defence of the invaded privileges of to set up the throne: but it was not Parliament, had yet exposed themselves less true that they had previously to the rage of the soldiers in order to pulled it down, and that they still save his father, and had taken the chief avowed principles which might impel part in bringing back the royal family. them to pull it down again. UndoubtThe feeling of the Cavaliers was edly it might be fit that marks of widely different. During eighteen years royal approbation should be bestowed they had, through all vicissitudes, been on some converts who had been emifaithful to the Crown. Having shared nently useful: but policy, as well as the distress of their prince, were they justice and gratitude, enjoined the not to share his triumph? Was no King to give the highest place in distinction to be made between them his regard to those who, from first to and the disloyal subject who had last, through good and evil, had stood fought against his rightful sovereign, by his house. On these grounds the who had adhered to Richard Cromwell, Cavaliers very naturally demanded inand who had never concurred in the demnity for all that they had suffered, restoration of the Stuarts, till it ap- and preference in the distribution of peared that nothing else could save the the favours of the Crown. Some violent nation from the tyranny of the army? members of the party went further, Grant that such a man had, by his and clamoured for large categories of recent services, fairly earned his pardon. proscription. Yet were his services, rendered at the The political feud was, as usual, eleventh hour, to be put in comparison exasperated by a religious feud. Religious with the toils and sufferings of those The King found the Church dissension. who had borne the burden and heat of in a singular state. A short time the day? Was he to be ranked with before the commencement of the civil men who had no need of the royal war, his father had given a reluctant clemency, with men who had, in every assent to a bill, strongly supported by part of their lives, merited the royal Falkland, which deprived the Bishops gratitude? Above all, was he to be of their seats in the House of Lords: suffered to retain a fortune raised out but Episcopacy and the Liturgy had of the substance of the ruined defen- never been abolished by law. ders of the throne? Was it not enough Long Parliament, however, had passed that his head and his patrimonial ordinances which had made a complete estate, a hundred times forfeited to revolution in Church government and justice, were secure, and that he shared, in public worship. The new_system with the rest of the nation, in the was, in principle, scarcely less Erastian blessings of that mild government of than that which it displaced. which he had long been the foe? Was Houses, guided chiefly by the counsels it necessary that he should be rewarded of the accomplished Selden, had deterfor his treason at the expense of men mined to keep the spiritual power whose only crime was the fidelity with strictly subordinate to the temporal which they had observed their oath of power. They had refused to declare allegiance? And what interest had that any form of ecclesiastical polity the King in gorging his old enemies was of divine origin; and they had with prey torn from his old friends? provided that, from all the Church What confidence could be placed in courts, an appeal should lie in the last men who had opposed their sovereign, resort to Parliament. With this made war on him, imprisoned him, and highly important reservation, it had who, even now, instead of hanging been resolved to set up in England a down their heads in shame and contri- hierarchy closely resembling that which tion, vindicated all that they had done, now exists in Scotland. The authority and seemed to think that they had of councils, rising one above another given an illustrious proof of loyalty by in regular gradation, was substituted just stopping short of regicide? It for the authority of Bishops and was true that they had lately assisted Archbishops. The Liturgy gave place The The to the Presbyterian Directory. But government prescribed by parliamenscarcely had the new regulations been tary ordinance was Presbyterian. But framed, when the Independents rose to neither the old law nor the parliamensupreme influence in the state. The tary ordinance was practically in force. Independents had no disposition to The Church actually established may enforce the ordinances touching classi- be described as an irregular body cal, provincial, and national synods. made up of a few presbyteries and many Those ordinances, therefore, were never Independent congregations, which were carried into full execution. The Pres- all held down and held together by the byterian system was fully established authority of the government. nowhere but in Middlesex and Lancashire. In the other fifty counties, almost every parish seems to have been unconnected with the neighbouring parishes. In some districts, indeed, the ministers formed themselves into voluntary associations, for the purpose of mutual help and counsel; but these associations had no coercive power. The patrons of livings, being now checked by neither Bishop nor