel Terril. I see we are upon a difficult point, and before we conclude this debate, we must speak plain English, and come to a right understanding.

There are two other Houses already in our eye, besides our own; the one in right, the other in fact; the one in forma pauperis, contending with the other, cum domino manorii; the right of the one suspended, not extinguished.

While God has given me a tongue I shall speak my mind. I shall not reflect upon those that are in possession.

It is the custom and usage of all nations under heaven, where there are nobles, princes, lords, and grandees, those are the persons that have been ever called to the highest councils, parliaments, diets, and assemblies. This must arise from something of natural right and reason; as being looked on, in all ages, to understand the state of affairs best.

I shall only speak of England. We have history beyond our own records. Look from Brute (fn. 9) to this age. Among Romans, Saxons, Danes, &c. the great men of the nation, the barons and nobles have been consulted with in all councils and assemblies, especially in Parliament. Until about 49 Henry III., the stile still run, the King and his nobles, the King and his barons. I cannot say the Commons were then /?/ce is taken of them until then. /?/ run in that tone, King, Lords, and Corn/?/ Magistrate is the same in construction of /?/ judges would never venture upon a law, /?/ of all three estates. If there were not /?/ ds in a law, they would never do any thing upon it. The Barons were never omitted in any law. The Commons are sometimes not named.

Who were they that stood up and asserted the liberties of the people? Stood they not up for Magna Charta, with King John and Henry III. (fn. 10) Did not they, in Richard II.'s time, contend and regain their lost liberties for the people ? To come to our own times, which we are too apt. to forget, when Parliaments were grown contemptible, and no man durst, under less than a capital offence, (fn. 11) mention a Parliament, to move the King to call one; we had then Lords, some twelve at least, yet living, that took courage even whilst the King was in the midst of an army ; they went with a paper in one hand, and their lives in the other, (fn. 12) to solicit the King to call Parliament. I know there were but a few hairs between life and death as to divers of them. I shall name one, the Earl of Manchester. Judgment had passed. He has lived to see their heads off their shoulders that would have, had his head off. (fn. 13)

The Barons were as stout and resolute for the rights of the people then as ever. Of all those twelve, eleven stood right to the cause. There was but one that left you. The Parliament always looked upon him as the best of them that adhered to the King.

There is a statute, 5 Richard II., which enacts, that if any of the Barons do not appear in the Parliament, they shall be amerced; and another, in 31 Henry VIII., that appoints how they shall be placed after their appearance. So that here is custom, prescription, common law, statute law, and reason, for them.

We have forgot, I doubt, what was done in our times. The statute of 16 Caroli, for Triennial Parliaments, (fn. 14) enacted that the Lords and Barons shall be called to Parliament. Here is nothing wanting for the establishing of any thing which we have made to supply our Solemn League and Covenant. So here are both civil and sacred obligations. Give me leave to put you in mind of a military one too, at Sionhouse. A noble person, (fn. 15) I believe, remembers it; it was a declaration sent up to the Lords by Sir Hardress Waller. (fn. 16) Their declaration was that the Army will support the Lords' House, and the words are "live and die with it." (fn. 17) All were protestations to preserve rights of Parliaments. (fn. 18) But, the right being theirs, they are now blown up by I know not what nor whom. The act for perpetuating the Parliament, saith that the Lords' House shall not be adjourned nor dissolved without their own consent in Parliament. (fn. 19) What is wanting to preserve them ?

I cannot wholly blame them, that took them away ; they had a government in their eye, which they could not set up till that House was taken away; a Commonwealth which they did not live to finish. And that House was then a block in their way, necessary, in order to that undertaking, to be removed. I shall not speak for nor against it. Possibly if that government had been finished, it might have been good for the people. All governments are alike by divine law.

But what is it which that Act saith or doth ? (here he recited the Act of 1648,) when a Parliament then consisted of two Houses, as well de jure as de facto. One says (fn. 20) it is enacted by Parliament, and yet one of the two Houses never consented to it. It was inconsistent for one House to say the other was useless. Might not the House of Lords have said the same of this House, the Commons. There was a contradiction in it. I say nothing of them that did it; they having another thing then to do.

The Lords were never called to any trial, never accused, nor impeached for any thing they had done; yet they must be laid aside. It was not the law of the Romans so to do.

I can mind you of nothing done by these Lords, but I shall tell you how, in the latter time of Henry VIII., there was a person whose name was (fn. 20) and is famous, one Cromwell, (fn. 21) who was attainted of treason by the Lords' House, and lost his life. He was condemned, though never brought to trial ; (fn. 22) a brand for ever upon that Parliament.

Sir, there is something of the hand of God in it, that one of that name (fn. 23) should have a hand in revenging of that blood which was so unjustly taken away, by setting aside that House which was so guilty of that illegal judgment. I suppose this House was not altogether innocent of the same Act, (fn. 24) for it hath been sensible to purpose of the same punishment, for it is well known how even this House also was dismembered and dissolved by the same person.

A late author says that a Grand Jury may as well vote down the Judges; the Commonalty of London vote down the Lord Mayor and Aldermen; nay, the judges in Westminsterhall vote down this House; as this House the Commons vote down the Lords. They were the superiors.

The King, indeed, was the fountain of the honour. They had their right to sit there only by grant from the King; either by patent, or Parliament-writ. But when this was done, the King himself could not recal it.

Quo ligamine quid ligatur, dissolvitur.

If a Parliament do it, I say then it was legal.

The House of Commons did, in 48, declare that the House of Lords being by necessity taken away, the protestations were to be dispensed with. I would have you declare that they are of force now.

I move to restore the old Lords to their ancient right, and I hope in time you will repeal that Act made against them; for two Houses being in our eye, we are obliged to set up that which hath most right. It is right that shall lead me, and will lead me through the world. When what I said before is unsaid, it may receive a reply. I shall say nothing against the other House in possession; and I presume they will not take it ill, that I spake for those that have a right by all laws in the world.

I therefore move to fix upon one of those two Houses before you go on to bound them.

Consider which shall be the House first, and then let us debate the powers. I would have the old peers restored.

Mr. Attorney-general. I shall not suppose whether Charles Stuart be at the bottom of this debate or not. But let us well consider whether Charles Stuart be well gone or no. If all the laws, constitutions, civil and sacred, which concern the Lords' House be yet in force, I am sure none are disabled, and that law which concerns Charles Stuart is not yet void. You must leave the Chief Magistrate to come in as he can, and the old Lords are in already. I know not how you can refuse any of them. Consider whether in prudence you can admit this. Peerage will necessarily bring in regality, high and great enough.

Admit this argument; and nought has been done since 48 that is good. All public lands, sales, &c. are gone.

I cannot say there is a custom or prescription for what we are now under. I hope none will, by a side wind, lay all things aside that have been done and settled since.

Let us speak plainly out. You need not bound them. Then each House will call their own members. You must not touch their members. As affairs are now, many of the ancient peerage are beyond sea.

I hear no man move directly for Charles Stuart; but it is all one to me if that be at the bottom of it. If you bring in one, I know who will bring in the other.

There are laws, and I hope they will pass, and be taken for laws till you declare otherwise. Else from 42 to 48, from thence to 52, from thence to 53, and from thence, hither,—all are void.

I shall speak for the safety of the nation. This other House now in being will be of great security to this nation.

This House, that sits here, is but in the nature of a servant at will, dissolvable, here to-day and another by to-morrow. You would have such a body as would be engaged with you clear through.

Now the other House, which in my judgment you should make and mould, I think you should take in such as have been faithful to you. I know not why the next Parliament may not be all, or most of them, the sons of Cavaliers, and if the other House be so too, where are you.

Therefore I offer it, as our security, to take first into consideration the House now in being, those persons that sit there; and then declare that for the future, none shall sit there but such as shall be approved by both Houses; not to dispute the right, but, as your present condition is, to build upon this House now in possession. Let us not now think what was'the ancient right; but what is best for the good and safety of the nation.

Colonel Terrill moved to explain himself.

Sir Walter Earle moved he might speak.

Colonel Terrill. I am not against those that are in possession, if his Highness and this House please; but that they may sit there only for the sakes of those that stood faithful to you. I would have us build upon that rock, the old foundation, and admit such of the old Peers as you shall think fit. This is that which I drove at.

Sir George Booth. I rise up to correct that mistake of Mr. Attorney-General, that if you admit these Lords that are capable, you break in upon all that has passed since 48.

We are obliged to Mr. Attorney-General, who tells us plainly that we are upon a new foundation; that he would have this House in being to be the other House. We must admit of that, and none other. If this be so, I pray, Sir, what becomes then of Magna Charta and the Petition of Right, which make Englishmen freemen, and not slaves. Must they either be fought over again or shamed, they hanging but upon the bare thread of this Petition and Advice, which is disputable.

I do not know how in justice you can lay that blemish upon those persons that have so eminently served you, to lay them aside. If the inconveniency be great to admit them, you may answer, "If there be danger on that side, there is as much danger on the other." My motion is, that those that have been faithful to you may be this House of Lords, not exclusive of others.

I know very few of the other.

I have heard that some of them have taken strange things upon them, at other times, as Major-generals, to meddle with difference of meum and tuum. (fn. 25) There hath been such persons in this nation, in military employments, that have told men that the law was in their breasts. If any such be in the other House, they will be fit to revive and put in execution that doctrine again.

There was a difference between two states of Italy. The Pope, as a common father, desired to reconcile the difference, and moved them to refer themselves to him, to compose the matter. They both refused his mediation. The Princes said to the Pope, "You have the spiritual sword; we have only the temporal sword. If we give you both, you will be too hard for us." I doubt this may prove so. If you will put the civil sword into the hands of those that have the military sword too, I think it cannot be safe for you.

Let these persons that have not forfeited (some aspersions upon them, I wish they had been spared,) let them be your foundation, and take what other in, you please.

Colonel Clark. I wish we may come well off. It is said the Petition of Right and Magna Charta are laid aside. He might as well have said you wanted one of the triple cords, (fn. 26) the King. I would have been glad to have heard his reasons for it. Then all other laws are laid aside. I would gladly hear his reason.

The best argument is that of right. He says it is fundamental in all nations, to call those nobles.

