majority of the House of Commons, was liberty of sectarian
association. Some years earlier, under the dominion of Laud,
another principle had been proclaimed by Chillingworth and
Hales, that of liberty of thought within the unity of the church.
Both these movements conduced to the ultimate establishment
of toleration, but for the present the Independents were to have
their way.
The Presbyterian leaders, Essex and Manchester, were not
successful leaders. The army was remodelled after Cromwell’s
pattern, and the king was finally crushed at Naseby
(1645). The next year (1646) he surrendered to the
Scots. Then followed two years of fruitless negotiation,
The second civil war.
in which after the Scots abandoned the king to the
English parliament, the army took him out of the hands of the
parliament, whilst each in turn tried to find some basis of arrangement
on which he might reign without ruling. Such a basis
could not be found, and when Charles stirred up a fresh civil war
and a Scottish invasion (1648) the leaders of the army vowed
that, if victory was theirs, they would bring him to justice. To
do this it was necessary to drive out a large number of the
members of the House of Commons by what was known as
Pride’s Purge, and to obtain from the mutilated
Execution
of the king.
Commons the dismissal of the House of Lords, and
the establishment of a high court of justice, before
which the king was brought to trial and sentenced
to death. He was beheaded on a scaffold outside the windows
of Whitehall (1649).[1]
The government set up was a government by the committees of a council of state nominally supporting themselves on the House of Commons, though the members who still retained their places were so few that the council of state was sufficiently numerous to form a majority The Common-wealth. in the House. During eleven years the nation passed through many vicissitudes in its forms of government. These forms take no place in the gradual development of English institutions, and have never been referred to as affording precedents to be followed. To the student of political science, however, they have a special interest of their own, as they show that when men had shaken themselves loose from the chain of habit and prejudice, and had set themselves to build up a political shelter under which to dwell, they were irresistibly attracted by that which was permanent in the old constitutional forms of which the special development had of late years been so disastrous. After Cromwell had suppressed resistance in Ireland (1649), had conquered Scotland (1650), and had overthrown the son of the late king, the future Charles II., at Worcester (1651), the value of government by an assembly was tested and found wanting. After Cromwell had expelled the remains of the Long Parliament (1653), and had set up another assembly of nominated members, that second experiment was found equally wanting. It was necessary to have recourse to one head of the executive government, controlling and directing its Cromwell’s protectorate. actions. Cromwell occupied this position as lord protector. He did all that was in his power to do to prevent his authority from degenerating into tyranny. He summoned two parliaments, of only one House, and with the consent of the second parliament he erected a second House, so that he might have some means of checking the Lower House without constantly coming into personal collision with its authority. As far as form went, the constitution in 1658, so far as it differed from the Stuart constitution, differed for the better. But it suffered from one fatal defect. It was based on the rule of the sword. The only substitute for traditional authority is the clearly expressed expression of the national will, and it is impossible to doubt that if the national will had been expressed it would have swept away Cromwell and all his system. The majority of the upper and middle classes, which had united together against Laud, was now reunited against Cromwell. The Puritans themselves were but a minority, and of that minority considerable numbers disliked the free liberty accorded to the sects. Whilst the worship of the Church of England was proscribed, every illiterate or frenzied enthusiast was allowed to harangue at his pleasure. Those who cared little for religion felt insulted when they saw a government with which they had no sympathy ruling by means of an army which they dreaded and detested. Cromwell did his best to avert a social revolution, and to direct the energies of his supporters into the channels of merely political change. But he could not prevent, and it cannot be said that he wished to prevent, the rise of men of ability from positions of social inferiority. The nation had striven against the arbitrary government of the king; but it was not prepared to shake off the predominance of that widely spreading aristocracy which, under the name of country gentlemen, had rooted itself too deeply to be easily passed by. Cromwell’s rule was covered with military glory, and there can be no doubt that he honestly applied himself to solve domestic difficulties as well. But he reaped the reward of those who strive for something better than the generation in which they live is able to appreciate. His own faults and errors were remembered against him. He tried in vain to establish constitutional government and religious toleration (see Cromwell, Oliver). When he died (1658) there remained branded on the national mind two strong impressions which it took more than a century to obliterate—the dread of the domination of a standing army, and abhorrence of the very name of religious zeal.
The eighteen months which followed deepened the impression
thus formed. The army had appeared a hard master when it
lent its strength to a wise and sagacious rule. It was
worse when it undertook to rule in its own name, to
set up and pull down parliaments and governments.
The
anarchy.
The only choice left to the nation seemed to be one between
military tyranny and military anarchy. Therefore it was that
when Monk advanced from Scotland and declared for a free
parliament, there was little doubt that the new parliament would
recall the exiled king, and seek to build again on the old
foundations.
The Restoration was effected by a coalition between the Cavaliers, or followers of Charles I., and the Presbyterians who had originally opposed him. It was only after the nature of a great reaction that the latter should for a time be swamped by the former. The Long Parliament The Restoration. of the Restoration met in 1661, and the Act of Uniformity entirely excluded all idea of reform in the Puritan direction, and ordered the expulsion from their benefices of all clergymen who refused to express approval of the whole of the Book of Common Prayer (1662). A previous statute, the Corporation Act (1661), ordered that all members of corporations should renounce the Covenant and the doctrine that subjects might in any case rightfully use force against their king, and should receive the sacrament after the forms of the Church of England. The object for which Laud had striven, the compulsory imposition of uniformity, thus became part of the law of the land.
Herein lay the novelty of the system of the Restoration. The system of Laud and the system of Cromwell had both been imposed by a minority which had possessed itself of the powers of government. The new uniformity was imposed by parliament, and parliament had the nation behind it. For the first time, therefore, all those who objected to the established religion sought, not to alter its forms to suit themselves, but to gain permission to worship in separate congregations. Ultimately, the dissenters, as they began to be called, would obtain their object. As soon as it became clear to the mass of the nation that the dissenters were in a decided minority, there would be no reason to fear the utmost they could do even if the present liberty of worship and teaching were conceded to them. For the present, however, they were feared out of all proportion to their numbers. They counted amongst them the old soldiers of the Protectorate, and though that army had been dissolved, it always seemed possible that it might spring to arms once more. A bitter experience had taught men that a hundred of Oliver’s Ironsides might easily chase a thousand Cavaliers; and as long
- ↑ The events of the reign of Charles I. are treated in greater detail in the articles Charles I., King of Great Britain and Ireland; Strafford; Hampden; Pym; Great Rebellion; Cromwell, &c.