Presbytery, would have been at liberty to confide the cure of souls to the most scandalous of mankind, but for the arbitrary intervention of Oliver. He established, by his own authority, a board of commissioners, called Triers. Most of these persons were Independent divines; but a few Presbyterian ministers and a few laymen had seats. The certificate of the Triers stood in the place both of institution and of induction; and without such a certificate no person could hold a benefice. This was undoubtedly one of the most despotic acts ever done by any English ruler. Yet, as it was generally felt that, without some such precaution, the country would be overrun by ignorant and drunken reprobates, bearing the name and receiving the pay of ministers, some highly respectable persons, who were not in general friendly to Cromwell, allowed that, on this occasion, he had been a public benefactor. The presentees whom the Triers had approved took possession of the rectories, cultivated the glebe lands, collected the tithes, prayed without book or surplice, and administered the Eucharist to communicants seated at long tables. Thus the ecclesiastical polity of the realm was in inextricable confusion. Episcopacy was the form of government prescribed by the old law which was still unrepealed. The form of Of those who had been active in bringing back the King, many_were zealous for Synods and for the Directory, and many were desirous to terminate by a compromise the religious dissensions which had long agitated England. Between the bigoted followers of Laud and the bigoted followers of Knox there could be neither peace nor truce: but it did not seem impossible to effect an accommodation between the moderate Episcopalians of the school of Usher and the moderate Presbyterians of the school of Baxter. The moderate Episcopalians would admit that a Bishop might lawfully be assisted by a council. The moderate Presbyterians would not deny that each provincial assembly might lawfully have a permanent president, and that this president might lawfully be called a Bishop. There might be a revised Liturgy which should not exclude extemporaneous prayer, a baptismal service in which the sign of the cross might be used or omitted at discretion, a communion service at which the faithful might sit if their consciences forbade them to kneel. But to no such plan could the great body of the Cavaliers listen with patience. The religious members of that party were conscientiously attached to the whole system of their Church. She had been dear to their murdered King. She had consoled them in defeat and penury. Her service, so often whispered in an inner chamber during the season of trial, had such a charm for them that they were unwilling to part with a single response. Other Royalists, who made little pretence to piety, yet loved the Episcopal Church because she was the foe of their foes. They valued a prayer or a ceremony, not on account of the comfort which it conveyed to larity of tans. themselves, but on account of the vexa- | seduction was imputed, where no public tion which it gave to the Roundheads, scandal was given, where no conjugal and were so far from being disposed to right was violated, was made a mispurchase union by concession that they demeanour. Public amusements, from objected to concession chiefly because the masques which were exhibited at it tended to produce union. the mansions of the great down to the wrestling matches and grinning matches on village greens, were vigorously attacked. One ordinance directed that all the Maypoles in England should forthwith be hewn down. Another proscribed all theatrical diversions. The playhouses were to be dismantled, the spectators fined, the actors whipped at the cart's tail. Ropedancing, puppetshows, bowls, horseracing, were regarded with no friendly eye. But bearbaiting, then a favourite diversion of high and low, was the abomination which most strongly stirred the wrath of the austere sectaries. It is to be remarked that their antipathy to this sport had nothing in common with the feeling which has, in our own time, induced the legislature to interfere for the purpose of protecting beasts against the wanton cruelty of men. The Puritan hated bearbaiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators. Indeed, he generally contrived to enjoy the double pleasure of tormenting both spectators and bear.* Such feelings, though blamable, were Unpopu- natural and not wholly inexthe cusable. The Puritans had undoubtedly, in the day of their power, given cruel provocation. They ought to have learned, if from nothing else, yet from their own discontents, from their own struggles, from their own victory, from the fall of that proud hierarchy by which they had been so heavily oppressed, that, in England, and in the seventeenth century, it was not in the power of the civil magistrate to drill the minds of men into conformity with his own system of theology. They proved, however, as intolerant and as meddling as ever Laud had been. They interdicted under heavy penalties the use of the Book of Common Prayer, not only in churches, but even in private houses. It was a crime in a child to read by the bedside of a sick parent one of those beautiful collects which