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and destroyed, first legal order, and then liberty, in his native land. Such men are full of contradiction and of mystery: in them are mingled and combined, in undiscoverable proportions, capabilities and failings, virtues and vices, enlightenment and error, grandeur and weakness; and after having filled the age in which they lived with the splendour of their actions and the magnitude of their destiny, they remain personally obscure in the midst of their glory, alternately cursed and worshipped by the world which does not know them.

At the opening of the Long Parliament, on the 3rd of November, 1640, the house of commons consisted of five hundred and six members. In 1649, after the execution of the king, when it abolished kingship and proclaimed the commonwealth, there scarcely remained a hundred who took part in its sittings and acts. During the month of February, the house divided ten times; and at the most numerous division, only seventy-seven members were present to record their votes. Thus mutilated and reduced to the condition of a victorious coterie, this assembly set to work, with an ardour full at once of strong faith and deep anxiety, to organize the republican government.d Some had wished the royal authority to be transferred to Charles II, under the conditions which had been proposed to his father; for all that had been alleged against him was inapplicable to his son. Others proposed to pass him over, because he had borne arms against the parliament, and to give the English crown by election to his younger brother. Others disapproved of elections and deviations from the strict line of succession. But the republicans were more powerful than the several classes and gradations of the royalists.

The final discussion, however, was with the parliament, or rather with the army. Already, on the 20th of January, that is before the execution of Charles, the army had proposed an agreement upon the future constitution and government, in which it demanded the speedy dissolution of the parliament; a new regulation of the representation; elections every two years, mostly according to the population; the exclusion of all the adversaries of the parliament; the election by it of the administrative council of state; religious liberty (but without the re-establishment of the papacy and the bishops), the abolition of the excise, and a change in many laws. The parliament returned hearty thanks to his excellency the general and the army, for their indefatigable, great, and excellent services; and resolved that this document should be immediately printed, to show the affection and unanimity that prevailed between the army and the parliament.

On the very day of Charles's death it was declared to be high treason to acknowledge any person whatever as king of England; and immediately afterwards every member was excluded from parliament who had voted for a treaty with the king, or who had latterly not approved of everything that was done, or had withdrawn himself. The number of members was reduced to about seventy, of whom it often happened that not one half appeared in the house. On the 26th of February, 1649, the conquerors decided, by a majority of forty-four to twenty-nine, "The house of lords is useless and dangerous, and is therefore abolished"; and on the 7th of March, it was further decided, "Royalty is useless, burdensome, and dangerous for England, and contrary to the freedom as well as to the safety and interests of the people. A council of state, consisting of forty-nine members, undertakes the administration of public affairs."

In a declaration of the 21st of March, the reasons for the introduction of a republic were set forth. "The office of the king," says this declaration, "was established by an agreement of the people, and filled by election. It was

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very seldom that any one performed his duties, whereas the greater number have been the cause of much misery and bloodshed. Charles I, in particular, was justly condemned and executed for treachery, murder, and other odious crimes; his sons, as nothing better can be expected from them, and the eldest has already borne arms against the parliament, are declared unworthy of the throne, and all the inhabitants of the kingdom are released from their oaths and duties to them. Rome, Venice, Switzerland, the Netherlands, have proved to what a height of prosperity republics rise, and that wealth, liberty, and justice there go hand in hand. The great are there no longer able to oppress the poor; ambition vanishes; disputes about succession, and civil wars, are prevented; and liberty of conscience, persons, and property is untouched. The pure form of a republic, and the public safety, made it necessary to abolish the upper house, with its objections, which only caused delay: but the lords may be chosen members of the house of commons. who will not take an oath to a constitution without a king and upper house is incapable of holding any office in the church and state. The new great seal has on one side the map of England and Ireland, and on the reverse, bears the inscription, 'In the first year of freedom, by God's blessing restored.'"

He

It was then declared that God had wonderfully revealed himself, and destroyed in England tyranny, superstition, and popery; for which all owed him gratitude and obedience. But, instead of that, they were guilty of the most crying sins and blasphemy. That such a state of things might have an end, and the great enterprise further prosper, that all dissensions might be reconciled in brotherly love, and all conspiracies of wicked people might cease, a day of fasting and prayer was ordered. This external means, however, did not produce the intended result; on the contrary, the discontent in England increased, and open war ensued with Scotland and Ireland.e On the 7th of February the parliament had voted the creation of a council of state, "to be henceforth the executive power"; and five members, Scott, Ludlow, Lisle, Holland, and Robinson, chosen from among the staunchest republicans, were ordered "to present to the house instructions to be given to the council of estates; and likewise the names of such persons as they conceive fit to be of that council." Six days after, on the 13th of February, Scott presented his report to the house. All the practical functions of the government were vested in the council of state under the control and in obedience to the instructions of parliament - the sole depositary of the national sovereignty.

1

On the two following days, the house proceeded to appoint the forty-one councillors of state, voting specially on each name. Five ex-peers of the realm, the three chief judges, the three leaders of the army, Fairfax, Cromwell, and Skippon, and thirty country gentlemen and citizens, nearly all of whom were members of the house, were elected. The nomination of the five peers met with objections; the democrats wished to exclude them, as well as the house of lords itself, from all participation in the government of the commonwealth; but the more prudent politicians, on the contrary, gave an eager welcome to these noblemen, who were still powerful by their wealth and name. The entire list proposed by the commissioners of the parliament was adopted, with the exception of two names, Ireton and Harrison, who were

We may here mention that, at this period, England had not yet adopted the reformed Gregorian Calendar, and that her chronology was ten days behind that of the Continent. The 7th of February in England, in the seventeenth century, would therefore correspond with the 17th of February on the Continent. We have adopted the English date in speaking of English events.