Every nation hath a power within themselves, to alter the government as they shall think fit.

If every nation have that right, so God does please to order the opportunities, and the powers, towards the alteration of constitutions. And be it right or wrong, if it be once done, I have nothing to say against it. One power outs and alters another. The plea of right is Out of doors. By God's disposal they are gone. Let us see our constitution explained in the Petition and Advice. The sole question is now, whether we shall reject this House in being and possession, and restore the old Lords.

We have beaten the bush, and not come plainly to the point. Seeing there is another House in the room of that House of Lords, why may not we have the same good of that House as of the other House of Lords ?

By law they stand, and if it be intended to remove them, it must be by Bill. You have declared the Parliament to consist of two Houses. Thus, another House is in being by your constitution. It is so clearly argued, that if it be denied, you must grub up all your constitution, and make an earthquake in the nation. I would fain hear it reasoned, that the constitution in possession is a nullity, and void.

The old Lords that did you service, were exceeding raw and few. The Earl of Manchester (fn. 27) is in now.

You have been pleased to vote another House. I think it is in as good hands as you can put it.

This House is a fluid body. God knows who you shall see here next Parliament; and unless the other House be faithful and fixed to your interest, I doubt the consequence. (fn. 28)

I would have the question put, that the House in being shall be the other House.

Mr. Jenkinson. I second that motion

Mr. Gewen. The Parliament shall consist of two Houses; but whether the ancient peerage, or the other House now sitting, shall make the constitution of the Parliament, is the question.

Those I conceive are not in, by law. The power was only given to the late Lord Protector, and not to his successor; and therefore, admitting it to be a law as to other things, to this it is not.

It was moved by Colonel Terrill, that any man would answer what he had formerly objected, that the other House was fallen for want of the word successors. If that be so, we need not stand upon it; not that I would.exclude those gentle men that are there. They that sit, may come in; but I would have them laid upon the old Lords, as their basis and foundation. It is just and right, and their inheritance, that those that are capable should be restored. But if you take upon you to make another House, you cannot make them coordinate, but subordinate, and as you set them up, you may pull them down.

God forbid but the public sales should be confirmed. That argument (fn. 29) may be answered.

As to bringing in Charles Stuart, the argument is against it. If you exclude these Lords, you put them upon joining with that interest: into councils for him, from great provocation. Diseases of the spirit are the worst diseases. Manet altâ mente repostum. (fn. 30)

This House will be (as our Saviour says (fn. 31) ), piecing an old garment. You are bound by your oath to maintain the rights and liberties of the people.

I think it is as much in your power to restore the old House, as it was in those that took them away. The arguments from the inconvenience seem nought with me.

If you please to declare, that of right the ancient peerage ought to be the other House, I mean those that have not forfeited ; and let his Highness add whom he pleases.

Declare that the ancient peerage ought to be the other House.

Mr. Fowell undertook to answer Colonel Terrill, touching the want of the word "successor."

Saving his favour, he is much out of the kw as to that. He instanced in a bishop, a parson, and the master of an hospital.

The case differs. Acts of Parliament must be interpreted by the law-makers. If the King grant aught, he is a corporation; and never dies, without the word successor. The oath is to be true to the Protector and his successors, and if it had not been expressed, he should call Parliament, notwithstanding the want of the word "successor."

The Act must be interpreted according to the meaning of it) which appears plainly in many paragraphs, to entitle the successor to the nomination of this other House. Besides, a grant heretofore made to the King, without successors, had been good to his successors.

The Protector is King of England, to all intents and purposes whatsoever. There is express authority in the point, in Penruddock's (fn. 32) case, who was adjudged a traitor within the statute of 25 Edw. III., for attempting the life of the Protector, because he had indeed the kingship, as if it had been against a Queen Regnant.

Since the Conquest we never had but one King:—the King never dies.

No power is given to the other House but negative, and, in all things else, to go according to the ancient usage. They are the old House, they have only changed the names. Though new members, they are the old House. I move that you would transact with them as another House of Parliament, and add the old Lords to the new House.

Sir Henry Vane. I shall not speak to the matter, but to the order of your proceeding. I cannot bear what is spoken. There is a law still in force, declaring it treason for any man to declare or proclaim any person to be King of England. (fn. 33) I desire that gentleman may explain.

Serjeant Maynard. He did not say he was King; but that he exercised the kingly power. If he do not, you must hang up all your judges in Westminster-hall.

Sir Thomas Wroth. He said, absolutely, the Protector was King of England. (fn. 34) If so, I pray you where is your Prince of Wales. If we find kings destructive to the nation, we may lay them aside. It is a formidable thing to speak of a King.

One maxim has undone the nation. The King can do no wrong, (he said no right). (fn. 35)

When it was told the King, that Ireland would be lost if he looked not to it; he answered, I shall go last: but it proved not so.

You are now not come to declare who the persons shall be, but how you will bound them.

Spend not your precious time, whether upon old or young lords, but debate the bounds. That is my motion.

Mr. Bacon. It was well propounded to leave the business as we find it, and go to bound them. If I thought that House would not fall upon that, I should be as willing as any man, that the old faithful nobility might be restored, if it could consist with the safety of this nation, and the interest of those noble persons.

If the Lords have a right, consider whether it is proper for us to judge their right, as members of that House. Can we do it, and will they accept it. I doubt they will not take it well from us. Should we be judges of it, I fear they will stumble at it. As the affairs stand now, I think their right is very much interrupted. If they come in by right of peerage, are they peers to his Highness ? Do they hold of him ? Are they peers to the rest of the House. Will they like that some of them have had writs, and have refused. (fn. 36) Things arc unhappily come to this. I fear that they are not peers to the present powers, and will not own a right from this Protector. Do they hold their baronies by this title ?

The new constitution is not the foundation of the rights and liberties of the people. We have our Magna Charta and Petition of Right now in being, by a better title. Yet our rights and liberties are but declared by them. They are by ancient usage and custom, though neither of them both had been.

There are two Houses in being you have declared, so what hinders but we may declare that those that are in the other House are the other House. It is to no end to debate of the old House. That debate will stop proceedings all the nation over, and will destroy all. Therefore, for peace and unity's sake, propound for the other House.

Mr. Stephens. I agree as to matter of unity.

Magna Charta was not. merely the purchase of the sword. It was confirmed often by Parliament. I would not have it taken away by the sword.

Dan Vincent, a good author, tells you in his History, that the Barons made; protestations to confirm and stand by Magna Charta. He cites the oath for obtaining it. The King was also sworn: but they, not content with that, another clause was added more binding, and he repeated this clause: et,si contra earn ibimus, tune liceat omnibus in regno nostro insurgere, et vim, &c. which gave great countenance to the late proceedings, in the war against the King.

For my part, I stand neither upon terms nor words. I did not hear that the word "King" was so formidable a word to the last Parliament ; (fn. 37) and I do conceive that the Protector and Chief Magistrate may declare titles, and names of government.

It is declared to be.law, and constantly practised, that he that is. Chief Magistrate may declare his successor, and, by all laws, it shall go to his successor.

I would have you careful that that House grow not so great as to swallow up your own House.

The question is now, whether of restitution or constitution? The Parliament to consist of two Houses, may relate to either. For my part I am against altering constitutions. I know the old Lords had an ancient fundamental right, and the words of the perpetuating Act (fn. 38) are that they should not be dissolved but by their own consent, nor by that neither, without an Act of Parliament.

The Petition and Advice does not take away the former Act. It may be a good law till you declare otherwise, but to say that we come hither upon that foot, I see not, for there are words in the Petition and Advice, that Parliaments shall be called according to the old law.

Your Petition and Advice says there shall be another House. It gives to this other House, a negative power, but no affirmative power is given them, neither by that, nor by the explanatory clauses. It only saith what they shall not do; but doth not tell them what they shall do.

I would have the old foundation restored, and those that are capable restored, and what others now in the House are thought fit to be called thither. I move that the old Lords be called in.

Mr. Chaloner. Where the law is silent, no man ought to speak. Divers are for the old faithful Lords. They did you great service in Magnet Charta. I understand not that so many of the old Lords are so deserving. As many were against it as for it, and few of the posterity now living, (fn. 39) or any of themselves twenty years after it.

If you tie us to the old foundation, then why not bring in archbishops, bishops, priors, and abbots. The clergy had a third part of the land, and were then a third estate. The Prior of St. John sat above all the Lords, because the clergy had the lands; but when Henry VIII. put down the clergy, the Commons then rose up, and grew great and rich. The bishops were then grown poor, and it was their baronies that supported them. I am not for one House to put out another. But if the Lords owned all the lands of the nation, as now the Commons almost do, I believe they would not suffer this House to sit here to give laws to them.

But that constitution, though it was very ancient, and then good, yet time hath defaced it, and it is now impossible to attain any good by it, because it differs so much from what it was.

In France, the clergy and nobility have most part of the lands, the Commons not a third part, unless it consist of monies and goods.

All governments fall into one another, as Aristotle says; nought so ordinary.

They talk of ancient constitutions. The constitution of Paul's Church was very noble and ancient, but where is it now ? If you go about to do any thing with it now, all the workmen in the world will tell you the fopndation is rotten. (fn. 40)

I would have no one sort of men to be hereditary judges of the nation, to them and their heirs for ever. I would have you make these to stand, and then debate whether you will add any to them. (fn. 41)

Captain Baynes. Make this your question, whether the House now in possession shall be that other House intended in the vote.

Mr. Speaker propounded a question to that purpose.

Mr. Attorney-general. I move that the question be, if they shall be hereditary.

Colonel White. Put it whether the persons now sitting in the Other House by the Petition and Advice, shall be that other House you intend.

Mr. Qnslow. The method of bounding the fens, is not to lay out money on bounding that which has no need. So I would have us do. Consider, whether by another House, expressed in the vote, you intend that other House by some said to be in possession.

Frame your question to this purpose, and take it up tomorrow morning.

Sir Thomas Wroth. First resolve that they shall not be hereditary.

Mr. Godfrey. I think it not a matter of that necessity as is urged, to debate the persons before the bounds. The best foundations are upon principles ab abstracto.

If you resolve upon the old peers, and go about to bound them, perhaps you intend that which you cannot do; and if you bound the other House now sitting, instead of bounding them you will perhaps add something to them.

