To SUMMONS FORAS MUCH as, upon the dissolution of the late Parliament, it became necessary, that the peace, safety and good government of this Commonwealth should be provided for: And in order thereunto, divers persons fearing God, and of approved fidelity and honesty, are, by myself with the advice of my Council of Officers, nominated; to whom the great charge and trust of so weighty affairs is to be committed: And having good assurance of your love to, and courage for, God and the interest of His Cause, and of the good of the people of this commonwealth : I, Oliver Cromwell, Captain General and Commander-in-Chief of all the Armies and Forces raised and to be raised within this Commonwealth, do hereby summon and require You, (being one of the Persons nominated) personally to be and appear at the Council-Chamber, commonly known or called by the name of the Council-Chamber in Whitehall, within the City of Westminster, upon the fourth day of July next ensuing the date hereof; Then and there to take upon you the said trust; unto which you are hereby called, and appointed to serve as a member for the county of And hereof you are not to fail. Given under my hand and seal the 6th day of June 1653. OLIVER CROMWELL.* Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 125). [The original summons to Gervase Piggott, M.P. for the County of Nottingham, signed and sealed, is in the Lansdowne MSS. 1236 f. 107. Underwritten is a note by Piggott, "I rather chose to be made a sacrifice than to yield obedience to these commands. GER. PIGOTT," and a second note by Peck the antiquary, "I was told by the Gent. who gave me this original (and who is a person of credit and worth) that these words written by Ger. Pigott were all a flourish, written after the Restoration; the said G. P. complying before as much as anybody. F. PECK." The summons to Jacob Caley, Esq., County Suffolk, is in Sir R. Tangye's Collection.] SPEECH FIRST A HUNDRED-AND-FORTY of these Summonses were issued; and of all the Parties so summoned, 'only two' did not attend.1 Disconsolate Bulstrode says, 'Many of this Assembly being persons of 'fortune and knowledge, it was much wondered-at by some that 'they would, at this Summons, and from such hands, take upon 'them the Supreme Authority of this Nation: considering how 'little right Cromwell and his Officers had to give it, or those 'Gentlemen to take it.' 2 My disconsolate friend, it is a sign that Puritan England in general accepts this action of Cromwell and his Officers, and thanks them for it, in such a case of extremity; saying as audibly as the means permitted: Yea, we did wish it Rather mournful to the disconsolate official mind!-Lord Clarendon again, writing with much latitude, has characterised this Convention as containing in it, 'divers Gentlemen who had estates, and such a proportion of credit' in the world as might give some colour to the business; but consisting on the whole of a very miserable beggarly sort of persons, acquainted with nothing but the art of praying; 'artificers of the meanest trades,' if they even had any trade:—all which the reader shall, if he please, add to the general guano-mountains, and pass on not regarding. so! The undeniable fact is, these men were, as Whitlocke intimates, a quite reputable Assembly; got together by anxious 'consultation of the godly Clergy' and chief Puritan lights in their respective Counties; not without much earnest revision, and solemn consideration in all kinds, on the part of men adequate enough for such a work, and desirous enough to do it well. The List of the Assembly exists; not yet entirely gone dark for mankind. A fair proportion of them still recognisable to mankind. Actual Peers one or two: founders of Peerage Families, two or three, which still exist among us,-Colonel Edward Montague, Colonel Charles Howard, Anthony Ashley Cooper. And better than King's Peers, certain Peers of Nature; whom if not the King and his pasteboard Norroys have had the luck to make Peers of, the living heart of 1[Dr. Gardiner says, "I believe the usual statement_that_two, and only two, members absented themselves, to be founded on a mistake. Two on the list first made up by the officers were not on the final list. I take these to have been Fairfax and another." Commonwealth and Protectorate, ii. 235 note.] 2 Whitlocke, p. 534. 3 Somers Tracts, i. 216. ་ England has since raised to the Peerage, and means to keep there, -Colonel Robert Blake the Sea-King, for one. Known persons,' I do think; 'of approved integrity, men fearing God;' and perhaps not entirely destitute of sense any one of them! Truly it seems rather a distinguished Parliament, even though Mr. Praisegod Barbone, 'the Leather-merchant in Fleet-street,' be, as all mortals must admit, a member of it. The fault, I hope, is forgivable ? Praisegod, though he deals in leather, and has a name which can be misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents; to be himself a man of piety, of understanding and weight, and even of considerable private capital, my witty flunkey friends! We will leave Praisegod to do the best he can, I think.