Part 292

On Tuesday, the 30th of January, the theory of these Resolutions became more visibly a fact. On the afternoon of that day, while the crowd that had seen the execution in front of Whitehall were still lingering round the scaffold, the Commons passed an Act 'prohibiting the proclaiming of any person to be King of England or Ireland, or the dominions thereof.' It was thus declared that Kingship in England had died with Charles. But what of the House of Peers? It was significant that on the same fatal day the Commons revived their three theoretical resolutions of the 4th, and ordered them to be printed. The wretched little rag of a House might then have known its doom. But it took a week more to convince them." On the 6th of February it was resolved by the House of Commons, "'That the House of Peers in Parliament is useless and dangerous, and ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Next day, February 7, after another long debate, it was further resolved 'That it hath been found by experience, and this House doth declare, that the office of a King in this realm, and to have the power thereof in any single person, is unnecessary, burdensome, and dangerous to the liberty, safety, and public interest of the People of this nation, and therefore ought to be abolished, and that an Act be brought in to that purpose.' Not till after some weeks were these Acts deliberately passed after the customary three readings. The delay, however, was matter of mere Parliamentary form. Theoretically a Republic since January 4, 1648-9, and visibly a Republic from the day of Charles's death, England was a Republic absolutely and in every sense from February 7, 1648-9." For the administration of the government of the republican Commonwealth, the Commons resolved, on the 7th of February, that a Council of State be erected; to consist of not more than forty persons. On the 13th, Instructions to the intended Council of State were reported and agreed to, "these Instructions conferring almost plenary powers, but limiting the duration of the Council to one year." On the 14th and 15th forty-one persons were appointed to be members of the Council, Fairfax, Cromwell, Vane, St. John, Whitlocke, Henry Marten, and Colonels Hutchinson and Ludlow being in the number; nine to constitute a quorum, and no permanent President to be chosen.

_D. Masson, Life of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1._

ALSO IN: _J. Lingard, History of England, volume. 10, chapter 5._

_A. Bisset, Omitted Chapters of History of England, chapter 1._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (FEBRUARY). The Eikon Basilike.

"A book, published with great secrecy, and in very mysterious circumstances, February 9, 1648-9, exactly ten days after the late King's death, had done much to increase the Royalist enthusiasm.

'Eikon Basilike: The True Portraicture of His Sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings.—Romans viii. More than conquerour, &c.—Bona agere et mala pati Regium est. MDCXLVIII': such was the title-page of this volume (of 269 pages of text, in small octavo), destined by fate, rather than by merit, to be one of the most famous books of the world. … The book, so elaborately prepared and heralded, consists of twenty-eight successive chapters, purporting to have been written by the late King, and to be the essence of his spiritual autobiography in the last years of his life. Each chapter, with scarcely an exception, begins with a little narrative, or generally rather with reflections and meditations on some passage of the King's life the narrative of which is supposed to be unnecessary, and ends with a prayer in italics appropriate to the circumstances remembered. … Save for a few … passages … , the pathos of which lies in the situation they represent, the Eikon Basilike is a rather dull performance, in third-rate rhetoric, modulated after the Liturgy; and without incision, point, or the least shred of real information as to facts. But O what a reception it had! Copies of it ran about instantaneously, and were read with sobs and tears. It was in vain that Parliament, March 16, gave orders for seizing the book. It was reprinted at once in various forms, to supply the constant demand—which was not satisfied, it is said, with less than fifty editions within a single year; it became a very Bible in English Royalist households. … By means of this book, in fact, acting on the state of sentiment which it fitted, there was established, within a few weeks after the death of Charles I., that marvellous worship of his memory, that passionate recollection of him as the perfect man and the perfect king, the saint, the martyr, the all but Christ on earth again, which persisted till the other day as a positive religious cultus of the English mind, and still lingers in certain quarters."