There has been great debate whether to join the right hand to the left, or the left hand to the right. That is not the question; nor whether the. new House shall be a House of Lords. You can never make a bird-bolt of a pig's tail.

It will not be prudent to do any thing exclusive of the ancient Peers. The Petition and Advice does not do it; no powers nor qualifications exclusive of the old nobility. Therefore avoid that question, seeing you find nought in that law to do it. I would have no vote pass here in the negative, which should exclude the nobility.

A clause indeed, in general terms, that in all other things they shall be called according to the laws, is rather an affirmance than an exclusion of the old peerage. Therefore call not that into question, which is not now in question. You may very prudentially consider of bounds; though it be somewhat difficult to suit all persons, and to bound those who claim by ancient right. Make this the first bounding of that new House:—

That none shall sit in the other House, but such as shall be approved by both Houses. This is not prejudicial to the old Peers. They have consented to such a Bill in the Long Parliament. (fn. 42) I know not why it may not as well be offered now, as before. This boundary looks every way, as to either House, and it will greatly secure you of the interest of those that sit there.

Colonel Parsons. I perceive, whether they be old Lords or new. Lords, you intend to bound them ; but I would have the first question to be, whether it be the other House that you mean by your vote, the persons now in possession.

The reason why we have not all this while proceeded to the bounds before the persons, was because, until you knew what the other House should be, you could not tell what bounds to set them.

The other House you cannot bind, nor this, without their own consent.

I move, to consider whether the House now sitting, shall be the other House.

Mr. Bodurda. We are rather bounding the persons than the House. There is no positive power in the other House.

I move, that we go not upon negatives, as not so seasonable, but make this the subject of debate; whether it shall be part of the Bill to declare the other House of Parliament mentioned in your vote, to have a co-ordination with this House in the legislature, or how far they shall have this power: else time is but spent to consider what persons or what powers.

Mr. Hobart. I think you have the greatest business before you, that you will have, sitting this Parliament.

We all agree a boundary should be between this House and the Chief Magistrate.

Those gentlemen that are for a popular government, do say that the monarchy of England was the best settled government, the best limited monarchy in the world; and the House of Peers the best boundary between the supreme magistrate and the people. And if such a boundary could be now found, it would be best to submit to it. If, according to property, you could make a fit balance, they would not be against it; but they say, such a bound you cannot have. They would have a propounding, and a deliberative power, in making laws.

It is the best way to go on with your negative, and then conclude with your affirmative.

Our first care must be, how to find such another House as the old House of Peers was, which may be a sufficient bulwark for us. If it happen that they may be made a fit and proper boundary, then let them stand. But if that cannot be, then you must have a special care ; and it will be most proper to think of boundaries, that we may not trust them with too great powers. If it prove not like the walls between Tartary and China, I would have it well considered.

If you cannot make them such a bulwark as the ancient Peers, then take heed how you put the staff in their hands; that if it cannot beat us, it run not into our bands and hurt us.

I would have none there that have any office, nor let them have a negative in any thing, unless that the government shall not be altered, nor imposition upon consciences; and what other things gentlemen shall please to add.

It was moved, that this constitution might otherwise be the greatest tyranny that could be invented. A single person with an army. A negative voice, 130,000l. per annum, and a Council of officers, (fn. 43) a balance upon you. This should be well considered.

For this Petition and Advice, if Pope Alexander, C. Cæsar Borgia, and Machiavel, should all consent together, they could not lay a foundation for a more absolute tyranny. (fn. 44)

First debate the persons, and then the powers. I move to bound the negatives, before you assert the persons.

Mr. St. Nicholas. The debate hath been all about which should be the other House. Your stream hath all run that way.

I move that the question be, whether the bounds you are now about, and the House in our vote, shall be applied to the House now sitting in possession.

Mr. Turner. I move not to put the question first, for if we shall put that question, and it go in the negative, I fear we shall not have power to vote again. I know not what will become of us.

I would have the first question to be, if the old Peerage shall be the other House, and then you may add these persons that are now in possession.

Sir A. Haslerigge. To the orders of the House.

Here is no use nor place for such arguments. We expect law from the Long Robe, and not fear of the long sword.

We came up free, and I hope we shall go down free. Let us fear nothing here, but God and the neglect of our duty. If, at last, we be sent down as wise as we came up, there is no great harm in it.

Mr. Turner. Though I have never worn a long sword, as that gentleman, yet the Long Robe has as little fear as others. I did not express any fear, but I said if this vote passed in the negative, we should not know what to vote next.

Sir Arthur Haslerigge was satisfied with the explanation.

Mr. Bulkeley. That there is a law is most clear, how taken away I know not. I would be glad the question may not be exclusive of the one, nor positively inclusive of the other, yet I would not have them all brought into a sieve.

The way to give every man his vote, is to put that they shall be approved by this House; and then, if any person dislike the choice, they may give their objection. This will tend most to settlement to declare that the members to sit hereafter in the other House shall be approved of by both Houses.

Mr. Jenkinson. This is admitting them to be a House in being. I would have it run, that this House shall approve of them. For how can that House approve that is not in being.

Mr. Goodrick. I move that the question be for both Houses to approve, and that the word "hereafter" be added.

Mr. Steward. I move that the question be, that first, this House approve, and when another House is in being, then let them concur.

Mr. Knightley. I move that those that are in, be in; and that for the future we have this drawbridge. Else, as I said before, we destroy the constitution on which we ourselves sit.

Serjeant Maynard. We are not fully ripe yet for a question. We must determine something, else we shall always be debating, and never come to resolutions; or if to resolutions, never to practice. We must come to it first or last, to resolve whether the members now sitting shall be that other House we have voted. Of necessity and prudence we must come to that which, in our consciences, we think shall be the question. The appointing of what persons, is one of your greatest bounds; and then the number and qualifications, whether hereditary or no.

Make this the question, whether the persons called to sit in the other House, shall be members of that other House which you are now bounding.

Sir Henry Vane. You will only propound it, but not put it.

Mr. Trevor. I understand not very well that motion from the learned gentleman. I conceive another question more proper. It looks too exclusive of the right that is so much urged. I would rather have it by a concurrence with the other House, than by a vote here.

If you mean, the approbation of the present persons; that is as much as to say they are not in being; but I suppose you mean only those that shall hereafter be named, that they may be approved on by both Houses.

Colonel Bennet seconded Serjeant Maynard's motion.

Colonel Fielder seconded the other motion, that for the future they, might be approved.

Sir Henry Vane. That last motion is not ingenuous; for it is a granting by the lump all that are in possession to be approved on already by this House, and only gives us power to consider of members hereafter to be added.

The question upon the persons, is most proper and ingenuous ; and if that pass, you will think fit to send messengers to them for a concurrence. Let that be your question, and then it is most plain and ingenuous for every man to give his vote, and do what in your wisdom you shall think fit. It is not clear that there is any law in being for their sitting.

Sir Arthur Haslerigge. I second the question that the learned Serjeant moved, whether the House now in possession shall be that other House ? Let us go plainly and clearly to it.

Mr. Hewley. Sir Arthur Haslerigge is mistaken in the Serjeant's motion, for he moved that the question might be, if the persons now called to sit in the other House shall be members of that House.

Mr. Neville. That question will be more doubtful than the other. Put it clearly upon which of the Houses you will have. I can then give my vote; otherwise I cannot. I would not have us involved in a question. I must steal out, if your question be so perplexed.

Sir Walter Earle. That gentleman may withdraw if he cannot clearly give his vote to this question. I know very few of those persons of the other House. There is one that is gone. I should have been sorry to have given my vote that he should have been a member of that House that had so highly broken the privilege of Parliament. (fn. 45)

Mr. — moved for the old Peers.

Colonel Birch. I take our great end to be God's glory, and our own and the nation's peace and safety. I should not trouble you, if I thought at this time it would answer these ends, to call in the old Peers. I am of their minds that would neither meddle one way nor another, but leave it to time.

I think your other question is as dangerous, if it pass in the negative.

The proper question is, that for the future all should be approved by both Houses. Then are my fears removed; for the single person cannot impose.

It is best for the interest of this nation to take the other House as we find it. When I go into the country again, and tell them this was the cause why I came down so soon, (fn. 46) they will hardly be satisfied.

If I can read the Petition and Advice, they are in being, Declare that hereafter none shall be admitted but by approbation of both Houses, and that will satisfy me.

Lieutenant-general Ludlow. The gentleman contradicts himself. He says it is not time to dispute right.

Declare what in your judgment is right. I would not have you go to persons. It is most proper to put the question whether the old Peers or new shall be this other House; that will answer all objections, and if you please, let that be the matter of your debate to-morrow morning.

Resolved: that this debate be adjourned till to-morrow morning at eight of the clock.

And the House adjourned at one o'clock accordingly.

Resolved that Mr. Hunt, one of the members of this House, have leave to go into the country for ten days.

The grand Committee for Religion sate,

Mr. Bacon in the chair.

They proceeded a great way in debate upon the greater Catechism of the Assembly of Divines. (fn. 47)

The Committee for preparing a Bill for ejecting scandalous ministers, &c., (fn. 48) sat in the Inner Court of Wards, Mr. Hewley in the Chair.

They proceeded to debate the Bill, a good way, and adjourned till Wednesday at 3 o'clock.

