: were got together, was empowered not only to raise moneys for the needful supplies, but also 'to make Laws and Ordinances for the peace and welfare of these Nations;' which latter faculty he is by no means slack to exercise. Of his Sixty Ordinances'1 passed in this manner before the Parliament met, which are well approved of by good judges, we cannot here afford to say much but there is one bearing date as above, which must not be omitted. First Ordinance relating to the Settlement of a Gospel Ministry in this Nation; Ordinance of immense interest to Puritan England at that time. An object which has long been on the anvil, this same 'Settlement;' much laboured at, and striven for, ever since the Long Parliament began: and still, as all confess, no tolerable result has been attained. Yet is it not the greatest object; properly the soul of all these struggles and confused wrestlings and battlings, since we first met here? For the thing men are taught, or get to believe, that is the thing they will infallibly do; the kind of 'Gospel' you settle, kind of 'Ministry' you settle, or do not settle, the root of all is there! Let us see what the Lord Protector can accomplish in this business. Episcopacy being put down, and Presbytery not set up, and Church-Government for years past being all a Church-Anarchy, the business is somewhat difficult to deal with. The Lord Protector, as we find, takes it up in simplicity and integrity, intent upon the real heart or practical outcome of it; and makes a rather satisfactory arrangement. Thirty-eight chosen Men, the acknowledged Flower of English Puritanism, are nominated by this Ordinance of the 20th of March,2 nominated a Supreme Commission for the Trial of Public Preachers. Any person pretending to hold a Church-living, or levy tithes or clergy-dues in England, has first to be tried and approved by these men.3 Thirty-eight, as Scobell teaches us: nine are Laymen, our friend old Francis Rouse at the head of them; twenty-nine are Clergy. His Highness, we find, has not much inquired of what Sect they are; has known them to be Independents, to be Presbyterians, 2 Scobell, ii. 279, 80. I [Scobell gives Eighty-two.] [See History of the English Church during the Civil Wars, etc., ii. 284. Dr. Shaw draws attention to a pamphlet called Inquisitio Anglicana, which, he says, although written from a strongly royalist point of view, throws a strong light" upon the method of certifying ministers to the Commissioners, on the process of personal examination pursued by the latter, their captious questions, unreasonable delays and subterfuges, and-last but greatest of all-upon the active though secret interference of Cromwell with the work of the Commissioners."] one or two of them to be even Anabaptists;-has been careful only of one characteristic, That they were men of wisdom, and had the root of the matter in them. Owen, Goodwin, Sterry, Marshall, Manton, and others not yet quite unknown to men, were among these Clerical Triers: the acknowledged Flower of Spiritual England at that time; and intent, as Öliver himself was, with an awful earnestness, on actually having the Gospel taught to England. This is the First branch or limb of Oliver's scheme for Church-Government, this Ordinance of the 20th March 1653-4. A Second, which completes what little he could do in the matter at present, developed itself in August following. By this August Ordinance, a Body of Commissioners, distinguished Puritan Gentry, distinguished Puritan Clergy, are nominated in all Counties of England, from Fifteen to Thirty in each County; who are to inquire into 'scandalous, ignorant, insufficient,' and otherwise deleterious alarming Ministers of the Gospel; to be a tribunal for judging, for detecting, ejecting them (only in case of ejection, if they have wives, let some small modicum of living be allowed them): and to sit there, judging and sifting, till gradually all is sifted clean, and can be kept clean. This is the Second branch of Oliver's form of Church-Government: this, with the other Ordinance, makes at last a kind of practicable Ecclesiastical Arrangement for England. A very republican arrangement, such as could be made on the sudden; contains in it, however, the germ or essence of all conceivable arrangements, that of worthy men to judge of the worth of men ;--and was found in practice to work well. As indeed, any arrangement will work well, when the men in it have the root of the matter at heart; and, alas, all arrangements, when the men in them have not, work ill and not well! Of the Lay Commissioners, from fifteen to thirty in each County, it is remarked that not a few are political enemies of Oliver's: friends or enemies of his, Oliver hopes they are men of pious probity, and friends to the Gospel in England. My Lord General Fairfax, the Presbyterian; Thomas Scott, of the Long Parliament, the fanatical Republican; Lords Wharton, Say, Sir Arthur Haselrig, Colonel Robert Blake, Mayor of Hursley, Dunch of Pusey, Montague of Hinchinbrook, and other persons known to us,-are of these Commissioners. Richard Baxter, who seldom sat, is one of the 128th August 1654 (Scobell, ii. 335-47). Clergy for his County: he testifies, not in the willingest manner, being no friend to Oliver, That these Commissioners, of one sort and the other, with many faults, did sift out the deleterious alarming Ministers of the Gospel, and put-in the salutary in their stead, with very considerable success,-giving us 'able, serious 'Preachers who lived a godly life, of what tolerable opinion soever they were;' so that many thousands of souls blessed God' for what they had done; and grieved sore when, with the return of the Nell-Gwynn Defender, and his Four Surplices or what remained of them, it was undone again. And so with these Triers and these Expurgators both busy, and a faithful eye to watch their procedure, we will hope the Spiritual Teaching-Apparatus of England stood now on a better footing than usual, and actually succeeded in teaching somewhat. Of the Lord Protector's other Ordinances; Ordinance 'declaring the Law of Treason,' Ordinances of finance, of Amnesty for Scotland, of Union