History of Civilization in England, Vol. 2 of 3

347

To the philosophic historian this rebellion, though not sufficiently appreciated by ordinary writers, is a very important study, because it is the last attempt ever made by the great English families to establish their authority by force of arms. Mr. Wright says, that probably all those who took a leading part in it ‘were allied by blood or intermarriage with the two families of the Percies and Neviles.’ Wright's Elizabeth, 1838, vol. i. p. xxxiv.; a valuable work. See also, in Parl. Hist. vol. i. p. 730, a list of some of those who, in 1571, were attainted on account of this rebellion, and who are said to be ‘all of the best families in the north of England.’

But the most complete evidence we have respecting this struggle, consists of the collection of original documents published in 1840 by Sir C. Sharpe, under the title of Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569. They show very clearly the real nature of the outbreak. On 17th November 1569, Sir George Bowes writes, that the complaint of the insurgents was that ‘there was certaine counsellors cropen’ (i. e. crept) ‘in aboute the prince, which had excluded the nobility from the prince,’ &c., Memorials, p. 42; and the editor's note says that this is one of the charges made in all the proclamations by the earls. Perhaps the most curious proof of how notorious the policy of Elizabeth had become, is contained in a friendly letter from Sussex to Cecil, dated 5th January 1569 (Memorials, p. 137), one paragraph of which begins, ‘Of late years few young noblemen have been employed in service.’

348

Hallam, i. p. 130; Lingard, v. pp. 97, 102; Turner, xii. pp. 245, 247.

349

Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 241; an interesting passage. Turner (Hist. of England, vol. xii. p. 237) says, that Cecil ‘knew the tendency of the great lords to combine against the crown, that they might reinstate the peerage in the power from which the house of Tudor had depressed it.’

350

In 1572 the order of dukes became extinct; and was not revived till fifty years afterwards, when James I. made the miserable Villiers, duke of Buckingham. Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. i. p. 397. This evidently attracted attention; for Ben Jonson, in one of his comedies in 1616, mentions ‘the received heresy that England bears no dukes.’ Jonson's Works, edit. Gifford, 1816, vol. v. p. 47, where Gifford, not being aware of the extinction in 1572, has made an unsatisfactory note.

351

Clarendon (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 216) truly calls it ‘the most prodigious and the boldest rebellion, that any age or country ever brought forth.’ See also some striking remarks in Warwick's Memoirs, p. 207.

352

‘From the beginning it may be said that the yeomanry and trading classes of towns were generally hostile to the king's side, even in those counties which were in his military occupation; except in a few, such as Cornwall, Worcester, Salop, and most of Wales, where the prevailing sentiment was chiefly royalist.’ Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 578. See also Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 304; and Alison's Hist. of Europe, vol. i. p. 49.

353

On this division of classes, which, notwithstanding a few exceptions, is undoubtedly true as a general fact, compare Memoirs of Sir P. Warwick, p. 217; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 347; Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, pp. 294, 297, 345, 346, 401, 476; May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book i. pp. 22, 64, book ii. p. 63, book iii. p. 78; Hutchinson's Memoirs, p. 100; Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. i. p. 104, vol. iii. p. 258; Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 86.

354

Lord Clarendon says, in his grand style, ‘the rabble contemned and despised under the name of roundheads.’ Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 136. This was in 1641, when the title appears to have been first bestowed. See Fairfax Corresp. vol. ii. pp. 185, 320.

355

Just before the battle of Edgehill, in 1642, Charles said to his troops, ‘You are called cavaliers in a reproachful signification.’ See the king's speech, in Somers Tracts, vol. iv. p. 478. Directly after the battle, he accused his opponents of ‘rendering all persons of honour odious to the common people, under the style of cavaliers.’ May's Hist. of the Long Parliament, book iii. p. 25.