The Grand Committee sat till candles were called for. (fn. 49)

Footnotes

  • 1. See supra, p. 68; vol. i. p. 156, note || Dr. Towers's Tracts, (1796,) ii. 34–36. John Lilburne died in 1657, at Eltham, where he is said to have "joined the quakers, and preached among them." Though only in his thirty-ninth year, he had suffered, and probably, in some instances, had provoked, numerous injuries, unfeelingly inflicted by the successive powers in possession. In 1636, at the age of eighteen, he became acquainted with Dr. Bastwick," (see vol. i. p. 372, note,) "then a prisoner in the Gate-house, whom he afterwards constantly visited;" though they were in later years much at variance. To print one of that free politician's anti-prelatical MSS., he went over to Holland, "where," he says, "I was divers months, and where the King's ambassador laid for me, as I was informed, several designs to put me a ship-board, and send me over to the Bishops here, for my visible activity there against them, which forced me, continually, to wear my sword about me." Brit. Biog. (1770,) vi. 44, 45. Soon after his return, "he was seized," and referred from "the Council Board and High Commission, to the Court of Star-chamber." There, "he repeatedly refused, with the utmost firmness, to take the oath ex officio, or answer interrogatories, and by his noble behaviour on this ocsion, acquired the honourable appellation of Free-born John." In 1638, he was sentenced to the pillory, which he bravely endured, with whipping from the Fleet Prison to Westminster, "five hundred lashes with knotted cords," and "imprisonment with double irons on his arms and legs;" till, in 1641, the Parliament resolved "that the sentence against Mr. Lilburne was illegal, barbarous, bloody, and tyrannical." Ibid. p. 46. During the war he distinguished himself in the service of the Parliament, especially at Marston Moor. Becoming, however, obnoxious to the House of Lords, in 1646, he was fined "4000l. to the King, for ever disfranchised," and for some time imprisoned in Newgate and the Tower. Besides "contempt of their jurisdiction," Free-bom John had exasperated the Lords, (he says, "made them mad,") by maintaining "that by the laws of England, they had no jurisdiction over commoners, to try them either for life, limb, liberty, or estate." Ibid. p. 52. In 1649, John Lilburne was tried at Guildhall, at the instance of the Council of State of the Commonwealth, and on the prosecution of Attorney-general Prideaux, "upon an indictment of high treason, for writing and publishing seditious and treasonable books." On this occasion occurred the following dialogue, in which it will be generally considered that the prisoner had the advantage of the Court; now that the rights of juries are ascertained and secured by Mr. Fox's Libel Bill, passed, I believe, against the opinions of Lord Kenyon, and nearly all the judges in the late reign, except Lord Camden. "Lord Keble. Master Lilburne, quietly express yourself and you do well. The jury are judges of matter of fact altogether, and Judge Coke says so; but I tell you the opinion of the Court: they are judges of matter of law. "Lieutenant-colonel Lilburne. The jury by law are not only judges of fact, but of law also, and you that call yourselves judges of the law, are no more but Norman intruders; and, indeed, and in truth, if the jury please, are no more but cyphers to pronounce their verdict. "Judge Jermin. Was there ever such a damnable blasphemous heresie as this is, to call the judges of the law cyphers ? "Lieutenant-colonel Lilburne. Sir, I intreat you, give me leave to read the words of the law then; (Coke's Institutes, sect. 366;) for to my jury I apply, both in the law and fact. "Lord Keble. Sir, you shall not read it. "Judge Jermin. You cannot be suffered to read the law. You have broached an erroneous opinion, that the jury are judges of the law, which is enough to destroy all the law in the land. There was never such a damnable heresie broached in this nation before." When the jury, after this extraordinary trial of three days, pronounced an acquittal, "immediately the whole multitude of people in the Hall gave such a loud and unanimous shout, as is believed was never heard in Guildhall, which lasted for about half an hour, without intermission; which made the judges, for fear, turn pale, and hang down their heads; but the prisoner stood silent at the bar, rather more sad in his countenance than he was before." On some pretence, instead of being discharged, he was remanded "to the Tower," under the guard of "Major-general Skippon," till November 8, when he was released at the instance of Ludlow and others, by an order from the Lord President Bradshaw. He had been attended with "acclamations and loud rejoicing expressions, quite through the streets to the very gates of the Tower, and for joy the people caused that night abundance of bonfires to be made all up and down the streets." See "The Trial of Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne, at the Guildhall of London, the 24th, 25th, 26th October, 1649, taken in short hand," (1649,) pp. 121–123; State Trials, (1776,) ii. 69, 151, 153. Brit. Biog. vi. 61–66.
  • 2. A petition was presented, December 23, 1651, to the Long Parliament, by "Josiah Prymatt, of London, Leather-seller," who charged Sir Arthur Haslerigge with having fraudulently procured the sequestration of his collieries, in Durham, which produced 5000l. per annum. He further charged Messrs. Squib, Molyns, Winslowe, and Russell, four of the "Commissioners for compounding," with "having refused to relieve him" after "clear evidence before them," as "not daring to oppose the will and pleasure of the said Sir Arthur." On the report of a Committee, the House affirmed "the judgment of the Commissioners," and voted the petition "false, malicious, and scandalous ;" and fined the petitioner 3000l. to the Commonwealth, 2000l. to Sir Arthur, and 500l. to each of the four Commissioners, with imprisonment in the Fleet till payment. The House next "proceeded against Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne, who had confessed at the bar, that he did disperse divers copies of the petition." He was also fined 7000l. in the same proportions, and "banished out of England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the islands and territories thereto belonging; to depart within thirty days, and not to return, upon pain of being proceeded against as a felon, and suffering death accordingly." The next day, "Jan. 16, 1651–2, several passages in a printed book, entitled ' A just reproof to Haberdashers' Hall; or an Epistle, writ by Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne to four of the Commissioners', were read; which book was delivered to a member of Parliament by Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne. "Resolved, that this book doth contain matter, false, scandalous, and malicious, and that all the printed copies of the same be burnt, by the hand of the common hangman, at the same place, and time, with the petition of Josiah Prymatt. "Jan. 20, 1651–2. Lieutenant-colonel John Lilburne was brought to the bar, but he obstinately denied to kneel. Thereupon he was commanded to withdraw," and it was "Resolved, that an Act be brought in, for enacting the judgement of Parliament against Lieutenantcolonel John Lilburne." Journals.
  • 3. He "went over to Amsterdam," where he printed "an apology for himself, and sent it in a letter to Cromwell, wherein he charged him with being the principal instrument in procuring the Act for his banishment." Brit. Biog. vi. 68. In 1653, after a vain attempt "to procure a pass for England, he returned without one, June 14, for which he was tried at the Old Bailey, Aug. 20, upon the Act for his banishment; but acquitted by the jury, for which they were examined before the Council of State," three days after. From the following answer of a juryman, to the Council's extrajudicial interrogatories, it appears that this jury of citizen-shopkeepers were as little disposed as the prisoner, or his jury, in 1649, (or as Fox and Erskine to the Kenyons and Butters of a later age,) to concede to the Kebles and Jermins of the 17th century, that their assumed monopoly of legal jurisdiction was sanctioned by the ancient law of England. "Gilbert Gaynes, of Dunstan's in the West, grocer, saith he was one of John Lilburne's jury, and found him not guilty. Being asked what the issue was, he acknowledged that he was indicted for felony, for coming into England; 'but, that the jury did find as they did, because they took themselves to be judges of the law, as well as of the fact: and although the Court did declare they were judges of the fact only, yet the jury were otherwise persuaded, from what they heard out of the lawbooks.' He confesseth he did at first differ from the Jury, but was convinced by their reasons." State Trials, (1776,) ii. 80, 82. Free-born John had probably conciliated the goodwill of Lord Clarendon, by appealing, on his trial, in 1649, to "that excellent argument of Mr. Hide, April 1641." The noble historian says, confounding however, the trials of 1649 and 1653, "Lilburne appeared undaunted, and with the confidence of a man that was to play a prize before the people for their own liberty. "He defended himself with that vigour, and charmed the jury so powerfully, that, against all the direction and charge the judges could give them, (who assured them, ' that the words and actions, fully proved against the prisoner, were High Treason by the law, and that they were bound by all the obligation of conscience, to find him guilty ;') after no long consultation between themselves, they returned with their verdict, that he was not guilty: nor could they be persuaded by the judges to change or recede from their verdict." History, (1712,) iii. 502, 503. "Soon after his trial, Aug. 20,1653," says Wood, "he was conducted to Portsmouth, in order to his conveyance beyond the seas, but by putting in for his peaceable deportment for the future, he returned, fell into the acquaintance of the Quakers, became one of them, settled at Eltham in Kent, where sometimes he preached, and at other times at Woolwich, and was in great esteem among that party." Wood then, having noticed his death, (Aug. 29, 1657,) says," his body was two days after conveyed to the house, called the Mouth, near Aldersgate in London, which was then the usual meeting-place of Quakers. Whence it was conveyed to the then new burial-place in Moorfields, where it was interred." Athen. Oxon. (1692,) ii. 102. The Mouth was probably a sign of Boulogne mouth, or harbour, which is supposed to have produced' the corruption of "Bull and Mouth Street." The "new burial-place" to which the remains of John Lilburne were attended by 4000 persons, and where John Biddle (See vol. i. p. 57) was interred, was not covered with houses till a few years since. It is described as, "the New Church-yard in Petit France, given by the City, and consecrated June 4, 1617." Petit France, about the site of the present Broad Street Buildings, "was so called," according to Stowe, "from many French people living there." See "New View of London," (1708,) i. 63, 179. There are two accounts, by contemporaries, of the four last years of John Lilburne, not easily to be reconciled with the very probable relation given by Wood, whose punning prejudice calumniates Free-born John, as "having been very famous for his infamy." Mr. Bethel, without "favour or respect" towards "John Lilburne," contrasts the conduct of Cromwell, in 1653, with that of the Parliament in 1649, by whom he says, incorrectly, (see supra, p. 504,) that he "was immediately, according to law, generously set at liberty," while "Oliver kept him in prison until he was so far spent in a consumption, that he only turned him out to die." World's Mistake, p. 45. Lord Clarendon, extending the rigour and injustice of the Protector even a full year beyond the life of Lilburne, says: "Though he was thus acquitted in the year 1653, yet Cromwell would never suffer him to be set at liberty, but sent him from prison to prison, and kept him enclosed there, till he himself died." History, (1718,) iii. 503. Thus opposing parties unite to aggravate the sufficiently numerous wrongs justly imputed to the usurpation of Cromwell. Yet it appears that John Lilburne might freely enjoy air and exercise amidst the rural scenes of Kent, and, resolving not to "learn war any more," was occupying the last days of a harassed and tumultuous life, in teaching the religion of purity and peace, while Mr. Bethel "kept him in prison," and Lord Clarendon, more amplifying, "sent him from prison to prison, and kept him enclosed there;" in the last prison, I apprehend, and that prisons are usually designed to be enclosures. Dr. Towers observes, that the account given of Lilburne's trial by Lord Clarendon, is, in many particulars of it, a remarkable instance of that want of truth and exactness, which is too frequently discoverable in the writings of that noble historian." Brit. Biog. vi. 66. See "The Earl of Chatham" on "Lord Clarendon's History," vol. ii. p. 443, note. See also, Mr. Godwin's Estimate of Merits and Defects in the Character and Conduct of John Lilburne. Commonwealth, (1826,) ii. 1–24, 411–435.
