Part 2

[3] This spelling of the General's name has been disputed of late, such authorities as Professor Firth and Mr. Willcock preferring Monck. But the form here used seems as good, it has much tradition and authority on its side, and the point is, after all, of no special importance.

Before that, however, many great events had taken place, in war and politics. The Royalist resistance in England had been beaten down, and the king was dead, the title and office of king had been abolished, the House of Lords had been done away with, and England was a commonwealth with a Huntingdonshire gentleman, Oliver Cromwell, at its head. The war had shifted to Scotland and Ireland. Charles II had been proclaimed in Edinburgh, and Catholic and Royalist had risen in Ireland. Thither Cromwell had hastened with his invincible Ironsides, to crush the Irish before they could gather head and, with the aid of the Scotch, overthrow his hard-won power. His stroke was swift and merciless. The chief strongholds of his enemies, Drogheda and Wexford, were stormed and their inhabitants put to the sword after the manner of the old Testament. The Irish army was overpowered and Cromwell hurried back to crush the Scots at Dunbar and Worcester, leaving his son-in-law, the lawyer-general Ireton, to stamp out the embers of rebellion. Thereafter, he sent the ablest of his sons, Henry, to hold the island for the Commonwealth.

With him Blood came into touch with the house of Cromwell. The young Irishman had probably been among the troops which were brought over to conquer the "rebels" serving under the Lord General and Ireton after him. For when the new government, following the example of its predecessors, confiscated the land of its enemies and the fair domains of Royalist and Catholic passed into the hands of the hard-hitting and loud-praying colonels and captains and even common soldiers of the Commonwealth, Blood not only acquired estates, but was further distinguished by being made Justice of the Peace under Henry Cromwell. Thus with his fellows, and in greater proportion than most of them, he prospered and after an adventurous career seemed about to achieve the ambition of most Englishmen then and since, and become a real country gentleman. For a space of seven years, under Commonwealth and Protectorate, he lived, like many others of his kind, satisfied and secure in the enjoyment of the fruits of his share in saving England from the tyrant, little moved by the great events oversea. And, had it not been for circumstances as far outside his little sphere as those which had raised him to this position, he might well have finished an obscure and peaceful existence, with little further interest for the historian or moralist. But at the end of those seven fat years Fate, who had been so kind to Blood and his fellows, changed sides, and he, like many others, missing the signs of the times, or moved by conviction, could not, or would not, at all events did not change with her.

On September 3, 1658, Oliver Cromwell died and the fabric of government which for some years had rested on little more than his will and his sword, began at once to crumble. For a few months his son Richard endured the empty honour of the Protector's title. Then he resigned and the administration was left in a weltering chaos of Rump Parliament politicians and Cromwellian army generals. To end this anarchy came the governor of Scotland, General Monk, with his army, to London in the first months of 1660. Under his shrewd, stern management the old Parliament was forced to dissolve itself and a new House of Commons was chosen. The first act of this so-called Convention was to recall the House of Stuart to the throne, and on May 29, 1660, Charles II rode into London and his inheritance, welcomed by the same shouting thousands who had so recently assembled to pay the last honours to the Protectorate. As rapidly as might be thereafter the new regime was established. The old officers and officials were replaced by Royalists, the forces by land and sea were disbanded, save for five thousand trusty troops to guard the new monarchy, the leaders of the fallen party were arrested and executed, or driven into exile, or put under security. Some, like Monk and Montague and Browne, were now the strongest pillars in the new political edifice. Many, like Harrison and his fellow-regicides, were marked for speedy execution, while others, like Vane, were kept for future sacrifice. Many more, like Marten and Waller and Cobbet, dragged out a wretched existence as political prisoners, exchanging one prison for another till death released them. Some, like Hutchinson, were put under bonds and granted a half liberty that in too many cases led only to later imprisonment. Only a few, like Lambert, lived long in the more pleasant confinement of the Channel Islands and the Scillies. Yet many escaped. Ludlow and Lisle and their companions found protection if not safety in Switzerland. Many more sought refuge in Holland. Some like Algernon Sidney flitted over Europe like uneasy spirits. No small number joined the Emperor to fight the Turk, or took service in Holland or Sweden or the petty states of Germany. And still others, like Goffe and Whalley and Dixwell, sought and found security in the New World. The leaders of the fallen party out of the way, for the ensuing six years the government left no stone unturned to undo the work of revolution and to restore in so far as possible the old order.