-And old Francis Rouse is there from Devonshire; once member for Truro; Provost of Eton College; whom by and by they make Speaker;-whose Psalms the Northern Kirks still sing. Richard Mayor of Hursley is there, and even idle Dick Norton; Alexander Jaffray of Aberdeen, Laird Swinton of the College of Justice in Edinburgh; Alderman Ireton, brother of the late Lord Deputy, colleague of Praisegod in London. In fact, a real Assembly of the Notables in Puritan England; a Parliament, Parliamentum, or real SpeakingApparatus for the now dominant Interest in England, as exact as could well be got,-much more exact, I suppose, than any ballotbox, free hustings or ale-barrel election usually yields. Such is the Assembly called the Little Parliament, and wittily Barebones's Parliament; which meets on the 4th of July. Their witty name survives; but their history is gone all dark; and no man, for the present, has in his head or in his heart the faintest intimation of what they did, or what they aimed to do. They are very dark to us; and will never be illuminated much! Here is one glance of them face to face; here in this Speech of Oliver's, -if we can read it, and listen along with them to it. There is this one glance; and for six generations, we may say, in the English mind there has not been another. Listening from a distance of two Centuries, across the Deathchasms, and howling kingdoms of Decay, it is not easy to catch everything! But let us faithfully do the best we can. Having once packed Dryasdust, and his unedifying cries of "Nonsense! Mere hypocrisy ! Ambitious dupery!" &c. &c. about his business; closed him safe under hatches, and got silence established,-we shall perhaps hear a word or two; have a real glimpse or two of things long vanished; and see for moments this fabulous Barebones's Parliament itself, standing dim in the heart of the extinct Centuries, as a recognisable fact, once flesh and blood, now air and memory; not untragical to us! Read this first, from the old Newspapers; and then the Speech itself, which a laborious Editor has, with all industry, copied and corrected from Two Contemporaneous Reports by different hands, and various editions of these. Note, however: The Italic sentences in brackets, most part of which, and yet perhaps not enough of which I have suppressed, are evidently by an altogether modern hand! July 4th, 1653. This being the day appointed by the Letters 'of Summons from his Excellency the Lord General, for the 'meeting of the Persons called to the Supreme Authority, there 'came about a Hundred-and-twenty of them to the Council 'Chamber in Whitehall. After each person had given-in a Ticket ' of his Name, they all entered the room, and sat down in chairs 'appointed for them, round about the table. Then his Excellency 'the Lord General, standing by the window opposite to the middle 'of the table, and as many of the Officers of the Army as the 'room could well contain, some on his right hand and others on 'his left, and about him,-made the following Speech to the 'Assembly: '1 GENTLEMEN, I suppose the summons that hath been instrumental to bring you hither gives you well to understand the occasion of your being here. Howbeit, I have something 'farther' to impart to you, which is an Instrument drawn up by the consent and advice of the principal officers of the army; 1[For this speech we have, first the copy found amongst Milton's official papers, and printed in the Letters and Papers of State, edited by John Nickolls (referred to in the following pages, for the sake of brevity, as Milton), which Carlyle takes as the basis of his text (see note on p. 303 below); secondly, the version in the Old Parliamentary History, stated to be taken from the original edition printed by W. Dugard and H. Hills"; and, thirdly, a pamphlet printed in 1654, and stated to be a true copy, published for information and to avoid mistakes," E. 813, 13, of which many copies are extant. The text in the Parliamentary History is much more accurately printed, and there are probably some slight emendations by the editor (which we generally find, although to a small extent and judiciously done, in those volumes); but allowing for these, it appears likely that the 1654 pamphlet is "the original edition" from which it is printed, and this view is strengthened by the fact that they both stop at the same point. Therefore, although both texts have been collated, it has not been needful, as a rule, to distinguish them in the notes. For the treatment of the speeches in the present edition, see "Editor's Note," vol. i.] 2["cause," pamphlet.] which is a little (as we conceive) more significant than the letter of summons.1 We have that here to tender you; and somewhat likewise to say farther for our own exoneration; 2 which we hope may be somewhat farther to your satisfaction. 'And' therefore seeing you sit here somewhat uneasily by reason of the scantness of the room, and heat of the weather, I shall contract myself with respect thereunto. We 3 have not thought it amiss a little to remind you of the series of Providences wherein the Lord hath appeared, dispensing wonderful things to these nations from the beginning of our troubles to this very day. If I should look much backward, we might remind you of5 the state of affairs as they were before the Short, and that was the last, Parliament,-in what posture the things of this nation 'then' stood: but they do so well, I presume, occur to all your memories and knowledge, that I shall not need to look so far backward. Nor yet to the beginning of those hostile occasions that were between the King that was, and the then Parliament.7 And indeed should I begin much later, those things that would fall very necessarily before you, would rather be fit 10 for a History than for a verbal discourse at this present. But thus far we may look back. You very well know, after divers turnings of affairs, it pleased God, much about the midst of this war, to winnow (if I may so say) the forces of this nation; 11 and to put them into the hands of other men of other principles than those that did engage at the first. By what ways and means that was brought about, would ask more time than is allotted me to mind you of it.' Indeed there are stories that do recite those transactions, and give you narratives of matters ["that other summons," pamphlet.] 2 exoneration' does not here mean excuse' or 'shifting-away of blame,' but mere laying down of office with due form. 3["I," pamphlet.] 5 "remember," pamphlet.] 7 The Long Parliament. 4[" to mind to you," Milton.] 8" this labour," pamphlet.] 9 ["very maturely" (probably misprint for " very naturally "), Milton.] 10 [Omitted in Milton.] 11 Self-denying Ordinance; beginning of 1645: see vol. i. p. 182 et seq. VOL. II.-18 |