26 ROYAL EDICTS. CH. XIV. service with the continental princes. Many of these adventurers attained high distinction, and became the founders of great families. The practice of taking service under foreign standards prevailed until the time when a standing army was established (though constitutional punctilio does not at this day recognise such an establishment) as one of the institutions of this country. Royal edicts against the increase of During the reign of Elizabeth, the rapid increase in the number of visitors to, and settlers in, London, appears to have been viewed London. with apprehension, and the prudent queen endeavoured to check the tendency. Her successor, still more alarmed, issued proclamation after proclamation, full of vapid invective, after his fashion, against the attraction of the metropolis. He even caused his attorney-general to exhibit ex-officio informations in the Star Chamber against persons who sojourned in London contrary to the royal edicts. Charles the First complained, that a great number of nobility and gentry, and abler sort of people, with their families, had resorted to the cities of London and Westminster, residing there, contrary to the ancient usage of the English nation.' But all these orders, threats, and remonstrances were in vain; the tendency of manners is irresistible; and London continued to increase, notwithstanding the confident predictions of pestilence and famine from the congregation of so large a multitude within the precincts of the City. Evelyn, writing in 1684, says, that London had doubled in size within his recollection; and Sir William Petty, in 1687, calculated that the capital had increased sevenfold since the time of Elizabeth. The civil war and the interregnum for the time kept the magnates of the realm aloof from the capital; but the Restoration gave a sudden and irresistible impulse to the former tendency. Every nobleman and gentleman, eager to show his loyalty, to cele CH. XIV. THE RESTORATION. 27 brate his emancipation from an ignoble despotism, to display his abhorrence and contempt of the vulgar fanatics who had so long maintained their ascendancy, and to obtain a recognition of, if not a compensation for, the losses and sufferings which he had endured in the cause of royalty swelled the tide of population which flowed into the metropolis. Charles the Second at first made a feeble attempt to discourage the attendance of suitors and courtiers who were not altogether welcome; but he soon desisted; and London became at once, and for ever, the centre of fashion, and of the arts which belonged to civilised and polished life. Beginning of civil and reli gious freedom. The Act of Uniformity, which inaugurated the era of civil and religious freedom, and the restoration of monarchy, which, but for happy accidents, would have restored civil and religious despotism, were separated by an interval, the most momentous and eventful in the political history of this nation. The century which elapsed between the Restoration and the accession of George the Third was far less remarkable for the progress of manners than either the antecedent period, or the succeeding centenary, now almost completed. State of manners Restoration. The contempt for religion, morals, and even outward decency, which marked the manners of the Restoration, may be referred at the to an obvious cause. Democracy and religion had been associated together, and imposed upon the nation for twelve dreary years in a form and with a rigour calculated to render them alike odious and ridiculous. Thus, when the pressure was taken off, the reaction was sudden and extreme. Profaneness and profligacy had always been affected by the adherents of the royal cause, and were generally assumed as the badges of the Restoration. The personal character and authority of the King might have corrected a state of manners which were 28 Depraved character of the DEPRAVITY OF MANNERS. CH. XIV. attributable partly to political causes, and partly to the habits contracted by exiles and outlaws. But the example of the Court encouraged a fashion, which made loyalty more abominable than the cant and hypocrisy which it superseded. The palace where the first Charles Stuart had lived and died like a Christian and a gentleman, became the haunt of strumpets and of gamesters, the sanctuary of wretches who, if law and justice had been allowed to take their course, would have rotted in the gaols or on the gibbets. No woman of virtue could approach a Court where the shameless Castlemaine reigned supreme, and was suffered to insult the patient and blameless successor of Henrietta Maria. No man of spirit could willingly associate with the insolent favourite who first debauched the wife, and then, with her assistance, murdered the husband; * still less with the audacious adventurer, who, having stolen the crown of England, and attempted, with every accompaniment of ignominy, the life of the most illustrious subject in the realm, not only received substantial marks of the royal favour, but was selected as one of the choicest companions of His Majesty's lighter hours.