_D. Masson, Life and Times of John Milton, volume 4, book 1, chapter 1._

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"I struggled through the Eikon Basilike yesterday; one of the paltriest pieces of vapid, shovel-hatted, clear-starched, immaculate falsity and cant I have ever read. It is to me an amazement how any mortal could ever have taken that for a genuine book of King Charles's. Nothing but a surpliced Pharisee, sitting at his ease afar off, could have got up such a set of meditations. It got Parson Gauden [John Gauden, Bishop of Exeter and Worcester, successively, after the Restoration, and who is believed to have been the author of the Eikon Basilike] a bishopric."

_T. Carlyle, History of his Life in London, by Froude, volume 1, chapter 7, November 26, 1840._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649 (APRIL-MAY). Mutiny of the Levellers.

See LEVELLERS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1649-1650. Cromwell's campaign in Ireland.

See IRELAND: A. D. 1649-1650.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (JULY). Charles II. proclaimed King in Scotland.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (MARCH-JULY).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER). War with the Scots and Cromwell's victory at Dunbar.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1650 (SEPTEMBER).

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651 (SEPTEMBER). The Scots and Charles II. overthrown at Worcester.

See SCOTLAND: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1653. The Army and the Rump.

"'Now that the King is dead and his son defeated,' Cromwell said gravely to the Parliament, 'I think it necessary to come to a settlement.' But the settlement which had been promised after Naseby was still as distant as ever after Worcester. The bill for dissolving the present Parliament, though Cromwell pressed it in person, was only passed, after bitter opposition, by a majority of two; and even this success had been purchased by a compromise which permitted the House to sit for three years more. Internal affairs were simply at a dead lock. … The one remedy for all this was, as the army saw, the assembly of a new and complete Parliament in place of the mere 'rump' of the old; but this was the one measure which the House was resolute to avert. Vane spurred it to a new activity. … But it was necessary for Vane's purposes not only to show the energy of the Parliament, but to free it from the control of the army. His aim was to raise in the navy a force devoted to the House, and to eclipse the glories of Dunbar and Worcester by yet greater triumphs at sea. With this view the quarrel with Holland had been carefully nursed. … The army hardly needed the warning conveyed by the introduction of a bill for its disbanding to understand the new policy of the Parliament. … The army petitioned not only for reform in Church and State, but for an explicit declaration that the House would bring its proceedings to a close. The Petition forced the House to discuss a bill for 'a New Representative,' but the discussion soon brought out the resolve of the sitting members to continue as a part of the coming Parliament without re-election. The officers, irritated by such a claim, demanded in conference after conference an immediate dissolution, and the House as resolutely refused. In ominous words Cromwell supported the demands of the army. 'As for the members of this Parliament, the army begins to take them in disgust. I would it did so with less reason.' … Not only were the existing members to continue as members of the New Parliament, depriving the places they represented of their right of choosing representatives, but they were to constitute a Committee of Revision, to determine the validity of each election, and the fitness of the members returned. A conference took place [April 19, 1653] between the leaders of the Commons and the officers of the army. … The conference was adjourned till the next morning, on an understanding that no decisive step should be taken; but it had no sooner reassembled, than the absence of the leading members confirmed the news that Vane was fast pressing the bill for a new Representative through the House. 'It is contrary to common honesty,' Cromwell angrily broke out; and, quitting Whitehall, he summoned a company of musketeers to follow him as far as the door of the House of Commons."

_J. R Green, Short History of England, chapter 8, section 9._

ALSO IN: _J. Forster, Statesmen of the Commonwealth: Cromwell._

_J. A. Picton, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 22._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1651-1672. The Navigation Acts and the American colonies.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1651-1672; also, NAVIGATION LAWS.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1652-1654. War with the Dutch Republic.

