civil. Their resistance and their trouble, together with the perplexity

of magistrates respecting them, are illustrated in the following extract of a letter written from Bristol, in the autumn of 1660:--"Be pleased to take notice that no Quaker, or rarely any Anabaptist, will take these oaths; so that the said oaths are refused by many hundreds of their judgment, being persons of very dangerous principles, and great enemies in this city to His Majesty's royal person, government, and restoration--and some of them [are] petitioners to bring his martyred Majesty, of blessed memory, to his trial,--and will undoubtedly fly out again and kick up the heel against his sovereign authority, should it be in their power, therefore [they] are not worthy His Majesty's protection, refusing to swear loyalty to him. Besides, their said refusal, if suspended or connived at, will cause a general discontent and repining in, by those His Majesty's loyal subjects who have already taken, or are to take the said oaths; for 'tis already the language of many of them, and these not a few, 'Why should any oaths be imposed on or required of us? and the Quakers, Anabaptists, and others, His Majesty's enemies, be gratified with a suspension thereof.' And 'tis the answer of others, 'If the Quakers, Anabaptists, and others of dangerous practices and principles do, or are enforced to, take the said oaths, then will we. In the interim, we want the same liberty which is to them afforded.'" The writer next asks instructions to guide him in his perplexity. "Sir," he continues, "these, I had almost said, monsters of men with us are, yea more numerous than in all the West of England; and here they all centre and have their meetings, at all seasons till 9 of the clock at night, and later;--sometimes about 1,000 or 1,200 at a time,--to the great affrightening of this city as to what will be consequent thereof if not restrained, or should a suspension of the said oaths be to them given."[176]

[Sidenote: PERSECUTION.]

[Sidenote: 1660.]

Many persons had to suffer severely. In Wales the fire was first kindled, and burnt most fiercely. Before the King landed at Dover the Episcopalians in the Principality busied themselves in persecuting Quakers. Several Nonconformists were imprisoned at Caermarthen, and the gaol at Montgomery was so filled with them that the gaoler had to pack them into garrets. Pitiful stories, with some exaggerations perhaps, are told of sufferers in the May and June of 1660, who were dragged out of their beds to prison, or like stray cattle driven into parish pounds, or led in chains to the Quarter Sessions.[177] If violence with so wide a sweep did not rage on our side the border, the confessors for conscience' sake in England were nevertheless numerous enough. In that transitional state of things all sorts of irregular proceedings took place. Even Philip Henry could not preach in quiet, but was presented in the month of September, at the Flint assizes, for not reading the Common Prayer. John Howe also fell into trouble for what he had said in the pulpit; and it is not generally remembered that long before the Uniformity, the Conventicle, and the Five Mile Acts were passed, John Bunyan was cast into Bedford gaol.[178] In England, as well as in Wales, many Quakers and Anabaptists suffered a loathsome imprisonment. If, in London, Nonconformity was strong, in the provinces it was rapidly becoming otherwise. Bishops were busy; Episcopalian Rectors were being restored, and Loyal Corporations were getting more and more noisy in their demonstrations of zeal for Church and Crown. Grey-headed squires, and nobles in Cavalier plumes and doublets, with their courtly dames in rustling silks, and with their children in bright-coloured sashes, and attended by servants clothed in gay liveries, sat with joy before the crackling yule log that merry Christmas; and when the boar's head and the roast beef had been despatched, they related stories of their virtuous and devout King,[179] and told their sons and daughters of the gay doings and merry games of their own young days. The mistletoe hanging in the hall corresponded with the holly suspended in the Church; and the service, which members of these merry parties had heard that Christmas morning for the first time, as they sat in the old family pew, sustained worthy association with the pleasant festivities of the afternoon and evening. Puritanism had been to them a religion of restraint, and now the return of Bishops and Prayer Books brought freedom and joy. Of course there were sentiments of a far higher order cherished at that season, but the existence of much of the humbler feeling now described may be taken for granted.

[Sidenote: REACTION AGAINST PURITANISM.]