had soothed the griefs of forty generations of Christians. Severe punishments were denounced against such as should presume to blame the Calvinistic mode of worship. Clergymen of respectable character were not only ejected from their benefices by thousands, to do with the matter is sufficiently proved by but were frequently exposed to the perfect Diurnal of some Passages of Parliaoutrages of a fanatical rabble. Churches ment, and from other Parts of the Kingdom, and sepulchres, fine works of art and from Monday, July 24th, to Monday, July 31st, 1643. "Upon the queen's coming from curious remains of antiquity, were bru-Holland, she brought with her, besides a comtally defaced. The Parliament resolved pany of savagelike ruffians, a company of that all pictures in the royal collection which contained representations of Jesus or of the Virgin Mother should be burned. Sculpture fared as ill as painting. Nymphs and Graces, the work of Ionian chisels, were delivered Over to Puritan stonemasons to be made decent. Against the lighter vices the ruling faction waged war with a zeal little tempered by humanity or by common sense. Sharp laws were passed against betting. It was enacted that adultery should be punished with death. The illicit intercourse of the sexes, even where neither violence nor * How little compassion for the bear had the following extract from a paper entitled A savage bears, to what purpose you may judge by the sequel. Those bears were left about constantly on the Lord's day to be baited, such is the religion those here related would settle amongst us; and, if any went about to hinder or but speak against their damnable profanations, they were presently noted as Roundheads and Puritans, and sure to be plundered for it. But some of Colonel Cromwell's forces coming by accident into Uppingham town, in Rutland, on the Lord's day, found these bears playing there in the usual manner, and, in the height of their sport, caused them to be seized upon, tied to a tree and shot." This was by no means a solitary instance. Colonel Pride, when Sheriff of Surrey, ordered the beasts in the bear garden of Southwark to be Newark, and were brought into country towns killed. He is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the act thus:-"The first thing Perhaps no single circumstance more | meddler. But Oliver, the head of a party, strongly illustrates the temper of the and consequently, to a great extent, the precisians than their conduct respecting | slave of a party, could not govern altoChristmas day. Christmas had been, gether according to his own inclinafrom time immemorial, the season of tions. Even under his administration joy and domestic affection, the season many magistrates, within their own when families assembled, when child-jurisdiction, made themselves as odious ren came home from school, when as Sir Hudibras, interfered with all quarrels were made up, when carols the pleasures of the neighbourhood, were heard in every street, when every dispersed festive meetings, and put house was decorated with evergreens, fiddlers in the stocks. Still more and every table was loaded with good formidable was the zeal of the soldiers. cheer. At that season all hearts not In every village where they appeared utterly destitute of kindness were en- there was an end of dancing, bellringing, larged and softened. At that season and hockey. In London they several the poor were admitted to partake times interrupted theatrical performlargely of the overflowings of the wealth ances at which the Protector had the of the rich, whose bounty was peculiarly judgment and good nature to connive. acceptable on account of the shortness of the days and of the severity of the weather. At that season the interval between landlord and tenant, master and servant, was less marked than through the rest of the year. Where there is much enjoyment there will be some excess: yet, on the whole, the spirit in which the holiday was kept was not unworthy of a Christian festival. The Long Parliament gave orders, in 1644, that the twenty-fifth of December should be strictly observed as a fast, and that all men should pass it in humbly bemoaning the great national sin which they and their fathers had so often committed on that day by romping under the misletoe, eating boar's head, and drinking ale flavoured with roasted apples. No public act of that time seems to have irritated the common people more. On the next anniversary of the festival formidable riots broke out in many places. The constables were resisted, the magistrates insulted, the houses of noted zealots attacked, and the proscribed service of the day openly read in the churches. Such was the spirit of the extreme Puritans, both Presbyterian and Independent. Oliver, indeed, was little disposed to be either a persecutor or a that is upon my spirits is the killing of the bears, for which the people hate me, and call me all the names in the rainbow. But did not David kill a bear? Did not the Lord Deputy With the fear and hatred inspired by such a tyranny contempt was largely mingled. The peculiarities of the Puritan, his look, his dress, his dialect, his strange scruples, had been, ever since the time of Elizabeth, favourite subjects with mockers. But