"After the death of William, Prince of Orange, which was attended with the depression of his party and the triumph of the Dutch republicans [see NETHERLANDS: A. D. 1647-1650], the Parliament thought that the time was now favourable for cementing a closer confederacy with the states. St. John, chief justice, who was sent over to the Hague, had entertained the idea of forming a kind of coalition between the two republics, which would have rendered their interests totally inseparable; … but the states, who were unwilling to form a nearer confederacy with a government whose measures were so obnoxious, and whose situation seemed so precarious, offered only to renew 'the former alliances with England; and the haughty St. John, disgusted with this disappointment, as well as incensed at many affronts which had been offered him, with impunity, by the retainers of the Palatine and Orange families, and indeed by the populace in general, returned into England and endeavoured to foment a quarrel between the republics. …. There were several motives which at this time induced the English Parliament to embrace hostile measures. Many of the members thought that a foreign war would serve as a pretence for continuing the same Parliament, and delaying the new model of a representative, with which the nation had so long been flattered. Others hoped that the war would furnish a reason for maintaining, some time longer, that numerous standing army which was so much complained of. On the other hand, some, who dreaded the increasing power of Cromwell, expected that the great expense of naval armaments would prove a motive for diminishing the military establishment. To divert the attention of the public from domestic quarrels towards foreign transactions, seemed, in the present disposition of men's minds, to be good policy. … All these views, enforced by the violent spirit of St. John, who had great influence over Cromwell, determined the Parliament to change the purposed alliance into a furious war against the United Provinces. To cover these hostile intentions, the Parliament, under pretence of providing for the interests of commerce, embraced such measures as they knew would give disgust to the states. They framed the famous act of navigation, which prohibited all nations from importing into England in their bottoms any commodity which was not the growth and manufacture of their own country. … The minds of men in both states were every day more irritated against each other; and it was not long before these humours broke forth into action."

_D. Hume, History of England, chapter 60 (volume 5)._

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"The negotiations … were still pending when Blake, meeting Van Tromp's fleet in the Downs, in vain summoned the Dutch Admiral to lower his flag. A battle was the consequence, which led to a declaration of war on the 8th of July (1652). The maritime success of England was chiefly due to the genius of Blake, who having hitherto served upon shore, now turned his whole attention to the navy. A series of bloody fights took place between the two nations. For some time the fortunes of the war seemed undecided. Van Tromp, defeated by Blake, had to yield the command to De Ruyter. De Ruyter in his turn was displaced to give way again to his greater rival. Van Tromp was reinstated in command. A victory over Blake off the Naze (November 28) enabled him to cruise in the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, implying that he had swept the English from the seas. But the year 1653 again saw Blake able to fight a drawn battle of two days' duration between Portland and La Hogue; while at length, on the 2d and 3d of June, a decisive engagement was fought off the North Foreland, in which Monk and Deane, supported by Blake, completely defeated the Dutch Admiral, who, as a last resource, tried in vain to blow up his own ship, and then retreated to the Dutch coast, leaving eleven ships in the hands of the English. In the next month, another victory on the part of Blake, accompanied by the death of the great Dutch Admiral, completed the ruin of the naval power of Holland. The States were driven to treat. In 1654 the treaty was signed, in which Denmark, the Hanseatic towns, and the Swiss provinces were included. … The Dutch acknowledged the supremacy of the English flag in the British seas; they consented to the Navigation Act."

_J. F. Bright, History of England, period 2, page 701._

ALSO IN: _W. H. Dixon, Robert Blake, Admiral and General at Sea, chapters 6-7._

_D. Hannay, Admiral Blake, chapters 6-7._

_J. Campbell, Naval History of Great Britain, chapter 15 (volume 2)._

_G. Penn, Memorials of Sir William Penn, chapter 4._

_J. Corbett, Monk, chapter 7._

_J. Geddes, History of the Administration of John De Witt, volume 1, books 4-5._

See, also, NAVIGATION LAWS, ENGLISH: A. D. 1651.

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (APRIL). Cromwell's expulsion of the Rump.