It was no easy task. For twenty years England had been engaged in a civil strife where political animosities were embittered by religious dissensions, emphasized by lines of social cleavage. Not merely had the ancient fabric of church and state been shattered, but society itself had been convulsed by the intrusion of ideas and classes hitherto little regarded as vital elements of public affairs. One by one institutions long held sacred fell before these new vandals who seemed about to set up a new heaven and a new earth. King, Lords, Church, local government, finally the House of Commons itself disappeared. An open way for the talents was created. A carter became a colonel and member of Parliament, a butcher became a major-general. The son of a country merchant developed into the greatest English naval commander of his time. Meeting house and conventicle took their place beside parish church and cathedral. Bishops, vestments, liturgy, at last the whole Establishment disappeared, and there came to be thousands of men who, like Pepys, saw a church service with its "singing men" for the first time after the Restoration. One section of the people in short had triumphed over another. Many of them, like Blood, actually entered into their enemies' inheritance and seemed likely to found a new dominant caste. Nor was the effect confined to England. That land where Puritanism had taken refuge across the sea, New England, felt the impulse no less strongly. The current of emigration which some years before had flowed so strongly toward the new world was checked and even turned back. With the clash of arms not a few New World Puritans hastened to the mother country to strike a blow for their cause. Thus the young George Downing, but just graduated from Harvard, entered the Parliamentary army as chaplain, turning thence to diplomacy, and with the overthrow of the Puritans, to Royalism. But many were more scrupulous or less fortunate than he. When 1660 came and this was all reversed, when the old party was in the ascendant, the king on the throne, what would become of them? They had been free to worship in their own way and had been largely exempt even from many forms of taxation. But all this was now suddenly reversed. The Royalists were again in the ascendant, the king was on his throne, Puritanism was discredited, its leaders gone, its organization destroyed. What were men like Blood to do?

Matters moved rapidly in those early months of 1660 as they had need to do if the restoration of the old order was to be accomplished without bloodshed. From the first of January when Monk with his Scotch army entered England on its way to London to the end of May when Charles II rode into Whitehall and his inheritance, great events pressed close on each other's heels. The old Long Parliament was restored to decree its own dissolution and the summoning of its successor. A general election when Royalism was stimulated by the Declaration from Breda promising amnesty and toleration produced the Convention Parliament which under stress of Royal promise and fear of the sectaries recalled the King. A Royal Council was hurriedly brought together, the House of Lords filled up, the Commonwealth officials and officers replaced as rapidly as might be by Royalists and before the end of June administration had been secured for the new monarchy. Thus under the protection of Monk and his trusty regiments, King, Lords, Commons resumed their ancient place, administration came into new hands, the bishops were taking their place in the Lords, the clergy in their parishes as they could and all England seemed well on the way to accept a settlement. Yet great issues remained.

For the moment the restoration had affected only the leaders of the fallen party and the army. The divisions in society and politics remained, and the three classes which had fought the civil war persisted. But their positions were greatly changed. The Anglicans were in power. The Presbyterians for the time shared that power with their rivals, and it was only by their aid the king had been recalled. But the Third Party, or sectaries--Independents, Baptists, Unitarians, Quakers, and the rest, were now hopelessly at sea. Cromwell, under whom they had risen to numbers and influence, was dead, their army was being disbanded, they had little voice in Parliament, and the shadow of persecution was already upon them. Yet though cast down they were not destroyed. They had not time to fully establish themselves as a factor in religion and politics. Their development was checked half way and they had been given no opportunity to work out their salvation unhindered. But they were there and they were to be reckoned with.