these peculiarities appeared far more gro tesque in a faction which ruled a great empire than in obscure and persecuted congregations. The cant, which had moved laughter when it was heard on the stage from Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, was still more laughable when it proceeded from the lips of Generals and Councillors of State. It is also to be noticed that during the civil troubles several sects had sprung into existence, whose eccentricities surpassed anything that had before been seen in England. A mad tailor, named Lodowick Muggleton, wandered from pothouse to pothouse, tippling ale, and denouncing eternal torments against those who refused to believe, on his testimony, that the Supreme Being was only six feet high, and that the sun was just four miles from the earth.* George Fox had raised a tempest of derision by proclaiming that it was a violation of Christian sincerity to designate a single person by a plural pronoun, and that it was an idolatrous homage to Janus and Woden to talk about January and * See Penn's New Witnesses proved Old Heretics, and Muggleton's works, passim. Wednesday. His doctrine, a few years | members in all the outward indications later, was embraced by some eminent of zeal. No discernment, no watchfulmen, and rose greatly in the public ness, on the part of ecclesiastical rulers, estimation. But at the time of the can prevent the intrusion of such false Restoration the Quakers were popularly brethren. The tares and the wheat regarded as the most despicable of must grow together. Soon the world fanatics. By the Puritans they were begins to find out that the godly are treated with severity here, and were not better than other men, and argues, persecuted to the death in New England. with some justice, that, if not better, Nevertheless the public, which seldom they must be much worse. In no long makes nice distinctions, often con- time all those signs which were forfounded the Puritan with the Quaker. merly regarded as characteristic of a Both were schismatics. Both hated saint are regarded as characteristic of episcopacy and the Liturgy. Both had a knave. what seemed extravagant whimsies Thus it was with the English Nonabout dress, diversions, and postures. conformists. They had been oppressed; Widely as the two differed in opinion, and oppression had kept them a pure they were popularly classed together body. They then became supreme in as canting schismatics; and whatever the state. No man could hope to rise was ridiculous or odious in either to eminence and command but by their increased the scorn and aversion which the multitude felt for both. Before the civil wars, even those who most disliked the opinions and manners of the Puritan were forced to admit that his moral conduct was generally, in essentials, blameless; but this praise was now no longer bestowed, and, unfortunately, was no longer deserved. The general fate of sects is to obtain a high reputation for sanctity while they are oppressed, and to lose it as soon as they become powerful: and the reason is obvious. It is seldom that a man enrolls himself in a proscribed body from any but conscientious motives. Such a body, therefore, is composed, with scarcely an exception, of sincere persons. The most rigid discipline that can be enforced within a religious society is a very feeble instrument of purification, when compared with a little sharp persecution from without. We may be certain that very few persons, not seriously impressed by religious convictions, applied for baptism while Diocletian was vexing the Church, or joined themselves to Protestant congregations at the risk of being burned by Bonner. But, when a sect becomes powerful, when its favour is the road to riches and dignities, worldly and ambitious men crowd into it, talk its language, conform strictly to its ritual, mimic its peculiarities, and frequently go beyond its honest favour. Their favour was to be gained only by exchanging with them the signs and passwords of spiritual fraternity. One of the first resolutions adopted by Barebone's Parliament, the most intensely Puritanical of all our political assemblies, was that no person should be admitted into the public service till the House should be satisfied of his real godliness. What were then considered as the signs of real godliness, the sadcoloured dress, the sour look, the straight hair, the nasal whine, the speech interspersed with quaint texts, the Sunday, gloomy as a Pharisaical Sabbath, were easily imitated by men to whom all religions were the same. The sincere Puritans soon found themselves lost in a multitude, not merely of men of the world, but of the very worst sort of men of the world. For the most notorious libertine who had fought under the royal standard might justly be thought virtuous when compared with some of those who, while they talked about sweet experiences and comfortable scriptures, lived in the constant practice of fraud, rapacity, and secret debauchery. The people, with a rashness which we may justly lament, but at which we cannot wonder, formed their estimate of the whole body from these hypocrites. The theology, the manners, the dialect of the Puritan were thus associated in the public mind with the darkest and |