356

M. Saint-Aulaire (Hist. de la Fronde, vol. i. p. v.) says, that the object of the Frondeurs was, ‘limiter l'autorité royale, consacrer les principes de la liberté civile et en confier la garde aux compagnies souveraines;’ and at p. vi. he calls the declaration of 1648, ‘une véritable charte constitutionnelle.’ See also, at vol. i. p. 128, the concluding paragraph of the speech of Omer Talon. Joly, who was much displeased at this tendency, complains that in 1648, ‘le peuple tomboit imperceptiblement dans le sentiment dangereux, qu'il est naturel et permis de se défendre et de s'armer contre la violence des supérieurs.’ Mém. de Joly, p. 15. Of the immediate objects proposed by the Fronde, one was to diminish the taille, and another was to obtain a law that no one should be kept in prison more than twenty-four hours, ‘sans être remis entre les mains du parlement pour lui faire son procès s'il se trouvoit criminel ou l'élargir s'il étoit innocent.’ Mém. de Montglat, vol. ii. p. 135; Mém. de Motteville, vol. ii. p. 398; Mém. de Retz, vol. i. p. 265; Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 224, 225, 240, 328.

357

I use the word ‘parliament’ in the sense given to it by writers of that time, and not in the legal sense.

358

In May 1642, there remained at Westminster forty-two peers, Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 559; but they gradually abandoned the popular cause; and, according to Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1282, so dwindled, that eventually ‘seldom more than five or six’ were present.

359

These increasing democratic tendencies are most clearly indicated in Walker's curious work, The History of Independency. See among other passages, book i. p. 59. And Clarendon, under the year 1644, says (Hist. of the Rebellion, p. 514): ‘That violent party, which had at first cozened the rest into the war, and afterwards obstructed all the approaches towards peace, found now that they had finished as much of their work as the tools which they had wrought with could be applied to, and what remained to be done must be despatched by new workmen.’ What these new workmen were, he afterwards explains, p. 641, to be ‘the most inferior people preferred to all places of trust and profit.’ Book xi. under the year 1648. Compare some good remarks by Mr. Bell, in Fairfax Correspond. vol. iii. pp. 115, 116.

360

This was after the appointments of Essex and Bedford, and was in 1643. Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 58; Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 189.

361

‘When the king attempted to arrest the five members, Manchester, at that time Lord Kymbolton, was the only peer whom he impeached. This circumstance endeared Kymbolton to the party; his own safety bound him more closely to its interests.’ Lingard's England, vol. vi. p. 337. Compare Clarendon, p. 375; Ludlow, vol. i. p. 20. It is also said that Lord Essex joined the popular party from personal pique against the king. Fairfax Corresp. vol. iii. p. 37.

362

Mr. Carlyle has made some very characteristic, but very just, observations on the ‘high Essexes and Manchesters of limited notions and large estates.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 215.

363

Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 110; Hutchinson's Memoirs, pp. 230, 231; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. p. 106; Bulstrode's Memoirs, pp. 112, 113, 119; Clarendon's Rebellion, pp. 486, 514; or, as Lord North puts it, ‘for General Essex began now to appear to the private cabalists somewhat wresty.’ North's Narrative of Passages relating to the Long Parliament, published in 1670, in Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 578. At p. 584, the same elegant writer says of Essex, ‘being the first person and last of the nobility employed by the parliament in military affairs, which soon brought him to the period of his life. And may he be an example to all future ages, to deter all persons of like dignity from being instrumental in setting up a democratical power, whose interest it is to keep down all persons of his condition.’ The ‘Letter of Admonition’ addressed to him by parliament in 1644, is printed in Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 274.

364

Lingard's Hist. of England, vol. vi. p. 318. See also, on the hostility between Essex and Waller, Walker's Hist. of Independency, part i. pp. 28, 29; and Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 177. Sir Philip Warwick (Memoirs, p. 254) contemptuously calls Waller ‘favourite-general of the city of London.’

365

Compare Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. pp. 569, 570, with Bulstrode's Memoirs, p. 96, and Lord Bedford's letter, in Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 189, 190. This shuffling letter confirms the unfavourable account of the writer, which is given in Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 422.

366

Dr. Bates, who had been physician to Cromwell, intimates that this was foreseen from the beginning. He says, that the popular party offered command to some of the nobles, ‘not that they had any respect for the lords, whom shortly they intended to turn out and to level with the commoners, but that they might poison them with their own venom, and rise to greater authority by drawing more over to their side.’ Bates's Account of the late Troubles in England, part i. p. 76. Lord North too supposes, that almost immediately after the war began, it was determined to dissolve the House of Lords. See Somers Tracts, vol. vi. p. 582. Beyond this, I am not aware of any direct early evidence; except that, in 1644, Cromwell is alleged to have stated that ‘there would never be a good time in England till we had done with lords.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. i. p. 217; and, what is evidently the same circumstance, in Holles's Memoirs, p. 18.

