DOCTRINE OF DIVINE RIGHT. Ch. 14 Papacy op freedom. their rulers, while they altogether relinquished the A history of manners would hardly be intelligible without a copious reference to political events; and even for the sketch to which my present attempt is limited, I have found it necessary to glance back to times which may seem to have had little connection with the manners of the eighteenth century. But as the history of manners is essentially a history of progress, the attempt to portray the social character of a people 31 32 Ch. 14. Influence of SOCIAL PROGRESS. at any particular period, without any reference to the past, might, indeed, prove interesting and enformer events. tertaining, but could hardly be so satisfactory and instructive as a picture, however rude, which traced contemporary manners to their origin in earlier times. Social progress. Rapid as was the social progress of England generally during the hundred years which elapsed from the final downfall of the Papal dominion to the end of the Protectorate, the change which took place in the character and habits of the upper classes during that period was the most remarkable. The semi-barbarous nobility of the Middle Ages had almost perished in the barons' wars; the ecclesiastical order, which comprehended nearly all the lawyers and statesmen of the time, had been extinguished. Private warfare, the bane of civilisation, was finally suppressed. The feudal castles were dismantled, and the abbeys and monasteries passed into the hands of laymen, who introduced a new element into the. rural society of England. The tenant by knightservice, when no longer required to unfurl his pennon, soon forgot his feudal obligations, and subsided into the country gentleman, such as he flourished up to a recent period, and such as he may still be found to exist. The great lords themselves, their pride no longer flattered by a numerous following, and deprived of military excitement, flocked to the metropolis, and commenced attendance at the court of their sovereign. The ROYAL EDICTS. cadets of noble and knightly houses, finding no field for military enterprise at home, adopted arms as a profession, and took 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. Ch. 14. against the London. 33 During the reign of Elizabeth, the rapid increase Royal edicts in the number of visitors to, and settlers in, Lon- increase of don, appears to have been viewed 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 greater 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 34 Ch. 14. Beginning of civil and reli INCREASE OF LONDON. 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 shew his loyalty, to celebrate 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 belong to civilized and polished life. The Act of Uniformity, which inaugurated the gious freedom. 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 THE RESTORATION. 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. Ch. 14. 35 manners at the The contempt for religion, morals, and even State of outward decency, which marked the manners of the Restoration. Restoration, may be referred 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 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 |