148

A. D.

SECRET ALLIANCE WITH LOUIS XIV.

Ch. 13 had the right to appoint the great officers of State; the privilege of veto on legislative enactments; the control of the 1660 army and navy; the regulation of all foreign intercourse; and to the right of making peace and war. But the Constitution did 1667. not allow him to rule without a Parliament, or to raise taxes without its consent. The Parliament might grant or withhold powers supplies at pleasure, and all money bills originated and were entrust discussed in the House of Commons alone. These were the Charles great principles of the English Constitution, which Charles swore to maintain.

Great

ed to

Alli

ance

with

XIV.

The first form in which the encroaching temper of the King manifested itself was, in causing the Triennial Bill to be repealed. This was, indeed, done by the Parliament, but through the royal influence.

About the same time was passed the Corporation Act, which enjoined all magistrates, and persons of trust in corporations, to swear that they believed it unlawful, under any pretence whatever, to take arms against the King. The Presbyterians refused to take this oath; and were, therefore, excluded from offices of dignity and trust.

The next most noticeable effort of Charles to render his power independent of the law, was his secret alliance with Louis Louis XIV. This, which was not known to the nation, was the most disgraceful act of his reign. For the miserable stipend of two hundred thousand pounds a year, he was ready to compromise the interests of the kingdom, and to make himself the slave of the most ambitious sovereign in Europe. He became a pensioner of France, and yet did not feel his disgrace. Clarendon, attached as he was to monarchy, and to the house of Stuart, could not join him in these base intrigues; and therefore lost, as was to be expected, the royal favor. He had been the companion and counsellor of Charles in the days of his exile; he had attempted to enkindle in his mind the desire of great deeds and virtues; he had faithfully served him as chancellor and prime minister; he was impartial and incorruptible; he was as much attached to Episcopacy, as he

VENALITY OF PARLIAMENT.

149

was to monarchy; he had even advised Charles to rule with- Ch.13 out a Parliament: and yet he was disgraced because he would A. D. not comply with all the wishes of his unscrupulous master. 1668 He retreated to the Continent, and there wrote his celebrated to 1678. history of the Great Rebellion, a partial and bitter narrative, yet a valuable record of the great events of that age of revolution which he had witnessed and detested.

Charles received the bribe of two hundred thousand pounds Bribe acceptfrom the French King, with the hope of being made indepen-ed by dent of his Parliament, and on the condition of assisting Louis Charles XIV. in his aggressive wars on the liberties of Europe. But this supply was scarcely sufficient even for his pleasures, much less was it adequate to support the ordinary pomp of monarchy. So he had to resort to other means.

ty of

the

ment.

It happened, fortunately for his encroachments, but unfor- Venalitunately for the nation, that the English Parliament, at that period, was more corrupt than it had ever been under the ParliaTudor Kings, or than it ever became at any subsequent period under the Hanoverian Princes. It tamely acquiesced in the measures of Charles and his ministers. Its members were bought and sold with unblushing facility, and were even corrupted by the agents of the French King.

the Ex

Among the worst acts of the reign was the shutting up of Closing the Exchequer, where the bankers and merchants had been in chequer the habit of depositing money on the security of the funds, receiving a large interest of from eight to ten per cent. The effect was disastrous. The bankers, unable to draw out their money, stopped payment; and a universal panic was the consequence, during which many great failures happened. By this base violation of the public faith, Charles obtained one million three hundred thousand pounds. But it undermined his popularity more than any of his acts. The odium, however, fell chiefly on his ministers, especially those who received the name of the Cabal, from the fact that the initials of their names spelt that odious term of reproach.

These five ministers were Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham,

150

INFRINGEMENTS ON THE CONSTITUTION.

A. D.

Ch. 13 Ashley, and Lauderdale; and they were the great instruments of his tyranny. They aided Charles to corrupt the Parlia1668 ment and to deceive the nation. They removed all restraints to on his will, and pandered to his depraved tastes.

1678.

Among other infringements on the Constitution was the fining of jurors when they refused to act according to the of direction of the judges. Juries were in this way constantly Juries. intimidated, and their privileges abridged.

Fining

It must not, however, be supposed that the people were universally indifferent to these encroachments because a great reaction had succeeded to liberal sentiments. Before Charles died, the spirit of resistance was beginning to be felt, and some checks to royal power were imposed by Parliament Habeas itself. The Habeas Corpus Act, the most important since the Corpus. declaration of Magna Charta, was passed, and mainly through

the influence of one of his former ministers, Ashley, now Earl of Shaftesbury, who had come over to the popular side. Had Charles continued much longer on the throne, it cannot be doubted that the nation would have been aroused to resist his spirit of encroachment, for the principles of liberty had not been proclaimed in vain.