367

This was the ‘Self-denying Ordinance,’ which was introduced in December, 1644; but, owing to the resistance of the peers, was not carried until the subsequent April. Parl. Hist. vol. iii. pp. 326–337, 340–343, 354, 355. See also Mem. of Lord Holles, p. 30; Mem. of Sir P. Warwick, p. 283.

368

On this great Epoch in the history of England, see Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1284; Hallam's Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 643; Campbell's Chief-Justices, vol. i. p. 424; Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 246; Warwick's Mem. pp. 182, 336, 352.

369

‘Cornet Joyce, who was one of the agitators in the army, a tailor, a fellow who had two or three years before served in a very inferior employment in Mr. Hollis's house.’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 612. ‘A shrewd tailor-man.’ D'Israeli's Commentaries on the Reign of Charles I., 1851, vol. ii. p. 466.

370

Ludlow (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 139); Noble (Memoirs of the House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 470); and Winstanley (Loyal Martyrology, edit. 1665, p. 108), mention that Pride had been a drayman. It is said that Cromwell, in ridicule of the old distinctions, conferred knighthood on him ‘with a faggot.’ Orme's Life of Owen, p. 164; Harris's Lives of the Stuarts, vol. iii. p. 478.

371

‘The fifth-monarchy, headed mainly by one Venner, a wine-cooper.’ Carlyle's Cromwell, vol. iii. p. 282. ‘Venner, a wine-cooper.’ Lister's Life and Corresp. of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 62.

372

‘The second to Venner was one Tuffnel a carpenter living in Gray's Inn Lane.’ Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 163.

373

‘He was stoaker in a brewhouse at Islington, and next a most poor chandler near Lion-Key, in Thames Street.’ Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1605. See also Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 122.

374

Some of the clumsy eulogists of Cromwell wish to suppress the fact of his being a brewer; but that he really practised that useful trade is attested by a variety of evidence, and is distinctly stated by his own physician, Dr. Bates. Bates's Troubles in England, vol. ii. p. 238. See also Walker's History of Independency, part i. p. 32, part ii. p. 25, part iii. p. 37; Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 328–331. Other passages, which I cannot now call to mind, will occur to those who have studied the literature of the time.

375

‘John Jones, at first a serving-man, then a colonel of the Long Parliament, … married the Protector's sister.’ Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1600. ‘A serving-man; … in process of time married one of Cromwell's sisters.’ Winstanley's Martyrology, p. 125.

376

‘Richard Deane, Esq., is said to have been a servant to one Button, a toyman in Ipswich, and to have himself been the son of a person in the same employment; … was appointed one of the commissioners of the navy with Popham and Blake, and in April (1649) he became an admiral and general at sea.’ Noble's Lives of the Regicides, vol. i. pp. 172, 173. Winstanley (Martyrol. p. 121) also says that Deane was ‘servant in Ipswich.’

377

‘Apprentice to one Vaughan a dry-salter.’ Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 507: and see his Regicides, vol. i. p. 255.

378

‘Bound apprentice to a woollen-draper.’ Winstanley's Martyr. p. 108. He afterwards set up in the same trade for himself; but with little success, for Dr. Bates (Troubles in England, vol. ii. p. 222) calls him ‘a broken clothier.’

379

‘Altogether illiterate.’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 152. Two extraordinary speeches by him are preserved in Burton's Diary, vol. i. pp. 24, 25, 48–50.

380

Holles's Mem. p. 82; Ludlow's Mem. vol. ii. p. 39; and a letter from Fairfax in Cary's Memorials of the Civil War, 1842, vol. i. p. 413.

381

‘Berkstead, who heretofore sold needles, bodkins, and thimbles, and would have run on an errand any where for a little money; but who now by Cromwell was preferred to the honourable charge of lieutenant of the Tower of London.’ Bates's Account of the Troubles, part ii. p. 222.