  • 4. According to "the ancient writ," the Commons were summoned, "cum praelatis, magnatibus, et proceribus habere colloquia." See Elsynge's Antient Method, (1679,) p. 68.
  • 5. "Mr. Onslow," supra, p. 510.
  • 6. It has been said, that there are now only three such families in the English peerage, and that these are Roman Catholics.
  • 7. See vol. ii. pp. 284, 298.
  • 8. See ibid. p. 299.
  • 9. "Those tales of Brute and his Trojans," says Sir William Temple, "are covered with the rust of time, or involved in the vanity of fables or pretended traditions, which seem to all men obscure or uncertain, but to me, forged at pleasure by the wit or folly of their first authors, and not to be regarded." See "An Introduction to the History of England," (1695,) p. 19. "Of British affairs," says Milton, "from the first peopling of the island to the coming of Julius Cæsar, nothing certain, either by tradition, history, or ancient fame, hath hitherto been left us. That which we have of oldest seeming, hath, by the greater part of judicious antiquaries, been long rejected, as being only a modem fable. "Nevertheless, seeing that oft-times relations heretofore accounted fabulous, have been afterwards found to contain in them many footsteps and relics of something true, I have therefore determined to bestow the telling over even of these reputed tales; be it for nothing else but in favour of our English poets and rhetoricians, who, by their art, will know how to use them judiciously." Thus are introduced "Brutus and his line, with the whole progeny of kings, to the entrance of Julius Cæsar; disputed facts, the principal author" of which "is well known to be Geoffrey of Monmouth." See "The History of Britain," (1818,) pp. 2, 5. In the introduction to his second book of "The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy," first published in 1641, just after his return from Italy, Milton regrets that while "the Athenians, as some say, made their small deeds great and renowned by their eloquent writers, England hath had her noble achievements made small by the unskilful handling of monks and mechanics." He then considers "what the mind at home, in the spacious circuits of her musings, hath liberty to propose to herself, though of highest hope and hardest attempting; and lastly, what king or knight, before the Conquest, might be chosen to lay the pattern of a Christian hero; if, to the instinct of nature, and the emboldening of art, aught may be trusted; and that there be nothing adverse in our climate and the fate of this age." About the same time he wrote the Epitaphium Damonis, to bewail the death of his friend, Charles Deodati. There, proposing the future occupations of his Muse, with which his willing labours "in liberty's defence" immediately interfered, he thus selects, (v. 162,) the story of Brnte:— "Ipse ego Dardanias Rutupina per æquora puppes: Dicam, et Pandrasidos regnum vetus Inogeniæ." "Of Brutus, Dardan chief, my song shall be, How with his barks he plough'd the British sea, First from Rutupia's tow'ring headland seen, And of his consort's reign, fair Inogen."
  • 10. See vol. i. pp. 343, 406, notes. "The King," says Raleigh, "being betrayed of all his nobility, was forced to grant the charters of Magna Charta and Charta de Forestis, at such time as he was environed with an army in the meadows of Staynes." Remains, (1726,) p. 223. Magna Charta," says Rymer, "instead of being superannuated, renews and recovers its pristine strength and athletic vigour by the Petition of Right, [see supra, p. 171, note*,] with our many other explanatory or declaratory statutes. And the Annual Parliament is as well known to our laws, [see vol. i. pp. 403, 404, ad fin.] as ever it had been famous among the customs of France and Germany." See "The Antiquity, Power, and Decay of Parliaments. By Thomas Rymer, Esq. late Historiographer Royal." (1714,) p. 55. See also "The Use and Abuse of Parliament," (1744,) i. pp. 81–83.
  • 11. I have not been able to find the authority for any prohibition under such a penalty. In 1629, "soon after the. Parliament was dissolved," there was a proclamation by the King, declaring that "he shall account it presumption for any to prescribe any time to his Majesty for Parliaments." Parl. Hist. (1763,) viii. 390. See Rushworth, ii. 6. Mr. Rymer says, after Comines, that "the courtiers of Louis XI. went so far that they called it rebellion to mention a Parliament." See "Antiquity of Parliaments." pp.. 32, 33.
  • 12. Whitlock has preserved the petition presented to the King at York, August 28, 1640, and the names of the twelve petitioning peers. Memorials, (1732,) p. 36. See also Parl. Hist. viii. 491–493.
  • 13. Here is some misrepresentation, probably from an imperfect report, which I know not how to correct. Among the twelve peers, is Mandeville. Viscount Mandeville, Earl of Manchester, died in 1642, with out, as appears, having incurred any hazards from royal displeasure. His son, the justly popular Lord Kimbolton, one of the five members whom Charles would have seized in the Commons' House, and whom he had accused of high treason, succeeded to the title. He was nominated in 1657, to the Other House, (see vol. ii. p. 450, note*,) but declined the appointment," and strove, as far as was consistent with his own safety," to bring back Charles Stuart. "This," says Mr. Noble, "was taken so gratefully, that he died at Whitehall, Chamberlain of the Household and Knight of the Garter." House of Cromwell, (1787,) i. 376. For the further invaluable consideration, (if fair fame be a priceless treasure,) which the Earl of Manchester paid to the restored Stuart, for a ribbon, a wand, and a death-bed "at Whitehall," see vol. ii. p. 387, ad fin.
  • 14. See "Mr. Goodrick," supra, p. 352. This Act, like that which displaced it in 1664, and which Charles II. violated, was to prevent the intermission of Parliaments for more than three years, but had no effect to limit their duration. "Perhaps it would have been better than to pass either of these Acts," says Baron Maseres, "to have revived and enforced the good old statute of 36 Edward III., for having a new Parliament once in every year, or more often, if need be, and to have enacted, that the elections should take place of course, or without any writ from the King, on a certain fixed day, and that the Parliament should meet on another fixed day. Thus the Parliament would appear to be as essential and necessary a part of the government of the nation as the King himself, or the King's Courts of Justice, which do meet on certain, fixed, or known days of the year. "The practice of proroguing a Parliament to a distant day, without a re-election, (as the learned and patriotic Mr. Granville Sharp informs us,) seems to have begun in the reign of Edward IV., after the people had been so cruelly harassed by the civil wars, that they had no spirit, or perhaps power left, to oppose that dangerous usurpation of their Parliamentary rights by the royal prerogative. But it was afterwards frequently resorted to, by the princes of the Tudor family, and by their successors, the Stuarts, and has continued to the present day." Select Tracts, (1815,) i. 21, 22, note. See vol. i. p. 403, ad fin. "It is observable in the course of histories," says May, "how much kings, in such limited monarchies as that of England, do in time, by degrees, gaine upon the people's right and privileges: so that those things, which, by the constitution of the government, the people may challenge as due from the prince, having been long forborne, become at last to be esteemed such acts of extraordinary grace, as that the prince is highly thanked for granting of them. "Such was this case of the Triennial Parliament; as both Houses afterward, when the unhappy division began, and the King upbraided them with this favour, could plainly answer: ' that it was not so much as by law they might require, there being two statutes then in force for a Parliament once a yeere.' "The King himself also, at the time when he granted that triennial Parliament, could not forbear to tell them, that he put an obligation upon them in doing it which they had scarce deserved." History of Parliament, 1647, (1812,) p. 67. See vol. i. p. 404, ad fin. "He told them," says Milton, "with a masterly brow, that by this. Act he had obliged them above what they had deserved,' and gave a piece of justice to the Commonwealth three times short of his predecessors, as if he had been giving some boon, or begged office, to a sort of his desertless grooms." Iconoclastes, (1649,) p. 42. During the debate on this Bill, Jan. 19,1640–1, the following passages occur. They are in the speech of Lord George Digby, afterwards Earl of Bristol, who soon became a courtier, and appeared in arms against the Parliament:— "It hath been a maxim among the wisest legislators, that, whosoever means to settle good laws, must proceed in them with a sinister opinion of all mankind; and suppose that whosoever is not wicked, it is for want only of the opportunity. It is that opportunity of being ill, Mr. Speaker, that we must take away, if ever we mean to be happy; which can never be done but by the frequency of Parliaments. "No State can wisely be confident of any public minister's continuing good, longer than the rod is over him. "Let me appeal to all those that were present in this House at the agitation of the Petition of Right; and let them tell themselves truly, of whose promotion to the management of affairs do they think the generality would, at that time, have had better hopes than of Mr. Noy and Sir Thomas Wentvvorth; [Earl of Strafford,] both having been at that time, and in that business, as I have heard, most keen and active patriots; and the latter of them, to the eternal aggravation of his infamous treachery to the Commonwealth be it spoken, the first mover and insistor to have this clause added to the Petition of Right: ' That for the comfort and safety of his subjects, his Majesty would be pleased to declare his will and pleasure that all his ministers should serve him according to the laws and statutes of the realm.' "And yet, Mr. Speaker, to whom now can all the inundations upon our liberties, under pretence of law, and the late shipwreck at once of all our property, be attributed more than to Noy; [see vol. ii. p. 444, ad fin.] and all those other mischiefs whereby this monarchy hath been brought almost to the brink of destruction, so much to any as to that grand apostate to the Commonwealth, [see vol. ii. p. 442, ad fin.] the now Lieutenant of Ireland ? "The first, I hope, God hath forgiven in the other world; and the latter must not hope to be pardoned it in this, till he be dispatched to the other." See "Use and Abuse of Parliaments," i. 84, 85; Part. Hist. (1763,) viii. 120, ix. 200, 201.