The administrations of other English Kings are usually interlinked with the whole system of European politics; but the reign of Charles is chiefly interesting in relation to its domesCourt tic history. The cabals of ministers, the intrigues of the Court, the pleasures and follies of the King, the attacks he contrived to make on the Constitution without coming into direct warfare with the Parliament, and, above all, cruel religious persecutions, form the distinguishing features of his time.

in

trigues.

The King was at heart a Roman Catholic; and yet the persecution of the Catholics is one of the most signal events of the reign. We can scarcely conceive, in this age, of the spirit of distrust and fear which then pervaded the national mind in reference to the Romanists. Every calumny was believed. Every trifling offence was exaggerated, and that by nearly all classes in the community.

PENAL LAWS AGAINST CATHOLICS.

151

lics.

The perjuries of Titus Oates, who had solemnly sworn Ch.13 that the Jesuits had undertaken to restore the Catholic re- A. D. ligion in England, that they had planned to burn London, 1678. that they were plotting a general massacre of Protestants; the detection of papers in the hands of Coleman, unfortunately Sufferings of confirming these statements; and the mysterious disappearance the of Sir Edmonsbury Godfrey, an eminent justice of the peace, Cathowho had taken the depositions against Coleman, and who was soon after found dead in a field near London, having probably been murdered by some fanatical person in the communion of the Church of Rome;—all these things combined excited the population to an extent that is now scarcely credible. The whole community went mad with rage and fear. The old penal laws were strictly enforced against the Catholics. The jails were filled with victims. London wore the appearance of a besieged city. The houses of Catholics were everywhere searched, and two thousand of them imprisoned. Posts were planted in the streets, that chains might be thrown across them on the first alarm. The military, the train bands, and the volunteers were called out. Forty thousand men were kept under guard during the night. Numerous patrols paraded the streets. The gates of the Palace were closed, and

the guards of the city were doubled. Oates was pronounced to be the saviour of his country, lodged at Whitehall, and pensioned with twelve hundred pounds a year.

Then flowed more innocent blood than had been shed for a long period. Catholics who were noble, and Catholics who were obscure, were alike judicially murdered; and the courts of justice, instead of being places of refuge, were disgraced by the foulest abominations. Every day new witnesses were Execuproduced of crimes which never happened, and new victims tion of were offered up to appease the wrath of a prejudiced people. Among these was the Earl of Stafford, a venerable and venerated nobleman, whose only crime was being at the head of the Catholic party.

Parliament now passed an act that no person should sit in

Stafford.

152

A. D.

PERSECUTION OF THE DISSENTERS.

Ch. 13 either House, unless he had previously taken the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribed to the declaration 1660 that the worship of the Church of Rome was idolatrous. Catholics were disabled from prosecuting a suit in any court of 1684. law, from receiving any legacy, and from acting as executors

to

Sufferings of Dissen

ters.

Execu

Russell

or administrators of estates.

To all this Charles gave his assent, simply because he was afraid to stem the torrent of popular infatuation.

But the sufferings of the Catholics, during this reign, were more than exceeded by the sufferings of Dissenters. They were fined, imprisoned, mutilated, and whipped; while the Act of Uniformity, which had restored the old penal laws of Elizabeth, occasioned, on the 24th of August, 1662, the ejection of two thousand clergymen from their livings, and in the next reign led, under the administration of the infamous Jeffreys, to the most atrocious crimes which have ever been committed under the sanction of law.

These men, who, during the great plague of 1665, faced all perils in the discharge of what they felt to be duty, by occupying deserted pulpits, and offering to the people the consolations of religion, were but a few months afterwards rendered incapable of teaching in schools, and forbidden by law to come within five miles of any city, town, or village, in which they had at any time exercised their ministry. Many of them, thus cut off from all means of obtaining a livelihood, suffered most severely from want, while a multitude of others perished in prison.

Amongst the saddest events of the reign of Charles must tion of certainly be named the executions of Lord William Russell and and Algernon Sydney, which took place in 1683, for supSydney. posed implication in a conspiracy known by the name of the

Rye House Plot. The former was the son of the Earl of Bedford, and the latter was the brother of the Earl of Leicester. Russell was a devoted Churchman, of pure morals, and greatly beloved by the people. Sydney was a strenuous republican, and opposed to any particular form of church