the man to whom everything was possible, to reinstate in parliament the Presbyterian members who had been expelled by the Independents in 1648.-pp. 48, 49. The Declaration of Breda in April 1660 clearly revealed the plot which was at work. It ought to have been a warning; but it proved only a snare. It was the manifesto of a master, wearing, it is true, a benign and gracious aspect, but based throughout on assumptions subversive of popular freedom, and condemnatory of all which had been recently achieved. The Convention-parliament received its master without conditions. The royal profligate was taken at his word. His pleasure was held to be law, and the power of three king loms was placed in his hands, without security being given for its discreet and faithful exercise. Hale aud Prynne, almost alone, urged a wiser course; but the discussion of such topics was denounced as fraught with danger; and the renegade Monk insulted the common-sense and rights of Englishmen, by maintaining that the securities to be taken for public liberty might be safely deferred until after the restoration was completed. Verily both Monk and the nation had their reward. The former was raised to the peerage, and is now regarded as amongst the most despicable personages in our history; the latter had to endure a bitter discipline of twenty-eight years' duration, and then to content itself with such a measure of liberty as a dominant aristocracy saw fit to bestow. The haste with which Charles was received was even exceeded by the zeal with which his faintest wish was gratified. The conduct pursued,' remarks M. Carrel, after the king's arrival, by the parliament, short-sighted and feeble as it had been in his recal, in its forgetfulness of all national dignity, was far more serious in its consequences. The Commons declared, in an address to the king, that they accepted, in the name of the towns and boroughs of England, the gracious pardon offered by the declaration of Breda. When they came to consider the exceptions which this document left to their discretion, they carried them so far, that the king, was obliged to moderate these demonstrations of their zeal, and to remind them, that without the confidence placed in his promises of oblivion of injuries, neither he nor they would then be assembled in parliament.' What followed comported well with this beginning. A special commission, composed of courtiers, or those who had betrayed the revolution, was formed for the trial of the regicides, ten of whom were speedily executed; and three others were subsequently apprehended in Holland, and consigned to the same fate. They met death with more than composure. Whether right or wrong-and judged by legal rules it was clearly the latter-they gloried in the part they had taken in the execution of Charles, and appealed to posterity to vindicate their fame. Devoted by anticipation, but still proudly erect, they sought not by legal subtleties to avert a responsibility which their very position rendered selfevident. Calm before a passion-guided tribunal, they astonished consciences not altogether at their ease, by the imperturbable conviction with which they defended that which they had done, and which the nation had but just learned to abjure.' The execution of Sir Henry Vane, not as a regicide, but as an enemy of the Stuarts, revealed still more distinctly the merciless character of the Restoration. It was urged on by the king in manifest violation of his promise to the two houses, and plainly proclaimed the spirit in which the new government was to be administered. Few men have more nobly sustained the loftiest professions. As a practical statesman, he was inferior to Cromwell, but for unsullied honour, for lofty patriotism, for fervent benevolence and exalted piety, he has never been surpassed in ancient or modern times. He met death with the heroism of a martyr, and the record of his virtues, illustrated by the calm dignity and religious confidence of his last hours, are amongst the most precious of our historical treasures. Clarendon was the prime minister of the Restoration; and with him were associated the Earl of Southampton, the Duke of Ormond, Lord Colepepper, and Sir Edward Nicholas. Their policy is now clearly traceable, and though not wholly wanting in claims on our gratitude, was mainly distinguished by intolerance and tyranny. The convention parliament which received the king was composed principally of Presbyterians, who readily lent themselves to the political designs of the court, but were unfit instruments for the religious revolution which was resolved on. It was therefore speedily dissolved, and a new parliament, composed of other and more pliable materials, assembled on the 8th of May, 1662. In this assembly the Cavaliers entirely predominated, and Clarendon was in consequence encouraged to act out his avowed policy of pulling up all those principles of sedition and rebellion by the roots, which had been the ground of the infamous rebellion in the Long Parliament.' The Savoy conference was a mere delusion, intended only to amuse till the presbyterians might be punished with impunity. The views of the court were better shown in the Act of Uniformity, the Conventicle Act, and the Five Mile Act, in which the ministers and the bishops heartily concurred, in order to put down their political and religious opponents. For a time they triumphed. Thousands of estimable men were driven from their homes, their ministry was silenced, their families were beggared, and they themselves, in vast numbers, were consigned These to loathsome prisons, and the charge of brutal keepers. infamous laws contributed, however, to the overthrow of the minister, by whom they had been carried. They contained the germ of a retribution, which was speedily inflicted on the head of