  • 15. Lord Fairfax. It was presented, Jan. 17, 1647, on the Lords having agreed "to the votes sent up" from the Commons, "that no more addresses be made to his Majesty;" signed "John Rushworth, Secretary ; by the appointment of his Excellency, Sir Thomas Fairfax, and his Council of War." See Rush worth's Hist. Col. (1708,) vi. 331; Part. Hist. (1755,) xvi. 497; Sir William Waller's Vindication, (1793.) pp. 195, 196.
  • 16. In 1656, one of the members for Ireland, (where he had been chiefly engaged in military service during the war,) and also in this Parliament, though probably he had not yet taken his seat. He appears to have been in great favour with the Cromwells, and was as fully engaged as any of the High Court of Justice in the judgment on the King. Yet, on his arraignment in 1660, as may be seen in "The Trials of the Regicides," he prevailed to save a life, probably soon closed in prison, by professions of penitence which have been little credited either by royalists or republicans. "It was contrived," says Ludlow, "that Sir Hardress Waller, (who was known to be a man that would say any thing to save his life, and was prepared to that purpose,) should be first demanded whether he were guilty or not guilty ; which being done, he, after a little shifting, according to the expectation of the Bench, pleaded guilty, taking the blood which had been shed during his employments in the army upon his own head." Memoirs, (1699,) iii. 61. The late Rev. Mark Noble, as sensitive on King Charles's execution as Bishop Horsley himself, (see supra, p. 422;) has interspersed his biography of the King's Judges, amidst an ample adulation of "the royal Martyr," with reproachful epithets on the anti-Stuarts, which appear almost ludicrous to an unimpassioned enquirer into a disputed passage of remote history. The reverend author probably designed thus to atone for the "Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell." Yet on this occasion, while he suffers Ludlow to pass from his pen to posterity, with merely the unattested charge of misrepresentation, from excessive republican partiality; he thus describes his military and judicial associate, Sir Hardress Waller, the professedly penitent regicide:— "That he was a very deceitful, base character, is undoubted. He had been untrue and treacherous to every party; and had there been ten times as many, and each had become uppermost, he would have declared for them. There were few better, or more fortunale commanders in an age of arms, than he was, nor few more infamously deceitful or treacherous men, in a period when human nature was more disgraced by those passions, than at auiy other during a long succession of ages." See "The Lives of the English Regicides." (1798) ii. 297, 299.
  • 17. Sir W. Waller says: Sir Hardress "came, with divers of the officers to the bar, and there, in the name of the whole army, avowed their resolutions to live and die with their Lordships." Vindication, p. 196.
  • 18. "That they hold themselves obliged, in justice and honour, to endeavour to preserve the peerage of this kingdom, with the just rights belonging to the House of Peers, and will really, in their places and calling, perform the same." Parl. Hist. xvi. 497.
  • 19. "That this present parliament, now assembled, shall not be dissolved, or prorogued, unless by Act of Parliament passed for that purpose : and that neither the House of Peers, nor Commons, shall be adjourned, unless by their own order." Hist. Col. (1708) iv. 86. This Bill was passed by Commission, May 10,1641, with the "Act of Attainder" against the Earl of Stratford. "Great censures," says Whitlock, "were passed upon the King's passing of both these Bills; that the one was against his most faithful servant, and the other against himself." Memorials, (1732,) p. 46. "It is impossible," says Sir Philip Warwick," to think how so intelligent a person as the King was, should by any persuasions, which certainly were great on the Queen's side; or treachery, which certainly was great, on the side of many of his great courtiers; be induced thus to divest himself of all majesty and power; or to be so overseen, as to think he should avoid danger by running into the greatest hazard imaginable." Memoires, (1813.) p. 200. "This Bill," says May," was a thing that former ages had not seen the like of; and therefore, extremely was the King's grace magnified by those that flattered him: but it was much condemned by others of his friends, who hated Parliament and Reformation, who complained that the King had thereby too far put the staff out of his own hands. But many men, who saw the necessity of such a concession, (without which no money upon the public faith could be borrowed,) did not at all wonder at it, saying, that as no king ever granted the like before, so no king had ever before made so great a necessity to require it. "But some men were of opinion that it was not of security enough to make the kingdom happy, unless the King were good: for if he were ill-affected, he had power enough still to hinder and retard them in any proceeding for the good and settlement of the Commonwealth; and so by time and delays, to lay a greater odium upon the Parliament for not satisfying the people's desires, than if they had not had that seeming power to have done it: which proved in the conclusion too true, when the King by such protraction of business, not at all concurring with them in the main, had raised a party to himself against them, to cut asunder that knot by the sword, which by law he could not untie. Breviary (1650) in Maseres's Tracts, (1815,) 1. 30. This "Act for Perpetuating the Parliament" in defiance of the King's authority, was according to Milton "a testimony of his violent and lawless custom, not only to break privileges, but whole Parliaments; from which enormity they were constrained to bind him, first of all his predecessors: never any before him having given like causes of distrust and jealousy to his people." Iconoclastes, p. 43.
  • 20. "Colonel Cox." Supra p. 512.
  • 21. "Whose sudden downfall," says Bishop Godwin, "there want not those who attribute it to God's justice, inflicted on him for the sacrilege committed in the subversion of so many religious houses. And indeed, even they who confesse the rousing of so many unprofitable epicures out of their dennes, and the abolishing of superstition, wherewith the divine worship had by them been polluted, to have been an act of singular justice and piety, do, notwithstanding, complain of the loss of so many stately churches dedicated to God's service, the good whereof were no otherwise employed, than for the satisfaction of private men's covetousnesse. [See supra, p. 203.] But Sleidan, peradventure, comes nearer the matter, touching the immediate cause of his death:— "The King of England beheadeth Thomas Cromwell, whom he had, from fortunes answerable to his low parentage, raised to great honours. Cromwell had been procurer of the match with Anne of Cleve, but the King loving Catharine Howard, is thought to have been persuaded by her to make away Cromwell, whom shee suspected to be a remom to her advancement." The Bishop adds, "The actions of kings are not to be sifted too neerely, for which we are charitably to presume they have reasons, and those inscrutable." Annales of England, (1630,) pp. 175, 176. This style of reserve, in sifting "the actions of Kings," is quite becoming a prelate of King James's court, though exceeded in 1560. Elizabeth had retained in her chapel a crucifix, and proposed to preserve such in churches, with images of Mary and John. "Protestant Bishops and Divines" expostulate with the Queen, and thus conclude: "Not in any respect of self-will, stoutness, or striving against your Majesty, for we confess that we are but canes mortui aut pulices [dead dogs or fleas,] in comparison." Records, See Burnet's Reformation, ii. 316. "The King," England's first Defensor Fidei (see supra, p. 486), is described by Bishop Godwyn as now "like a torrent bearing all before him. Three Divines being condemned for heresie, were committed to the torments of the mercilesse fire. At the same time and place, three other Doctors of Divinity were hanged for denying the King's supremacy ; the sight whereof made a Frenchman cry out, Deus bone! quomodo hic vivunt gentes ? Suspenduntur papistœ comburentur antipapistœ. Good God! how do the people make a shift to live here, where Papists are hanged, and Antipapists burned ?" Annales, pp. 177,178. Buchanan witnessed these horrible scenes, and they drove him into France. Speaking in the third person, he says (1539), "In Angliam contendit: sed ibi turn omnia adeo erant incerta, ut eodem die ac eodem igne utriusque factionis homines cremarentur." Vita, ab ipso scripta biennio ante mortem, prefixed (1764), to Rerum Scoticarum Historia. (He went into England; but there every thing was so uncertain, that men of each faction were burned on the same day, in the same fire).
  • 22. "Our King," says Lord Herbert, "now judged him no longer necessary. Therefore he gave way to all his enemies' accusations, and caused him to be arrested at the council-table by the Duke of Norfolk, when he least suspected it; to which Cromwell obeyed, though judging his perdition more certain that the Duke was uncle to the Lady Catharine Howard, whom the King now began to affect. The news whereof, and his commitment to the Tower, being divulged, the people, with many acclamations, witnessed their joy; so impatient are they usually of the good fortune of favorites arising from mean place, and insolent over the ill. "It cannot be denied but the crimes whereof he was attainted in Parliament were great and enormous, and such as deserved the most capital punishment; though, as he was not permitted to answer for himself, the proceedings against him were thought rigorous; but so few pitied him that all was easily passed over." See "The Life and Reign of King Henry VIII.," (1740), pp. 391, 392. "He had," says Bishop Burnet, "the common fate of all disgraced ministers. His friends forsook him, and his enemies insulted over him; only Cranmer stuck to him, and wrote earnestly to the King in his favour. But the King was now resolved to ruin Cromwell, and that unjust practice of attainting, without hearing the parties answer for themselves, which he had promoted too much before, was now turned upon himself." Reformation, (1728,) i. 234. Among Bishop Burnet's Records, is a letter from Lord Cromwell to the King, in a strain of abasement, dictated probably by the vain hope of life. It thus concludes: "Written at the Tower, with the heavy heart, and trembling hand of your Highness's most heavy, and most miserable prisoner and poor slave. T. C. Most gracious Prince, I cry for mercy! mercy! mercy!" Biog. Brit., (1789,) iv. 471. How pitiably abject appears this fallen favourite of a merciless prince, compared with his contemporary, Sir Thomas More, who "bravely withstood the brutal tyrant's rage," or with those judges of Charles I., who calmly endured, as conscious of an honourable, though disappointed purpose, the barbarous retaliations of the triumphant royalists. See supra, pp. 110, 111. Bishop Burnet, in his Additions, says: "It was thought they had once designed to burn Lord Cromwell as a heretic, and that these considerations made him so humble." "It appears," the Bishop adds, "how diligent and exact a minister he was, by those many memorandums which remain of his, upon all affairs which he was to lay before the King." Reformation (1719), iii. 105, 106.