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probably thought too devotedly attached to Cromwell, and for whom two republicans were substituted, conspicuous for their uncompromising distrust of the army and its leaders. They were all appointed for a year.

When they met for the first time, on the 17th of February, 1649, they were required to sign an engagement, expressing approbation of all that had been done in the king's trial, in the overthrow of kingship, and in the abolition of the house of lords. Nineteen in all, signed the engagement; but twentytwo persisted in refusing it. They stated that they were resolved, in future, faithfully to serve the government of the house of commons, as it was the supreme power, the only one which remained in existence, and therefore necessary to the liberties and safety of the people; but, from various motives, and in terms more or less distinct, they refused to give their sanction to all the past. The house, in great excitement, proceeded at once to deliberate on this report, forbidding all the members present to leave the hall without express permission; but political good sense acted as a check upon passion: to originate dissensions among the republicans, in the first days of the commonwealth, would, it was felt, be madness; the regicides knew that, if left alone, they would not be strong enough to maintain their position. The matter was arranged without further difficulty; the pledge of fidelity which the dissidents offered for the future was accepted, and they took their seats besides the regicides in the republican council of state.

This compromise was to a very great extent the work, on the one hand, of Cromwell, and on the other, of Sir Harry Vane, the most eminent, the most sincere, the most able, and the most chimerical of the non-military republicans. He was an ardent revolutionist, and he detested revolutionary violence. When, on the 6th of November, 1648, the army had expelled the entire Presbyterian party from the house of commons, Vane had boldly denounced that act, and ceased to take part in the sittings of the mutilated house. He had protested still more strongly against the trial of the king, and ever since that period he had resided at his country-seat at Raby, completely unconnected with public affairs. But the commonwealth was the object at once of his faith and of his aspirations; as soon as it appeared, he belonged to it, heart and soul. He it was, who, setting aside the past, suggested the oath of fidelity for the future, and Cromwell, quite sure that this would be enough to secure Vane to the service of the council of state and to the parliament, was one of the most eager to express his entire approval of the suggestion. Cromwell was right, for no sooner had they taken their seats than this same Vane, and that same majority of the council of state who had refused to take any share in the responsibility of the regicides, elected as their president, John Bradshaw, the president of the high court which had condemned Charles I; and three days after, Vane, with several of his colleagues, proceeded to "a small house in Holborn, which opens backwards into Lincoln's Inn Fields," to offer the post of Latin secretary to the council to a kinsman of Bradshaw's, who had recently maintained, in an eloquent pamphlet, "that it is lawful to call to account a tyrant, or wicked king, and after due conviction, to depose and put him to death!" That man was Milton.

At the same time that it was engaged in the constitution of the council of state, the house turned its attention also to the courts of law. Of the twelve principal judges, ten had been appointed by the parliament itself since the outbreak of the civil war; and yet, on the 8th of February, 1649, six of them refused to give any oath of fidelity to the commonwealth, and the other six would only consent to continue the discharge of their functions on

[1649 A.D.] condition that, by a formal declaration of the house, the ancient laws of the country should be maintained, and that the judges should continue to take them as the rule of their decisions. These demands were complied with, and the six judges who had tendered their resignation were not replaced until the following summer. The earl of Warwick, the lord high admiral, lived on intimate terms with Cromwell; but he was a decided Presbyterian, who inspired the republicans with no confidence, and who himself preferred his own ease to their service. His office was taken from him on the 20th of February, 1649; the powers of the admiralty were vested in the council of state, which delegated them to a committee of three members, of whom Vane was the chief; and the command of the fleet passed into the hands of three officers, Edward Popham, Richard Deane, and Robert Blake the last a literate and warlike Puritan, who had already given proof of his great qualities as a soldier, and who was destined to augment at sea the power and glory of the commonwealth, which he served with austere and unflinching devotedness.d

EXECUTIONS AND MUTINIES.

While the commons were thus converting the ancient monarchy of England into a republic, a high court of justice was sitting in judgment on the royalists of rank who were prisoners in their hands. On the night after the death of the king, the duke of Hamilton had made his escape from Windsor, but he was recognised and arrested by some troopers next day as he was knocking in disguise at an inn gate in Southwark. Lord Capel also escaped out of the Tower, but he was discovered and seized by two watermen at a house in Lambeth. These two noblemen, with Lord Norwich and Sir John Owen, were some days after (10th) brought before a high court of justice presided over by Bradshaw, and arraigned for treason. They were all sentenced to lose their heads (March 6).

The house proceeded to vote on their several cases; it was determined that the duke and Lord Capel should not be reprieved; the votes for and against were equal in the cases of Holland and Norwich, and the speaker, by his casting vote, condemned the former and saved the latter. Colonel Hutchinson seeing Sir John Owen without any one to make an exertion in his favour, took pity on him and prevailed on Ireton to give him his interest, and by their joint influence he was saved by a majority of five. Hamilton, Holland and Capel were beheaded the next day (9th) in Palace Yard: they met their fate with courage and constancy, especially the last, who behaved, we are told, "like a stout Roman."

The new government was in fact that species of tyranny denominated oligarchy, and depending, like all other tyrannies, for its existence on the power of the sword. But it was here that its chief source of danger lay; the fanatic principles of the levellers were widely spread among the Prætorian guards of the new commonwealth, and it was not long ere they broke out into action. The fearless John Lilburne, the sworn foe to despotism of every kind, led the way by a petition against the "Agreement of the People"; petitions from officers and soldiers, and from the well-affected in various parts, poured in, calling for annual parliaments with entirely new members; the enforcement of the Self-Denying Ordinance; the abolition of the council of state and the high court of justice; requiring legal proceedings to be in English, and the fees of lawyers to be reduced; the excise and customs to be abolished, and the estates of delinquents to be sold; liberty of conscience,