Other ceremonies besides those immediately connected with Christmas time appeared that winter. Newspaper letters from Exeter, dated the 29th of December, 1660, announced the joyful welcome of Dr. Gauden, the new Bishop of the diocese, who had been met by most of the gentry, to the number of one hundred and twenty, and escorted by the High Sheriff, with nearly five times as many horse; the Mayor and Aldermen in scarlet and fur, waiting on His Lordship, amidst the ringing of bells. A week later, Londoners saw, in the public prints, a glowing account of a public Episcopalian christening at Dover--a most significant service in a town where Anabaptists were numerous. So great a concourse, it is reported, had seldom been seen, the Mayor being obliged to make way that the children might reach the font, which had not been used for nearly twenty years, and had now, by the care and prudence of the Churchwardens, been set up for this solemnity.

[Sidenote: 1660.]

The reaction against the Puritanism of the Commonwealth, visible in so many ways, received a fresh impulse from the insurrection of Venner and his associates. This fanatical wine-cooper had been before laying plots: in the month of April, 1657, he and his confederates, after conferring at a Meeting House in Swan Alley, had assembled on Mile End Green, when Cromwell sent a troop of horse, and seized him, with twenty other ringleaders. The cause of Fifth Monarchism, during the season of confusion consequent upon the resignation of the Protector Richard, reappeared, and made itself heard through its irrepressibly loquacious advocates, Rogers and Feake. The revival of their tenets, in connection with a renewal of pure Republicanism under Sir Henry Vane and his party, was of short duration; and there is nothing noticeable, in connection with this form of religious sentiment, until Venner's second outbreak.

Instead of narrating that incident in words of my own, I shall simply use a letter, written respecting it in the midst of the excitement. The circumstances mentioned at the close, although below the dignity of history, are too amusing to be omitted.

[Sidenote: VENNER'S INSURRECTION.]

[Sidenote: 1661.]

The writer is Sir John Finch; he directs his letter to Lord Conway:--"My dearest and best Lord,--As for news, my last acquainted you with the Duchess of York's coming to Court. I forgot to tell you that the child was christened Charles, and created Duke of Cambridge, and that His Majesty in person and the Duke of Albemarle were godfathers, and my Lady of Ormond personated the Queen for godmother. Our great news here is, that since His Majesty's departure to Portsmouth there have been two great alarms. Upon Sunday night about fifty Fifth Monarchy men, at ten o'clock, came to Mr. Johnson, a bookseller at the north gate of St. Paul's, and there demanded the keys of the Church, which he either not having, or refusing, they broke open the door, and, setting their sentries, examined the passengers who they were for, and one with a lantern replying that he was for King Charles, they answered that they were for King Jesus, and shot him through the head, where he lay as a spectacle all the next day. This gave the alarm to the mainguard at the Exchange, who sent four files of musketeers to reduce them. But the Fifth Monarchy men made them run, which so terrified the City, that the Lord Mayor in person came with his troop to reduce them. Before he arrived they drew off, and at Aldersgate forced the constable to open the gate, and so marched through Whitecross Street, where they killed another constable, and so went into the woods near Highgate, where being almost famished, on Wednesday morning, about five of the clock, fell again into the City, and, with a mad courage, fell upon the guard and beat them, which put the City into such confusion, that the King's Life and all the City regiments advanced against them. These forty men beat the Life Guard and a whole regiment for half an hour's time. They refused all quarter; but at length, Venner, their captain, a wine-cooper, after he had received three shots, was taken, and nine more, and twenty slain. Six got into a house, and refusing quarter, and with their blunderbusses defending themselves, were slain. The Duke and the Duke of Albemarle, with 700 horse, fell into the City; but all was over before they came. This, my Lord, is strange, that all that are alive, being maimed, not one person will confess anything concerning their accomplices, crying that they will not betray the servants of the Lord Jesus to the kings of the earth. Ludlow Major is committed close to the Tower for saying he would kill the King. These things have produced their effects: that no man shall have any arms that are not registered; that no man shall live in the City that takes not the Oath of Allegiance; that no person of any sect shall, out of his own house, exercise religious duties, nor admit any into his house under penalty of arrest, which troubles the Quakers and Anabaptists, who profess they knew not of this last business. And, besides all this, His Majesty is resolved to raise a new Army, and the general is not known; but I believe it will be the Duke of Albemarle, rather than the Duke of York or Prince Rupert, in regard he hath the office by patent, and in regard of his eminent services. The Duke took it very unkind of my Lord Chamberlain that upon information of Prince Rupert's attendants, his Lordship, in the Duke's absence, searched his cellar for gunpowder, it being under the King's seat at the Cockpit, and the Duke with his own hands so cudgelled the informer that he hath almost maimed him; and Prince Rupert assured the Duke that he so resented it, that he was not content to put away his servant, but offered to fight any person that set the design on foot. However, the business is not made up, though my Lord Chamberlain told the Duke he had done over hastily. The Princess Henrietta is sick of the measles on shipboard; but out of danger of wind. Dr. Frasier hath let her blood; I hope with better success than the rest of the royal blood have had."[180]

[Sidenote: VENNER'S INSURRECTION.]