  • 23. The Protector, as it is now, I believe, generally agreed, was also of the same family, being descended from a sister of Lord Cromwell. See Mr. Noble's House of Cromwell (1787), i. 1–6, and the Genealogy prefixed. Raguenet, whose Histoire, however, is too often fabulous, thus describes the Protector's lineage :— "C'est de la sœur de Thomas Cromwell, que descend Olivier. Elle épousaun, nommé Williams, dontelle eut un fils quifut appellé Richard; et ce fils ayant été avané À la Cour par son oncle, durant.le terns de sa favour, prit le nom de Cromwell, en reconnoissance. II ne le quitta point aprês la chute de son protecteur, et il le fit mime porter a son fils Henry, et À Robert, son petit fils. qui fut le père de notre Olivier Cromwell; dont par consequence le veritable nom est celuy de Williams." Histoire d'Olivier Cromwel, À Paris. (1691,) i. 16. It was, I apprehend, fashionable in the court of the Protectors to derive their pedigree directly from the Earl of Essex, and for this purpose to annihilate that nobleman's son, Gregory Cromwell, whom Henry VIII. restored to the peerage a few months after his father's execution. "The Lord Thomas Cromwell," says S. Carrington, a panegyrist rather, than a biographer, "dyed without heirs male, leaving one only daugh ter, espoused to one Mr. Williams, a gentleman of Glamorganshire, of a good family. She was the lively representative of her father, and the very portraiture of his great soul, as the Lady Claypool was of his late Highness the Lord Protector." Then follows an unattested and improbable story, how "Mr. Williams made his appearance before the King in deep mourning, like a dark cloud eclipsing the sun at noonday;" Henry "was surprized and offiended," yet, which is the most difficult to credit, sent Mr. Williams away with his head on his shoulders. "Some while after, troubles arising," the king's marble heart was softened by remorse, finding the want of such a minister of state as Lord Cromwell, "whose life he had so inconsiderately taken away." Then "calling to mind the action and discourse of Williams," at the time of his "so unseasonable apparition," Henry "sent for him up to court, and commanding him to take the name of Cromwell, he invested him with all the offices and charges the late Lord Thomas Cromwell enjoyed near his person." Thus the biographer deduces "his late Highness and our present Lord Protector," from the heiress of Lord Thomas Cromwell. See "The History of the Life and Death of his most Serene Highness Oliver, late Lord Protector," (1659,) pp.253–255. It has been not improbably conjectured, "that an agreeable history enough might be made of Cromwell, without one word of truth in it, except a few public transactions; and all taken from historians." Biog. Brit. (1789,) iv. 521.
  • 24. "He had such enemies in the House of Lords," says Bishop Burnet, "that the Bill of Attainder was dispatched in two days, being read twice in one day. In the House of Commons it stuck ten days." Reformation, p. 234.
  • 25. "Cromwell's deserting his Major-generals in their decimations," says Mr. Bethel, "crying out most against them himself, when he only had set them at work, because questioned by his. assembly, is not to. be forgotten." The immediately following sentence may serve to enhance the value of the writer's testimony (supra, pp. 63,64) to the economy and successful vigour of the republican administration. It also discovers the accommodating principle of the political morality professed by Mr. Bethel, after "the restoration of his Majesty," and that, though never "injured or disobliged by Oliver," he could bring against him "a railing accusation," unbecoming a writer, Mr. Bethel says, according to his own selfappreciation, "clear from the vices of envying virtue in any, how contrary soever in judgment," or of being "unwilling to allow every one their due commendations." "I would not be understood to remember any thing here in favour of the Long Parliament, for what might be wicked in him might be just as to them. And though, if what he did had been for the restoration of his Majesty, he might have been excused, yet being for his own single advancement, it is unpardonable, and leaves him a person to be truly admired for nothing but apostacie and ambition, and exceeding Tiberius in dissimulation." World's Mistake, pp. 31–50.
  • 26. See, on "a strong treble cord," supra, p. 3, note*.
  • 27. See supra, pp. 515, 516 note.
  • 28. See supra, p. 526.
  • 29. Supra, p. 525.
  • 30. Æneid, i. 30.
  • 31. Luke, v. 36.
  • 32. See vol. i. p. 231 ‡. Generosum sanguinem effudere complures," says Dr. Bates, "securi apud Sarisburiam percusi, et Exoniœ aliquot, Penruddockius, Grovius, Lucasius; et alii quos æternitati coramendare par esset, suspendio periêre, statuas promeriti." Elenchus, (1676,) p;. 286. (Generous blood was now freely shed. Some fell by the axe, at Salisbury and Exeter, Penruddock, Grove, Lucas; and others deserving' eternal remembrance, perished on gibbets, though they had merited statues.) "In aggravation of their crimes," says Ludlow, "it was urged that this was their second offence of this kind, and that it was committed against much favour and kindness. To this they answered, that they did not rise against those who had extended that favour to them, but against a person who had dissipated those men, and established himself in their place. And I cannot tell by what laws of God or man they could have been justly condemned, had they been upon as sure a foundation in what they declared for, as they were in what they declared against. But certainly it can never be esteemed by a wise man, to be worth the scratch of a finger, to remove a single person acting by an arbitrary power, in order to set up another with the same authority." Memoirs, (1698,) ii. 517, 518. This design of restoring an unlimited monarchy, in the person of Charles Stuart, sufficiently appears from Colonel Penruddock's own account of his trial, the only account probably now remaining. In his speech on the scaffold, he does indeed describe the cause in which he was about to suffer, as comprehending not only his "lawful King" but "the liberty of the subject, and privilege of Parliaments." He also invites "all true Englishmen to stand up as one man, to bring in the King, and redeem themselves and all this poor kingdom, out of its more than Egyptian slavery." Yet it seems evident, from the following assertion of unqualified regal power, as his defence against the charge of being "guilty of High Treason," that he considered, as declared in the Liturgy of "the Church of England," that God is "the only Ruler of Princes," exactly the doctrine of the Patriarcha; and that "the liberty of the subject, and privilege of Parliaments," are boons to be expected and gratefully acknowledged, from the Crown, rather than rights to be justly claimed and perseveringly vindicated by the people:— "My actions were for the King, and I well remember what Bracton saith: ' Rex non habet superiorem nisi Deum; satis habet ad poenam, quod Deum expectat ultorem." And in another place he saith: 'Rex habet potestatem et jurisdictionem super omnes qui in regno suo sunt. Ea qun sunt jurisdictionis et pacis, ad nullam pertinent, nisi ad regiam dignitatem; habet etiam coercionem, ut delinquentes puniat et coerceat.' Again he saith 'Omnes sub rege, et ipse nullo nisi tantum Deo.' This shows us where the true power is." When Colonel Penruddock alleges, "neither is there any such thing in law as a Protector, for all treasons and such pleas are propria causa regis;" the President of the Court says: "Sir, you are peremptory; you strike at the Government; you will fare never a whit the better for this speech." This presiding judge was Serjeant Glynn, whom we have seen, like Serjeant Maynard, ready to become a prosecuting crown lawyer, under the restored Stuart, and to pursue his royal master's business, through primrose paths or miry ways, per fas aut nefas, just as the via regia might happen to direct. The Attorney-general who now prosecuted, was Prideaux, who has just been unmasking the delegates from Charles Stuart to this parliament, (supra, p. 525,) and to whom Mr. Fowell might now particularly address this case of Penruddock. The Colonel thus brings together his prosecutor and himself:— "Mr. Attorney made a large speech in the face of the Court, wherein he aggravated the offence with divers circumstances; as saying I had been four years in France, and held a correspondency with the King my master, of whom I had learned the popish religion: that I endeavoured to bring in a debauched, lewd young man, and to engage this nation in another bloody war; and that if I had not been timely prevented, I had destroyed them (meaning the jurors,) and their whole families. I interrupted him and said:— "Mr. Attorney, you have been heretofore of counsel for me; and you then made my case better than indeed it was. I see you have the faculty to make men believe falsehoods to be truths too.' "Attorney-general. Sir, you interrupt me. You said but now you were a gentleman. "Colonel Penruddock. I have been thought worthy, heretofore, to sit on the Bench, though now I am at the bar. "Mr. Attorney proceeded in his speech, and called the witnesses. Then I said:— "' Sir. You have put me in a bear's skin, and now you will bait me with a witness.' "State Tryals, (1776,) ii. 261. This account of "the Trial of Colonel Penruddock" is concluded by a very interesting correspondence; the only passages indeed, which can now be attractive, except as contributing to the exactness of history. The Colonel's wife had written to him a most affectionate letter, dated "May 15,1655. Eleven o'clock at night." on the. eve of his execution. I subjoin his answer, not without regret that a husband and a father, so well prepared to enjoy and to enhance the true felicities of life, should have sacrificed himself in the midst of his days, and especially on such an unworthy occasion as the attempt "to bring in. a debauched, lewd young man," and thus to vitiate his country, ad Regis exemplum. "Dearest, best of creatures, "I had taken leave of the world when I received yours. It did at once recall my fondness for life and enable me to resign it. As I am sure I shall leave none behind me like you, which weakens my resolution to part from you; so when I reflect I am going to a place where there are none but such as you, I recover my courage. But fondness breaks in upon me; and as I would not have my tears flow tomorrow, when your husband, and the father of our dear babes, is a public spectacle; do not think meanly of me that I give way to grief now in private, when I see my sand run so fast, and I within few hours am to leave you, helpless, and exposed to the merciless and insolent, that have wrongfully put me to a shameful death, and will object that shame to my poor children. I thank you for all your goodness to me, and will endeavour so to die, as to do nothing unworthy that virtue in which we have mutually supported each other, and for which I desire you not to repine that I am first to be rewarded. Since you ever preferred me to yourself in all other things, afford me with cheerfulness, the precedence in this. "I desire your prayers in the article of death, for my own will then be offered for you and yours. "J. Penruddock;"
  • 33. See vol. ii. p. 38, note*; Scobell, Jan. 30, 1648–9.
  • 34. See supra, p. 531.
  • 35. On "the King's going into Scotland" in 1641, Mrs. Hutchinson says, "It retarded all the affairs of the Government of England, which the King had put into such disorder, that it was not an easie taske to reforme what was amisse, and redresse the reall grievances of the people; but yet the Parliament showed such a wonderfull respect to the King, that they never mentioned him as he was, the sole author of all those miscarriages, hut imputed them to evill councellors and ministers of state, which flattery I feare they have to answer for. I am sure they have thereby exposed themselves to much scandal." Memoirs, (1810, i. 141, 142.