For several months, though the Anglicans strove to prevent it, the Presbyterians at least, seemed likely to receive the recognition they had earned by their services to the restoration. In the Parliament they were the most powerful group. In the new Council twelve men of the thirty had borne arms against the late king. Among the royal chaplains ten Presbyterian divines found place. And beside issuing the Declaration from Breda promising liberty of conscience, the king presently called a conference of Anglicans and Presbyterians at the Savoy palace to consider some plan of toleration or comprehension. So far all promised well for an amicable adjustment of relations between the two great parties in church and state. But their very agreement boded ill for the third party. In the days of their prosperity they had suppressed Anglican and Presbyterian alike. Now that these had joined hands the sectaries had little to hope. They had early stirred to meet the danger. While the Convention debated the terms on which the king should return, their deliberations were cut short not less by the declaration of the king, than by the fear of a rising of the republicans and sects. But, as the event proved, it was not in the alliance of the two greater parties their danger lay, for that alliance was of a few days and full of trouble. The Convention was dissolved without the embodiment into legislation of those guarantees which might have made the Presbyterians secure. And before the new House was chosen, or the Savoy Conference held, their cause was hopelessly compromised by the third party with whom, against their will, the Anglicans successfully endeavored to identify them. For in January, 1661, fanaticism broke out in London. A cooper named Venner, a soldier of the old army, sometime conspirator against Cromwell, sometime resident of Salem, in New England, with some three score followers, all of that peculiar millennial sect known as Fifth Monarchy men, rose against the government, and for three days kept the city, the court and the administration in a state of feverish alarm. But the odds against them were too great. They found neither aid nor comfort from outside, and the children of this world triumphed over those who would have restored the rule of the saints under King Jesus.

That rising helped destroy whatever chance the Presbyterians had of holding their strength in the new Parliament, and the House of Commons showed a clear majority of Royalist Anglicans. Hardly had this body begun its deliberations when the Savoy Conference met, and, after some wrangling, dissolved without reaching any agreement. Thence ensued a period of reaction whose results are writ large in religious history to this day, for this was the time when established church and denominations definitely parted company. The dominant party lost no time in destroying the strength of their rivals. The Corporation Act drove the dissenters from those bodies which governed the cities and towns and chose a majority of the Commons. The Act of Uniformity excluded all dissenting ministers from the Church of England. And the restoration of the bishops to the House of Lords, and of its confiscated property to the Church completed the discomfiture of the Presbyterians. These, indeed, suffered most for they had most to lose, but the new policy bore no less hardly on the sectaries. And these, joined by the more extreme Presbyterians, were less inclined to submit to the revived authority in church and state. Many moderate men, indeed, found it in their consciences to conform enough to evade the law. But many more were not able nor inclined to take this course. Deprived of their army, of their political position, of their religious liberty, even at length of their right to petition, in many cases of what they considered their rightful property, with no outlet for their opinions in Parliament, the case seemed hopeless enough. Some recanted, the most began a long and honorable course of silent endurance of their persecution. And some, of bolder spirit, turned to darker ways.

These events in England had their counterpart in Scotland and Ireland. In the former a Royalist Parliament, intoxicated with power, a source, however, from which its name of the Drunken Parliament was not derived, repealed at one stroke all the acts of the preceding twenty-eight years, and abolished that document so dear to Presbyterian hearts, the Solemn League and Covenant. In the latter a Court of Claims was established to unravel the intricacies of the interminable land question and restore the estates, as far as possible, to their former owners. In all three kingdoms the dispossessed party was thrown into a ferment of discontent over this sudden reversal of their fortunes. The soldiers of the old army were especially enraged. They felt that they had lost by political trickery what had been won in fair fight. By a sudden turn of fortune's wheel, a bit of legal chicanery, their old enemy, the Parliament, had caught them off their guard and overthrown them. Their place had been taken by the ungodly, the Arminian and the idol-worshipper. And these brethren of the Covenant and the sword were not men to rest quietly under such wrongs. Many, indeed, turned aside from politics and war, taking no further part in public affairs. But not a few declared they would not be led into an Egyptian bondage under a new Pharaoh. They would not be turned adrift by the empty vote of a packed Parliament, whence they had been excluded. Those whom they had fairly fought and fairly conquered, those who had followed Mammon, and bowed the knee to Baal, the worshippers of Rimmon, the doers of abominations, the servants of the Scarlet Woman who sits on the Seven Hills, were these to enter upon that fair inheritance, so lately in the hands of the Saints, without a blow? Surely the Lord was on the side of His servants, as he had shown them by so many signal instances of His favour, at Naseby, at Marston Moor, at Dunbar and Worcester, and a hundred fights beside, in the great days gone by. Was He to look on unmoved? Had He abandoned them to their enemies? Was this not rather a device of His to try their constancy and courage? Was it not their part as brave and righteous men to strike another blow for the faith that was in them and the heritage He had put in their hands? A bold stroke had once prevailed against their oppressors. Might not another restore the Covenant and give back to the afflicted saints their inheritance and the spoil of the Philistines? A new king was on the throne who knew not Joseph. But his rule was recent, his hold precarious. His father had been overthrown though all the wealth and power of the mighty had been on his side. Now the land was honeycombed with sedition, there were thousands of bold spirits accustomed to discipline and the use of arms, and thousands more of the faithful with money and sympathy to aid in the great work of destroying the rule of grasping bishops and a Catholic king.