"In plain black clothes and gray worsted stockings, the Lord-General came in quietly and took his seat [April 20], as Vane was pressing the House to pass the dissolution Bill without delay and without the customary forms. He beckoned to Harrison and told him that the Parliament was ripe for dissolution, and he must do it. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'the work is very great and dangerous.'—'You say well,' said the general, and thereupon sat still for about a quarter of an hour. Vane sat down, and the Speaker was putting the question for passing the Bill. Then said Cromwell to Harrison again, 'This is the time; I must do it.' He rose up, put off his hat, and spoke. Beginning moderately and respectfully, he presently changed his style, told them of their injustice, delays of justice, self interest, and other faults; charging them not to have a heart to do anything for the public good, to have espoused the corrupt interest of Presbytery and the lawyers, who were the supporters of tyranny and oppression, accusing them of an intention to perpetuate themselves in power. And rising into passion, 'as if he were distracted,' he told them that the Lord had done with them, and had chosen other instruments for the carrying on His work that were worthy. Sir Peter Wentworth rose to complain of such language in Parliament, coming from their own trusted servant. Roused to fury by the interruption, Cromwell left his seat, clapped on his hat, walked up and down the floor of the House, stamping with his feet, and cried out, 'You are no Parliament, I say you are no Parliament. Come, come, we have had enough of this; I will put an end to your prating. Call them in!' Twenty or thirty musketeers under Colonel Worsley marched in onto the floor of the House. The rest of the guard were placed at the door and in the lobby. Vane from his place cried out, 'This is not honest, yea, it is against morality and common honesty.' Cromwell, who evidently regarded Vane as the breaker of the supposed agreement, turned on him with a loud voice, crying, 'O Sir Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane, the Lord deliver me from Sir Henry Vane.' Then looking upon one of the members, he said, 'There sits a drunkard;' to another he said, 'Some of you are unjust, corrupt persons, and scandalous to the profession of the Gospel.' 'Some are whoremasters,' he said, looking at Wentworth and Marten. Going up to the table, he said, 'What shall we do with this Bauble? Here, take it away!' and gave it to a musketeer. 'Fetch him down,' he cried to Harrison, pointing to the Speaker. Lenthall sat still, and refused to come down unless by force. 'Sir,' said Harrison, 'I will lend you my hand,' and putting his hand within his, the Speaker came down. Algernon Sidney sat still in his place. 'Put him out,' said Cromwell. And Harrison and Worsley put their hands on his shoulders, and he rose and went out. The members went out, fifty-three in all, Cromwell still calling aloud. To Vane he said that he might have prevented this; but that he was a juggler and had not common honesty. 'It is you,' he said, as they passed him, 'that have forced me to do this, for I have sought the Lord night and day, that He would rather slay me than put me on the doing of this work.' He snatched the Bill of dissolution from the hand of the clerk, put it under his cloak, seized on the records, ordered the guard to clear the House of all members, and to have the door locked, and went away to Whitehall. Such is one of the most famous scenes in our history, that which of all other things has most heavily weighed on the fame of Cromwell. In truth it is a matter of no small complexity, which neither constitutional eloquence nor boisterous sarcasm has quite adequately unravelled. … In strict constitutional right the House was no more the Parliament than Cromwell was the king. A House of Commons, which had executed the king, abolished the Lords, approved the 'coup d'état' of Pride, and by successive proscriptions had reduced itself to a few score of extreme partisans, had no legal title to the name of Parliament. The junto which held to Vane was not more numerous than the junto which held to Cromwell; they had far less public support; nor had their services to the Cause been so great. {886} In closing the House, the Lord-General had used his office of Commander-in-Chief to anticipate one 'coup d'état' by another. Had he been ten minutes late, Vane would himself have dissolved the House; snapping a vote which would give his faction a legal ascendancy. Yet, after all, the fact remains that Vane and the remnant of the famous Long Parliament had that 'scintilla juris,' as lawyers call it, that semblance of legal right, which counts for so much in things political."

_F. Harrison, Oliver Cromwell, chapter 10._

ALSO IN: _J. K. Hosmer, Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, part 3, chapter 17._

_F. P. Guizot, History of Oliver Cromwell, book 4 (volume l)._

_L. von Ranke, History of England, 17th century, book 11, chapter 5 (volume 3)._

_W. Godwin, History of the Commonwealth, volume 3, chapters 27-29._

ENGLAND: A. D. 1653 (JUNE-DECEMBER). The Barebones, or Little Parliament.