  • 36. See vol. ii. p. 415, note *. The Earl of Warwick, (see supra, p. 356, note‡,) according to Mr. Noble, "refused to sit with Pride and Hewson, one of whom had been a drayman, the other a cobler." The undoubted possession of armorial bearings by these Lords, risen by good fortune from "the working clashes," seems to have perplexed that diligent investigator of heraldic lore. "A seal of arms, bearing a chevron inter three animals' heads erased," is annexed, in the King's "death warrant," to the name "so strangely written that it is scarce legible," of Colonel Pride, "a foundling in a church-porch." Colonel Hewson, also "sprung from the dregs of the people, first a cobler, then a shoemaker," a natural and easy ascent, unquestionably "bore for his arms, (as appears by his seal) two horses counter salient, a sword erect in base, and four annulets." Mr. Noble therefore suggests the "Query, did they not receive arms from the heralds, or did they assume them without?" House of Cromwell, (1787,) i. 375, 417, 418, 421. Sir Thomas Smith (see Vol. ii. p. 456, ad fin.) has set such a question at rest, by showing how, at least in 1565, one of the novi homines, of any rank, could procure the herald's "slender help to fame;" now, by the progress of plebeian education, becoming every day more slender. If he would only, by an allowed and well-understood palmistry, conciliate "a king of heralds," that prime officer in the court of honour, "his visual nerve" being thus invigorated, would presently discover among "old registers," arms, if not supporters, belonging to the applicant's remote "ancestors." If the Earl of Warwick really "refused to sit with Pride and Hewson," from a consideration of what they had been by the accident of lowly origin, whatever they had since become by the successful application of talent and opportunity, he was ill fitted to have served, a Parliament which, had the people been sufficiently enlightened to choose a virtuous and unexpensive, instead of a profuse and profligate government, would have founded a republic. To become the favourite of a Protector, who vainly desired to be a king, and especially to have the honour of putting on him a "purple velvet robe lined with ermines," (see vol. ii. p. 311,) and of serving him as "post-master of the foreign letters" with "5000l. per annum," must have been more congenial to his Lordship's sense of aristocratic dignity. See "Dr. Harris," supra, p. 276 note. Another Peer of England who refused to sit in the Other House, was the Earl of Manchester, (see supra, p. 516,) of whom Cromwell had said, before he became a creator of Lords, as reported by a contemporary, "that it would be never well, and we should never see good days, whilst there was one Lord left in England, and until the Earl of Manchester was plain Mr. Montague." History of Europe, (1706) iv. 434. Of "Lord Viscount Say and Sele," Mr. Noble says, "Cromwell invited him to partake of his honours; but he turned from that great man with disgust and abhorrence, as the betrayer of the common interest of the republic." He, however, soon found another "great man," towards whom "he turned." Mr. Noble says that, "to the disgrace of King Charles II., he raised him, though an open enemy to the constitution in Church and State, to be a privy-counsellor and lord privy-seal." This versatile politician seems not to have thought that preferment "might come a day too late." Yet, as "his Lordship died April 14,1662, aged about 80," it was surely more than a "grand dimacterical absurdity," after having been "excepted from pardon" by the father, as an inflexible republican, thus to crouch at the last, and to die a placeman and a courtier to the son. House of Cromwell, i. 377. The Earl of Mulgrave can scarcely be said to have refused; dying August 28, 1658, a few days before the Protector, on his way to London. Viscount Fauconberg, the Protector's son-in-law, and Lord Evers, appear to have taken their seats.
  • 37. See supra, p. 519 ad fin.
  • 38. See vol. ii. p. 140 ad fin.
  • 39. See supra, p. 512 note †.
  • 40. It appears that a large sum had been collected for repairing the Church, during several years before the war, when "the body of the Church" was "turned into quarters for horses; and part of the choir, with the rest of the building, eastward, was, in 1649, by a partition wall, converted into a conventicle." See "Life and Times of Cardinal Wolsey," (1744,) iii. 226, note. See also supra, pp. 118, 202, notes. The following orders, from the commanders of the guard, printed as a hand-bill, refer to this occupation of Paul's Church:— "May 27, 1651. Forasmuch as the inhabitants of Paul's Churchyard, are much disturbed by the souldiers and others, calling out to passengers and examining them, (though they goe, peaceably and civilly along,) and by playing at nine-pinnes at unseasonable hours; these are therefore to command all souldiers and others whom it may concerne, that hereafter there shall bee no examining and calling out to persons that go peaceably on their way, unlesse they doe approach their guards, and likewise to forbeare playing at nine-pinnes, and other sports, from the houre of nine of the clocke in the evening, till, six in . the morning; that so persons that are weake and indisposed to rest, may not be disturbed. Given under our hands, the day and yeare above written. "John Barkestead, Benjamin Blundell." John Lilburne thus complains in 1649:—" I was fetched out of my bed in terror and affrightment, and to the subversion of the laws and liberties of England, and led through London streets, with hundreds of armed men, like an Algier captive, to their main-guard at Paul's, where a mighty guard stayed for the further conducting me by force of arms to Whitehall." Trial, p. 11. This Church had been desecrated, in a very different manner, in the earlier part of the century, and probably long before. Bishop Earle, in 1628, thus somewhat quaintly describes it, as a place of daily and very general resort:— "Paul's Walk is the land's epitome; or, yon may call it, the lesser isle of Great Britain. It is more than this, the whole world's map, which you may here discern in its perfectest motion, justling and turning. It is a heap of stones and men, with a vast confusion of languages ; and, were the steeple not sanctified, nothing liker Babel. The noise in it is like that of bees, a strange humming or buz, mixed of tongues and feet. It is a kind of still roar, or loud whisper. It is the great exchange of all discourse, and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and a-foot. It is the synod of all pates politick, jointed and laid together in most serious posture, and they are not half so busy at the Parliament; and for vizards you need go no farther than faces. "It is the market of young lecturers; whom you may cheapen here at all rates and sizes. It is the general mint of all famous lies, which are here, like the legends of popery, first coined and stamped in the Church. All inventions are emptied here, and not few pockets. The visitants are all men without exceptions, but the principal inhabitants and possessors are, stale knights and captains out of service; men of long rapiers, which, after all, turn merchants here, and traffic for news. Some make it a preface to their dinner, and travel for a stomach; but thriftier men make it their ordinary, and board very cheap." Microcosmography, (1738,) pp. 131, 132.
  • 41. "Here several motions were made, to define the persons, and resolve upon what House we would have before we go to bounding them." Goddard MSS. p. 256.
  • 42. See vol. ii. p. 21 ad fin.
  • 43. See supra, p. 168 ad fin.
  • 44. Mr. Bethel describes "the country-party" 'as "showing that if Pope Alexander the Sixth, Caesar Borgias, or their cabal, had all laid their heads together, they could not have framed a thing more dangerous and destructive to the liberty of the people than is the Petition and Advice, in several particulars; as in settling so great a revenue upon the Pretender. That in giving the purse of the people to the Chief Magistrate, they give away all the security they have for their rights and liberties; because, having the purse he hath power to raise what forces, he pleases, and having that, all bounding him signifies no more than bounding a lion with paper chains." Brief Narrative, p. 338.
  • 45. "Query, if it was not Pride ?" MS. He had soon followed the Protector, and very narrowly escaped the same violation of his grave; for it is not in the reign of Charles II. that "British vengeance wars not with the dead." (See vol. ii. pp. 145,443, notes.) Mr. Noble describes Colonel Pride as "dying just before the Restoration, October 23,1658, at Nonsuch: he was buried with baronial honours. But after that joyous event, his body was ordered to be dragged from its grave, and hung upon the gallows at Tyburn with his old master Cromwell's, Ireton's, and Bradshaw's." This cowardly outrage, on the ashes of the learned and the brave, a worthy celebration of that "joyous event," was averted from the grave of Colonel Pride, "no doubt," by "the interest of the Duke of Albemarle, he having married the natural daughter of Thomas Monk, Esq. his grace's brother." English Regicides, (1798,) ii. 132. Bishop Burnet has inflicted an historic justice on the royal violator of the dead, by very minutely relating, when describing, the close of his inglorious reign, how "the king's body was indecently neglected." The disgust excited by some of the expressions, may be excused, as applied to one who, in the judgment of this near observer, though "he had an appearance of gentleness in his outward deportment, seemed to have no bowels nor tenderness in his nature." Own Times, (1724,) i. 610. "An anonymous author of that time, describing the "40 that accepted the promotion out of 62 lords that were appointed," says:— "Colonel Pride, then Sir Thomas, and now Lord Pride, was, sometime, an honest brewer in London. He went out a captain, upon account of the cause, fought on, and in time became a Colonel. He did good service in England and Scotland, for which he was well rewarded by the Parliament. He gave the Long Parliament a purge, fought against the King and his negative voice, and was against the negative voice of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal; being unwilling there should be any of them in the land. "But, since that, he changed his mind and principles with the times, and would fight for a negative voice in the Protector, and also have one himself, and also be a lord, since he was a knight of the new order already, and grown very bulkish and considerable. It is hard to say how the people would like it, though it is likely the noble lawyers would be now glad of his company, since there was now no fear of his hanging up their gowns by the Scotish colours in Westminster-hall, as he formerly so much boasted and threatened to do." History of Europe, p. 434.
  • 46. He probably means, because the Commons had provoked a dissolution by disallowing the other House.
  • 47. See supra, p. 332, vol. ii. pp. 333, 334, notes. On the "Shorter Catechism," See vol. i. p. 376, note.
  • 48. See supra, p. 152.
  • 49. The following article of intelligence, probably refers to what "Mr. Noel" says, supra, p. 386, on "going into Bantam." "Mr. Downing," was the "Sir George Downing," of Charles II. (see supra, p. 179.) "M. De Witt" was the celebrated Pensionary, assassinated in 1672, by some zealots of the House of Orange. He had opposed, in 1650, the war with the English Commonwealth. Bishop Burnet has given some interesting particulars of De Witt. Own Time, (1724,) i. 220, 326. "The last from the Hague, Feb. 28. S. N. The adjusting of matters concerning the three ships, taken in the road of Bantam, being brought to a point on Saturday last, our English resident, Mr. Downing, treated the Directors of the East India Company, together with the London merchants; upon Monday, Monsieur De Witt treated them again; on Wednesday, the London merchants did the like; and yesterday the said resident signed the adjustment of the sum, with the deputies of the States General." Mercurius Politicus, No. 556, pp. 269, 270.