sions more liberal than the Commons. They, for instance, endeavoured to mitigate the Act of Uniformity by the addition of provisoes empowering the King to dispense with the wearing of the surplice and the using of the sign of the cross in baptism, and by allowing the dispossessed ministers to enjoy one-fifth of the emoluments of the livings they vacated. In 1674, again, a Bill was introduced into the House of Lords to repeal certain sections of the Act in order to compose religious differences. In the case of the Conventicles Act, too, the Lords endeavoured to temper its severity. So marked, indeed, sometimes was the superiority they showed in breadth of mind that Ranke thinks that the peers, Shaftesbury, Buckingham, Wharton, and those who acted with them, may be looked on as the first Whigs.' Nevertheless, the Upper House was capable of displaying a strongly Tory spirit, and, when its own interests were concerned, of acting in an arbitrary manner. They exempted, for instance, themselves from the operation of the clause in the Licensing Act that permitted the houses of individuals to be searched for unlicensed books; and from the provisions of the Act of 1665 that imposed regulations to check the progress of the Plague. Again, they several times threw out the Habeas Corpus Bill, and in 1675 they passed a Bill that imposed a test on members of both Houses and all holders of office-that is to say, a declaration that resistance to persons commissioned by the King was in all cases unlawful, and that they would never propose any alteration in the Government in Church and State. They also threw out the Exclusion Bill by a large majority. Again, in condemning Lord Stafford to death-an act which almost amounted to judicial murder-they displayed a spirit of intolerance for which, though in this instance it was shown chiefly by the Whigs, the great majority of the House must be held responsible. Nor should it be forgotten that in dealing with the question of the regicides in the Convention Parliament of 1660 the Upper House showed a spirit of vindictiveness to which the Commons rose superior.

Before leaving the subject of the political composition of the Lords there remains one point to which reference must be made, and that is the practice of the sovereign to attend at

Ranke's History of England, vol. iv. p. 11.

their debates. This custom, which had fallen into abeyance since the time of Henry VIII., was to a certain extent revived by Charles II. The presence of the sovereign would probably exert a silent influence by putting a check upon the freedom of debate, and tend to exalt the weight of the monarchy in the balance of the constitution. Whether during the reign of Charles II. any such result followed may, however, very well be doubted. Andrew Marvell, writing in 1670, records that the King hath for this whole week come every day in person to the House of Lords and sat there during their debates and resolutions. And yesterday the Lords went in a body to Whitehall, to give him thanks for the honour he did them therein.' But he afterwards remarks, with much good sense, to another correspondent with regard to the practice, that at any other but so bewitched a time as this it would have been looked on as an high usurpation and breach of privilege. He, indeed, sat still for the most part and interposed very little; sometimes a word or two.' 1 Charles himself said that he thought it better than going to a play, and his actions sometimes certainly lent to the proceedings of the House an element of farce. On one occasion, in order to avoid dealing with a Bill to relieve Protestant Dissenters, sent up by the House of Commons, he contrived that it should be stolen from the table in the Lords. On another, he showed such an extravagance of delight over a money Bill which stretched from the Throne to the end of the Chamber that he measured it with his walking-stick. It is, therefore, probable that a practice which in the hands of an energetic prince might have greatly influenced the House and made it more subservient, tended during the reign of Charles II. to lower both it and the Crown in the estimation of all seriousthinking persons. That was not a result that any sincere and thorough-going Tory could have viewed with satisfaction."

That those who were engaged in the work of building up a strong and settled Government should have endeavoured to remove as far as possible all disintegrating forces is only what

' Marvell's Works (Grosart's Edition), vol. ii. pp. 318, 324.

2

The Historical Manuscripts Commission; the Papers of the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, vol. i. p. 326 ; and Report XV.; the Papers of the Duke of Portland, vol. vii. p. 38.

might have been expected. The simplest course was to root up and destroy their most prominent opponents by a process of proscription. But it was a plan more obvious than politic. Charles II., indeed, in this regard was more far-sighted than his counsellors. Like Julius Caesar, who replaced the statues of Sulla which the mob had overthrown, he judged that the vanquished would be more easily disposed of by their absorption into the State than by an attempt to extirpate them altogether. In his declaration to all his loving subjects' he promised a free and general pardon' to all who within forty days shall lay hold upon this our grace and favour, and shall by any public act declare their doing so, and that they return to loyalty and obedience of good subjects; excepting only such persons as shall hereafter be excepted by Parliament; those only to be excepted.' That was a statesmanlike promise, and both generous and politic. Shortly after his landing he issued a further proclamation, in which he commanded those who had sat as judges of his father to render themselves upon pain of being excepted from any pardon or indemnity as to their lives or estates.' In what followed-shameful chicanery' Hallam does not hesitate to call it the Tory spirit showed itself in its most odious and repellent shape. It made a disingenuous use of an ambiguous situation, whether purposely or only inadvertently created. Some persons were in this way allured into surrender, or, to use the language of the time, they were trepanned.'1