Thus while the regicides fled from the wrath of the new government, or suffered the penalty of their deeds in London, while Parliament was driving Nonconformity from church and state and the greater part of the dispossessed party girded itself to endure the impending persecution, while new-fledged royalty flaunted its licentiousness in Whitehall, earnest and vindictive men plotted against the new order in England, in Ireland and Scotland and Wales, in London itself. Emissaries made their way by night along unfrequented roads, or stole from village to village in tiny fishing boats, or crept through narrow lanes of the old City and its environs, to cheer the secret and unlawful conventicles of Baptist and Quaker, Presbyterian and Congregationalist, Unitarian and Fifth Monarchist, with hopes and plans for the resurrection of the Kingdom of the Righteous. The old Republicans were approached, the holders of land taken in the recent troubles, the members of the old Rump Parliament, the exiles abroad, the officers and soldiers of the old army at home. Proclamations were printed promising all things to all men, but chiefly toleration and lighter taxes. Tracts were smuggled from London or Holland full of the language of prophecy. The new monarchy had been measured and found wanting, the old Covenant was about to rise, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, the heavens were full of signs and portents, and prodigies everywhere indicated the fall of king and bishop. A new Armageddon was at hand, the rule of King Jesus was to be restored, "even by Blood." Everywhere arms were gathered and men enlisted against that great day. A council of conspirators directed the activities of its agents from London and communicated with other groups throughout the three kingdoms and with the refugees on the Continent. In such wise were woven the threads of conspiracy against restored royalty and the pride of the Anglicans, widely but loosely.

And everywhere, meanwhile, the government followed close on the trail of the conspirators and kept in close touch with the elements of discontent. Everywhere spies and informers were enlisted, even from the ranks of conspiracy itself, to discover and also, it was whispered, to foment conspiracy where none existed, that dangerous men might be drawn in and seized. From every county justices and deputy lieutenants poured a steady stream of prisoners and information into the hands of the administration. Under the careful direction of the Lord General the militia was reorganized, former strongholds weakened or destroyed, troops moved here and there, suspicious persons seized and incipient disturbance vigorously repressed. So for three years this underground warfare went on. Late in 1661 the government found or professed to find, a clue to conspiracy and exploited its discovery in Parliament to secure the act against corporations. Again in 1662 another, and perhaps more real danger was brought to light, and again this was used to pass the Act of Uniformity, a measure against dissenting ministers which drove some eighteen hundred from the Church and rendered comprehension finally impossible. Some of the alleged conspirators were hanged, some were used to get more information, but for the most part the leaders remained unknown, or escaped. Thus far the disaffected had played into the hands of their bitterest enemies, and had accomplished little more than furnish a much desired excuse for legislation to destroy Nonconformity root and branch. If insurrection had been planned at all it had been thwarted, and turned against its authors and their party. So useful had it been to the Anglicans, indeed, that it was more than hinted that the so-called conspiracies were in fact engineered by them for use in Parliament.

This was not quite true. Conspiracy there had been, and was, as events were to prove. The increasing persecution of Dissent, the increasing weight of taxation, the increasing luxury of the court and the exactions of the church, provided an increasing basis of discontent, deep and far-reaching. And the administration learned presently that the plot they had so diligently pursued and exploited had a very real existence. By 1663 it was a wide spread and apparently well-organized conspiracy. It included the discontented Nonconformists of the west and north of England, the Scotch Covenanters, the dispossessed Cromwellians in Ireland, the London conventiclers and the Continental refugees. A central Committee of Six, chiefly old army officers, sat in London, whence they directed the movement from their hiding places in those little known regions of the metropolis where even the King's writ ran with difficulty or not at all. The scheme contemplated the surprise and seizure of Whitehall and the Tower, the capture of the King and his brother, of the Chancellor, and the Lord General. Simultaneous risings were to take place throughout the country whereby the local authorities were to be overpowered, the Guards, if possible, decoyed away from the capital, and the central administration paralyzed and destroyed. The forces of the conspirators, under their former leaders, especially General Ludlow, were to unite, march on London, and there either exact terms from the captive King or set up another Republic, but in any event relieve the people from the burdens of religious and financial oppression. Such was the dream of the discontented, which, transformed into action might well have plunged England again into the throes of civil war.