† Society must have sunk low, indeed, when such outrages on decency as these could be safely practised. We shall in vain seek for a parallel to the Court of Charles the Second in the history of his predecessors. Edward the Fourth, selfish and luxurious as he was, appears to have been not wholly regardless of decency, even in times when public stews were licensed and regis court of Charles the Second. There is no tale of cruelty and profligacy more revolting than the well-authenticated case referred to above. The Duke of Buckingham, having seduced the Countess of Shrewsbury, picked a quarrel with the Earl, and assassinated him under the form of a duel, while the Countess, habited as a page, held his horse. † Colonel Blood. The marvellous stories of his seizure of the crown, and of his attempt to hang the Duke of Ormond at Tyburn, are well known. CH. XIV. PROFLIGACY OF THE COURT. 29 tered. We do not read that Jane Shore was admitted into the palace of Elizabeth Woodville, nor that the princely Plantagenet ever associated with felons, or tolerated the insolent presumption of minions and pimps. Even Henry the Eighth was careful to veil his lust and cruelty under the sanctions of religion and law. Among the successors of Charles, the first and second sovereigns of the house of Hanover equalled him in the grossness of their sensuality, but were far from displaying a like shameless indifference to public decency. It is not until we come down to a time within living memory, that we find the Crown dishonoured by a prince as selfish and debauched, as false and ungrateful as Charles, without that easy good nature which went far to palliate the vices and the follies of the merry monarch. The personal Open profligacy of the favourites Second. Monarchy having been fully re-established by the Restoration, the old Cavalier party, their services and sufferings alike forgotten, soon of Charles the dwindled and died away. influence of Charles the Second ceased in course of time; but it was long before either morals or manners showed any material improvement. The savage profligacy of men of fashion ceased to be openly exhibited. Knights of the shire were not in danger of being waylaid and maimed by courtiers for being too plain spoken with regard to the scandals of Whitehall. A nobleman of the time of the Hanover succession could not with impunity employ bullies to wait for and murder a poor player or posture-master who had unwittingly given him offence. But under the successors of Charles, the coarseness and depravity of manners were abundantly manifested. I need not dwell upon the examples furnished by particular reigns, since there is hardly any instance of grossness * * See the trials of Lord Mohun and Lord Semphill. 30 STATE OF THE CHURCH. CH. XIV. and profligacy since the Revolution which cannot be matched from the records of society, during the first half at least, of the reign of George the Third. Spread of Infidelity and immorality, which broke out like a plague at the Restoration, expended their infidelity. virulence during the reign of Charles, and subsided into a chronic indifference to religion, and a conventional disregard of moral restraint. The disease which had hitherto been confined, for the most part, to the higher orders, now spread among the inferior classes. Revelation was either rejected altogether, or adopted in some extravagant or fantastic form; and there was hardly a medium between stolid insensibility and frantic zeal among the halfeducated and uneducated mass of the community. I have already endeavoured to show, that these were the results of breaking up the ancient foundations of faith, without providing an adequate substitute for the spiritual machinery which was destroyed. The subversion of an established doctrine, either of morals or politics, has always proved a dangerous experiment, even among a people advanced in the arts of civilised life; but the subversion of an established creed, which has from time immemorial held an ignorant people in subjection, is another word for spiritual anarchy. Excepting, of course, the adherents of the ancient faith, no candid student of the history of this country will perhaps question that the fall of the Roman Church has in the end promoted the interests of religion, as it undoubtedly has been conducive to the social progress of the nation; but the loss of AUTHORITY, which was buried in the ruins of Rome, is a loss which can never be repaired. Condition of The office-bearers of the Anglican Church soon experienced the want of authority derived the Church. from usage and tradition. In an evil hour they sought to remedy the defect by claiming divine right for their temporal head. This tenet, which |