It may be mentioned, that this insurrection had been hatched at the same place as the former one; and the conspirators are said to have marched first to Rogers' old quarters at St. Thomas the Apostle, to join nine of the party, and thence to Whitecross Street. It came as the expiring flash of a fanatical creed, which had blended itself with Puritanism, greatly to the detriment of the latter; and, dying out rather slowly, it left behind the quiet element of Millenarianism, which, at the present day, we find largely infused into the tenets of a considerable class of Christians.

Venner's explosion occurred on the 6th of January; but it is remarkable, that four days before that date, an order was issued from Council, forbidding the meetings of Anabaptists, Quakers, and other sectaries, in large numbers, and at unusual times, and restricting their assembling to their own parishes. Rumours of plots are alleged as reasons for the decision thus adopted upon the 2nd of January; but that decision plainly shows, that ere the insane enthusiasts of Coleman Street had fired a shot, whatever liberty had been conceded at Worcester House was now to suffer great abridgment. Venner's insurrection could not be the cause of curtailing the liberty of the subject at that moment, though it proved a plausible argument for the Proclamation which followed. The Proclamation appeared four days after the riot; yet the terms of the document agree so closely with those employed in the records of Council, as to indicate that, with the exception of a reference to the disturbance of the peace by bloodshed and murder, and some mention of Fifth Monarchy men, little or no alteration could have been made in the phraseology. All meetings, except those held in parochial churches and chapels, or in private houses by the inhabitants, were declared seditious, and were peremptorily forbidden.[181]

[Sidenote: 1661.]

Against Venner's insurrection the Independents protested; disowning "the principles of a Fifth Monarchy, or the personal reign of King Jesus on earth, as dishonourable to him and prejudicial to His Church," and abhorring "the propagating this or any other opinion by force or blood."[182] The Baptists declared their obedience to Government, and expressed a hope that they might enjoy what had been granted by His Majesty's Declaration, and be protected, like other subjects, from injury and violence.[183] The Quakers also expressed their loyalty; praying that their meetings might not be broken up, and that their imprisoned members might be set at liberty. But these addresses neither blunted the edge of Royal displeasure, nor removed the public suspicion that many Nonconformists sympathized with the Fifth Monarchists. Peaceable subjects, therefore, suffered insult and interruption. Horns were blown at the doors of their houses, and stones were thrown at them whilst they were at prayer; also, magistrates enforced the Oath of Allegiance, which many Nonconformists, on different grounds, declined to take.[184]

[Sidenote: BAXTER.]

[Sidenote: 1661.]

Amongst other methods of annoyance was that of opening suspected letters--a practice of which numerous illustrations will presently appear. "I wrote a letter at this time," says Richard Baxter, "to my mother-in-law, containing nothing but our usual matter. Even encouragements to her in her age and weakness, fetched from the nearness of her rest, together with the report of the news, and some sharp and vehement words against the rebels. By the means of Sir John Packington, or his soldiers, the post was searched, and my letter intercepted, opened, and revised, and by Sir John sent up to London to the Bishop and the Lord Chancellor, so that it was a wonder, that having read it, they were not ashamed to send it up; but joyful would they have been, could they but have found a word in it which could possibly have been distorted to an evil sense, that malice might have had its prey. I went to the Lord Chancellor and complained of this usage, and that I had not the common liberty of a subject, to converse by letters with my own family. He disowned it, and blamed men's rashness, but excused it from the distempers of the times; and he and the Bishops confessed they had seen the letter, and there was nothing in it but what was good and pious. And two days after came the Lord Windsor, Lord-Lieutenant of the County, and Governor of Jamaica, with Sir Charles Littleton, the King's cupbearer, to bring me my letter again to my lodgings; and the Lord Windsor told me, the Lord Chancellor appointed him to do it. After some expression of my sense of the abuse, I thanked him for his great civility and favour. _But I saw how far that sort of men were to be trusted._"[185]