with Scotland, and other important matters, we must say nothing. One elaborate Ordinance, 'in sixty-seven Articles,' for 'Reforming the Court of Chancery,' will be afterwards alluded to with satisfaction, by the Lord Protector himself. Elaborate Ordinance; containing essential improvements, say some;—which has perhaps saved the Court of Chancery from abolition for a while longer! For the rest, 'not above Twohundred Hackney-coaches' shall henceforth be allowed to ply in this Metropolis and six miles round it; the ever-increasing number of them, blocking up our thoroughfares, threatens to become insupportable.2 April 14th, 1654. This day, let it be noted for the sake of poor Editors concerned with undated Letters, and others, his Highness removed from his old Lodging in the Cockpit, into new properly Royal Apartments in Whitehall, now ready for him,3 and lived there henceforth, usually going out to Hampton Court on the Saturday afternoon. He has 'assumed somewhat of the state of a King;' due ceremonial, decent observance beseeming the Protector of the Commonwealth of England; life-guards, ushers, state-coaches, in which my erudite friend knows well what delight this Lord Protector had! Better still, the Lord Protector has concluded good Treaties; received congratulatory Embassies, -France, Spain itself have sent Embassies. Treaty with the 1 Baxter's Life, part i. 72. 2 Scobell, ii. 313; Newspapers (in Cromwelliana, p. 139). Dutch, with Denmark, Sweden, Portugal: all much to our satisfaction. Of the Portuguese Treaty there will perhaps another word be said. As for the Swedish, this, it is well known, was managed by our learned friend Bulstrode at Upsal itself; whose Narrative of that formidable Embassy exists, a really curious lifepicture by our Pedant friend; whose qualities are always fat and good;-whose parting from poor Mrs. Whitlocke at Chelsea, in those interesting circumstances, may be said to resemble that of Hector from Andromache, in some points.2 And now for our Four small Letters, for our First Protectorate Parliament, without waste of another word! LETTER CXCII For my loving Brother Richard Mayor, Esquire, at Hursley, in Hampshire: These DEAR BROTHER, 'Whitehall,' 4th May 1654. I received your loving letter; for which I thank you, and surely were it fit to proceed in that business, you should not in the least have been put upon anything but the trouble; for indeed the land in Essex, with some money in my hand and some other remnants should have gone towards it. But indeed I am so unwilling to be a seeker after the world, 1 Dutch Treaty signed, 5th April 1654; Swedish, 28th April; Portuguese, 10th July: Danish Claims settled, 31st July (Godwin, iv. 49-56). [April 18, his Highness received a deputation from Guildford in Surrey, consisting of the Mayor and four Aldermen, who presented a declaration of their conviction that the Protector had "of constraint" taken the government and that he would uphold religion and justice; and also a petition to be allowed to choose their own minister for the parishes of "Trinity and Maries." To which his Highness replied: "Gentlemen, I have read your paper, wherein what you there express touching my taking of the government upon me, you say what is truth. I did not desire it, nor have I, I am sure, told you so. believe God put it into your hearts; I shall desire your prayers that I may do as you have expressed, for God is my bottom, and in him only do I trust. As for your desire of a minister, I think I have not granted the living away, and upon your making choice of such an one as your paper mentions, I shall take order that you shall have your suit." Several Proceedings, etc., April 20-27, 1654, Burney Newspapers, 46 and E. 227, 27.] [Two other short letters written in March, Supplement Nos. 86, 87.] ما having had so much favour from the Lord in giving me so much Al without seeking; and so unwilling that men should think me so, which they will though you only appear in it (for they will, by one means or other, know it),—that indeed I dare not meddle nor proceed therein. Thus I have told you my plain thoughts. My hearty love I present to you and my sister, my blessing and love to dear Doll and the little one, with love to all. I rest, Your loving brother, OLIVER P.* A 'business' seemingly of making an advantageous purchase of land for Richard; which Mayor will take all the trouble of, and even advance the money for; but which Oliver P., for good reasons given, 'dare not meddle with.' No man can now guess what land it was,-nor need much. In the Pamphletary dustmountains is a confused story of Cornet Joyce's,1 concerning Fawley Park in Hampshire; which, as the dim dateless indications point to the previous winter or summer, and to the Lord General Cromwell' as looking towards that property for his Son Richard, may be the place, for aught we know! The story sets forth, with the usual bewildered vivacity of Joyce: How Joyce, the same who took the King at Holmby, and is grown now a noisy Anabaptist and Lieutenant-Colonel,-how Joyce, I say, was partly minded and fully entitled to purchase Fawley Park, and Richard Cromwell was minded and not fully entitled: how Richard's Father thereupon dealt treacherously with the said Joyce; spake softly to him, then quarrelled with him, menaced him (owing to Fawley Park); nay ended by flinging him into prison, and almost reducing him to his needle and thimble again, -greatly to the enragement and distraction of the said Joyce. Noble, i. 330; Harris, p. 515-0 :-one of the Pusey Letters. ["No 20." Holograph. In the Morrison Collection.] 1 True Narrative of the Causes of the Lord General Cromwell's anger and indignation against Lieutenant-Colonel George Joyce: reprinted (without date) in Harleian Miscellany, v. 557, &c.-Joyce is in jail,' 19th Sept. 1653 (Thurloe, i. 470). [The True Narrative was issued in 1659. It is amongst the B. Museum pamphlets (669, f. 21 (50)), and is dated by Thomason, June 15, 1659. A newspaper of the time stated that Joyce was cashiered for saying that he wished that the pistol aimed at Cromwell on Triploe Heath had gone off. and Protectorate, ii. 255.] See Commonwealth |