The victorious Royalists indulged in some minor acts of vengeance, to which reference may here be relevantly made. Harrington, for instance, the speculative Republican who wrote the Oceana, was marked as dangerous, and confined for a while in the Tower and Portsea Castle. Withers, the poet, was also committed to the Tower for writing of treasonable and scandalous poems.' These attentions to literary men, though certainly embarrassing, at least testified to the influence they exerted. Milton, though in great peril, was spared-perhaps, it has been suggested, through the influence of Clarendon. Yet if there was one man more than another who seemed marked

The curious reader will find much interesting matter in an article in the Nineteenth Century, vol. lvii. p. 928, by Bishop Welldon, on 'The Fate of Oliver Cromwell's Remains.'

out for vengeance it was Cromwell's Latin secretary. For no one surely had sinned more grievously against the monarchy. He was, indeed, arrested and brought before the House of Commons and discharged, but not until he had incurred a debt of a hundred and fifty pounds to the Serjeant-at-Arms for fees. When the matter was brought by Andrew Marvell to the notice of the House, Finch, the Solicitor-General, said that instead of paying the money he well deserved hanging-a sentiment, doubtless, with which the majority agreed. But, short of actual punishment, the angry Tories took all the vengeance upon him they could. On the petition of the House of Commons, his Eikonoklastes and Defensio Populi Anglicani were ordered to be burned by the common hangman; his books were removed from the Bodleian Library at Oxford; and a proposal to erect a tablet to his memory in Westminster Abbey was rejected by Dr. Sprat, the Dean. Even in 1676 Sir Joseph Williamson, the Secretary of State, referred to him as 'that late villain Milton.' Dr. Johnson, writing a century later, said that hell grew darker at his frown. We may therefore well believe that the savage hatred felt towards him by contemporary Royalists must have been almost indescribable.'

With the general election of 1661 a long period of triumphant Toryism was inaugurated. In the full flush of reaction, a House of Commons was returned with an immense Royalist majority. In the City of London, indeed, where the excitement ran high, four Dissenters were elected. But from the politics of the Citywhich, as will be seen hereafter, occupied a singular position— the general feeling of the country greatly differed; and a Parliament was chosen that turned out to be one of the most remarkable in English history, and of extreme importance from the point of view of the history of Toryism in particular. That it should have survived all shocks until 1679 is in itself a memorable thing. But it is still more as an organ for putting Tory doctrines into practice that it claims to be remembered.

The acts of this remarkable assembly were variously regarded

The Historical Manuscripts Commission, Report XV., Parts VII. and VIIL; the Papers of the Duke of Somerset, p. 93; Cobbett's Parliamentary History, vol. iv. pp. 71, 162: Memoirs of Sir W. Temple, by T. P. Courtenay, vol. ii. p. 98.

by its contemporaries according to the party point of view. While it was lauded by the Tories, to lovers of liberty it was exceedingly abhorrent. It was not long, for instance, before Algernon Sydney could speak of it in this way: They, who could formerly bridle kings and keep the balance equal between them and the people, are now become the instruments of our oppression, and a sword in his hand to destroy us.' But the historian, looking backwards from a vantage-ground above the strife of party, will judge it in a more impartial way. While lamenting its acts of unrestrained repression, he will marvel at its energy, and allow that it did good and useful work from the constitutional point of view. For it defended and extended parliamentary rights and privileges; it successfully insisted on its claim to superintend questions of finance, and on the responsibility of Ministers; and, to quote Ranke, ‘it established for all times the parliamentary and Protestant character of the English constitution. And that in itself is no small praise. It is perhaps an over-statement of Blackstone to assert that in the reign of Charles II. ' the constitution of England had arrived to its full vigour, and the true balance between liberty and prerogative was happily established by law.' Still less warrant is there for maintaining that the era was one of 'national happiness and exemplary government,' or that the constitution had arrived at its greatest theoretical perfection.' Nevertheless, in spite of many cases of individual oppression, it is probably true, as Hallam says, that the fundamental privileges of the subject were less invaded' during the reign of Charles II. than in any other period of equal length. Nor can it be denied that, though remarkable for political depravity, the reign was distinguished by some excellent legislation. It was an era of good laws and bad government. The Habeas Corpus Act, the abolition of the writ De Heretico Comburendo, the Statute of Distributions, and the Statute of Frauds are some of the achievements of the first regular Parliament of Charles II. If not a high-minded or disinterested assembly, it was certainly a strong and energetic

one.

That it was an intensely conservative House goes without saying. It must have been a strange one too. It was full of 'Somers Tracts, vol. iii. (Second Collection). Letter of A. Sydney.