382

Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. pp. 272, 273. Lord Holles (Memoirs, p. 174) also mentions that he was ‘a linen-draper.’

383

‘Edward Harvy, late a poor silk-man, now colonel, and hath got the Bishop of London's house and manor of Fulham.’ Walker's Independency, part i. p. 170. ‘One Harvey, a decayed silk-man,’ Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 418.

384

Owen Rowe, ‘put to the trade of a silk-mercer, … went into the parliament army, and became a colonel.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. p. 150.

385

‘A silkman in London; … went into the army, and rose to the rank of colonel.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. p. 283. ‘A broken silk-man in Cheapside.’ Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 130.

386

Walker's Independency, part i. p. 143; Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1608; Ludlow's Mem. vol. ii. pp. 241, 259; Noble's Regicides, vol. ii. pp. 158, 162.

387

He was ‘a woollen-draper at Dorchester,’ and was ‘one of the council of state in 1649 and 1651.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 99: see also Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1594.

388

‘A brewer in Chichester; … in 1650–1 he was appointed one of the council of state.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 136. ‘William Cawley, a brewer of Chichester.’ Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 138.

389

John Berners, ‘supposed to have been originally a serving-man,’ was ‘one of the council of state in 1659,’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 90.

390

‘Holland the link-boy,’ Walker's Independency, part iii. p. 37. ‘He was originally nothing more than a servant to Sir Henry Vane; … upon the establishment of the Commonwealth, he was made one of the council of state in 1649, and again in 1650.’ Noble's Regicides, vol. i. pp. 357, 358.

391

Noble's Mem. of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 502.

392

Walker's Hist. of Independency, part i. p. 167.

393

Ellis's Original Letters illustrative of English History, third series, vol. iv. p. 219, Lond. 1846.

394

Parl. Hist. vol. iii. p. 1407; Rose's Biog. Dict. vol. iii. p. 172; Clarendon's Rebellion, p. 794.

395

‘A poor child bred upon charity.’ Harris's Stuarts, vol. v. p. 281. ‘A man of an obscure birth, and more obscure education.’ Clarendon's Life of Himself, p. 1116.

396

See Vaughan's Cromwell, vol. i. pp. 227, 228, vol. ii. pp. 299, 302, 433; Lister's Life and Corresp. of Clarendon, vol. ii. p. 231, vol. iii. p. 134. The common opinion is, that he was the son of a clergyman at Hackney; but if so, he was probably illegitimate, considering the way he was brought up. However, his Hackney origin is very doubtful, and no one appears to know who his father was. See Notes and Queries, vol. iii. pp. 69, 213.

397

Noble's Regicides, vol. i. p. 362. Cromwell had a great regard for this remarkable man, who not only distinguished himself as a soldier, but, judging from a letter of his recently published, appears to have repaired the deficiencies of his early education. See Fairfax Correspond. vol. iv. pp. 22–25, 108. There never has been a period in the history of England in which so many men of natural ability were employed in the public service as during the Commonwealth.

398

Noble's House of Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 507.

399

Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. p. 518; Bates's Troubles, vol. ii. p. 222.

400

Bates's Late Troubles, vol. i. p. 87; Ludlow's Mem. vol. i. p. 220.

401

Walker's Hist. of Independency, part ii. p. 87.

402

Ludlow who was well acquainted with Colonel Hewson, says that he ‘had been a shoemaker.’ Ludlow's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 139. But this is the amiable partiality of a friend; and there is no doubt that the gallant colonel was neither more nor less than a cobbler. See Walker's Independency, part ii. p. 39; Winstanley's Martyrol. p. 123; Bates's Late Troubles, vol. ii. p. 222; Noble's Cromwell, vol. ii. pp. 251, 345, 470.

403

Walker, who relates what he himself witnessed, says, that, about 1649, the army was commanded by ‘colonels and superior officers, who lord it in their gilt coaches, rich apparel, costly feastings; though some of them led dray-horses, wore leather-pelts, and were never able to name their own fathers or mothers.’ Hist. of Independ. part ii. p. 244. The Mercurius Rusticus, 1647, says, ‘Chelmsford was governed by a tinker, two cobblers, two tailors, two pedlars.’ Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, 1850, p. 430. And, at p. 434, another work, in 1647, makes a similar statement in regard to Cambridge; while Lord Holles assures us, that ‘most of the colonels and officers (were) mean tradesmen, brewers, taylors, goldsmiths, shoe-makers, and the like.’ Holles's Memoirs, p. 149. When Whitelocke was in Sweden in 1653, the prætor of one of the towns abused the parliament, saying, ‘that they killed their king, and were a company of taylors and cobblers.’ Whitelocke's Swedish Embassy, vol. i. p. 205. See also note in Carwithen's Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 156.

404

Even De Retz, who vainly attempted to organise a popular party, found that it was impossible to take any step without the nobles; and, notwithstanding his democratic tendencies, he, in 1648, thought it advisable ‘tâcher d'engager dans les intérêts publics les personnes de qualité.’ Mém. de Joly, p. 31.

405

Mably (Observations sur l'Hist. de France, vol. i. p. 357) frankly says, ‘L'exemple d'un grand a toujours été plus contagieux chez les Français que partout ailleurs.’ See also vol. ii. p. 267: ‘Jamais l'exemple des grands n'a été aussi contagieux ailleurs qu'en France; on dirait qu'ils ont le malheureux privilège de tout justifier.’ Rivarol, though his opinions on other points were entirely opposed to those of Mably, says, that, in France, ‘la noblesse est aux yeux du peuple une espèce de religion, dont les gentilshommes sont les prêtres.’ Mém. de Rivarol, p. 94. Happily, the French Revolution, or rather the circumstances which caused the French Revolution, have utterly destroyed this ignominious homage.

406

The Duke de la Rochefoucauld candidly admits that, in 1649, the nobles raised a civil war, ‘avec d'autant plus de haleur que c'était une nouveauté.’ Mém. de Rochefoucauld, vol. i. p. 406. Thus too Lemontey (Etablissement de Louis XIV, p. 368): ‘La vieille noblesse, qui ne savait que combattre, faisait la guerre par goût, par besoin, par vanité, par ennui.’ Compare, in Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. ii. pp. 467, 468, a summary of the reasons which, in 1649, induced the nobles to go to war; and on the way in which their frivolity debased the Fronde, see Lavallée, Hist. des Français, vol. iii. pp. 169, 170.

407

Hence the duchesses were called ‘femmes assises;’ those of lower rank ‘non assises.’ Mém. de Fontenay Mareuil, vol. i. p. 111. The Count de Ségur tells us that ‘les duchesses jouissaient de la prérogative d'être assises sur un tabouret chez la reine.’ Mém. de Ségur, vol. i. p. 79. The importance attached to this is amusingly illustrated in Mém. de Saint-Simon, vol. iii. pp. 215–218, Paris, 1842; which should be compared with De Tocqueville, Règne de Louis XV, vol. ii. p. 116, and Mém. de Genlis, vol. x. p. 383.

408

‘Survint incontinent une autre difficulté à la cour sur le sujet des tabourets, que doivent avoir les dames dans la chambre de la reine; car encore que cela ne s'accorde régulièrement qu'aux duchesses, néanmoins le feu roi Louis XIII l'avoit accordé aux filles de la maison de Bouillon,’ &c. Mém. d'Omer Talon, vol. iii. p. 5. See also, on this encroachment on the rights of the duchesses under Louis XIII., the case of Séguier, in Duclos, Mémoires Secrets, vol. i. pp. 360, 361. The consequences of the innovation were very serious; and Tallemant des Réaux (Historiettes, vol. iii. pp. 223, 224) mentions a distinguished lady, of whom he says, ‘Pour satisfaire son ambition, il lui falloit un tabouret: elle cabale pour épouser le vieux Bouillon La Marck veuf pour la seconde fois.’ In this she failed; but, determined not to be baffled, ‘elle ne se rebute point, et voulant à toute force avoir un tabouret, elle épouse le fils aîné du duc de Villars: c'est un ridicule de corps et d'esprit, car il est bossu et quasi imbécile, et gueux par-dessus cela.’ This melancholy event happened in 1649.