Clarendon; and though not alone in producing his fall, they greatly contributed to it. The king was a concealed catholic, and his brother, the Duke of York, was kept, with difficulty, from avowing his preference of the ancient creed. They could not, therefore, but regard with aversion the operation of these persecuting laws on the members of the papal church, and Charles frequently resolved on interposing the royal prerogative, in order to stay their vengeance. On this point, however, the ministers were inexorable, and the opportunity was not lost by their enemies. M. Carrel somewhat overstates this matter, or does not at least give sufficient prominence to other considerations, which accelerated the fall of Clarendon. There is, however, substantial truth in his account of the rupture. He says: Under the general name of Non-conformists, the Anglican church persecuted at once the Anabaptists, the Millenarians, the Presbyterians, and the Catholics. Now, the latter had powerful supporters at court, and more than this, were filled with high hopes. The Papists had been throughout the civil war the indefatigable partisans of Charles I. During the exile of the princes they had not, like the Presbyterians, and many members of the Church of England, concurred in the despotism of Cromwell. The king, as we have seen, preferred this religion to all others, not as one of purer doctrine, but as one better adapted to promote the interests of monarchies. The Duke of York, his brother, had a still more decided inclination for it; though intimately connected with the minister, Clarendon, whose daughter he had first seduced and then married, and of whose general administration he was a strenuous supporter, he censured him warmly for this persecution, common to Catholics with Presbyterians. The queen-mother was a zealous Catholic. The king since his return had wedded a Papist princess. The court was filled with priests of this religion, in the service of the two queens; these circumstances determined Charles in requiring of his ministers, and the lower house, to make a distinction in favour of the Catholics, and, not obtaining his object, he complained that the promise he had given in his declaration of Breda was broken against his will. He had announced equal toleration for all, he said, and he would give it; he was master, and he needed no other person's sanction. The ministers, Clarendon and Southampton, represented to him, that if there was one sentiment which, more powerfully than any other, predominated in the breast of Englishmen, it was the hatred of Popery; that the Gunpowder-plot, the executions under Queen Mary, the massacre in Ireland, were not forgotten; that the slightest mark of favour given to the Papists would again raise into impor tance the Presbyterians, and other men still more dangerous; and that, since rigorous measures against the Presbyterians were deemed essential, it was equally essential to preserve those measures from unpopularity, that they should be extended to the Papists and a'l Nonconformists whatsoever. These arguments failed to influence the king, who intimated his intention to publish a proclamation modifying, in favour of all Nonconformists without exception, the excessive severity of the act of parliament. This was the commencement of a misunderstanding between the king and his Anglican ministers, which, on the part of the former, became determined hostility, and, before long, he yielded without reserve to the inclination which drew him towards other men, whose personal profligacy encouraged his own-men who were the companions of his debaucheries, and the obsequious flatterers of his mistresses; men who were enriched by his prodigality at the expense of the people. Regarded with dislike by Clarendon and Southampton, who throughout had inspired the king rather with respect than with either confidence or friendship, they destroyed the credit of those ministers, by scoffing at their principles, by insinuating distrust of their intentions, and by ridiculing their language and their manners. The latter expedient was of all powerful effect with Charles II., who infinitely preferred the counsels of men who amused him by the sallies of their wit, and interested him by their brilliant vices. pp. 69-71. Clarendon's virtues, which were neither numerous nor brilliant, contributed to his overthrow. They combined with the worst features of his administration in preparing the way for his impeachment and exile. He was hated by the Cavaliers for refusing them the ascendancy which they claimed; by the Presbyterians he was regarded as the author of their sufferings; and the Catholics abhorred him as standing between them and the royal prerogative. Though wedded to monarchy in the worst forms it had assumed under the Tudors and the Stuarts, there were yet limits to his devotion. Hallam, who evinces no unfriendly disposition towards the chancellor, justly remarks that He would prepare the road for absolute monarchy, but not introduce it; he would assist to batter down the walls, but not to march into the town.' He hesitated, therefore, where the king and his brother specially looked for obedience, and the estrangement thus commenced was turned into bitter enmity when it was found that he was resolutely opposed to the religious policy of his masters. His private virtues were also offensive to a monarch whose excesses he reproved, and whose chosen companions he regarded with aversion and contempt. It was,' says M. Carrel, in the eighth year of the reign of Charles II. that the Anglic in ministry fell. It had fulfilled all that its principles permitted it to undertake in promotion of the counter revolution; now that this revolution required the overthrow of the Anglican worship and the suppression of the parliamentary opposition, it found itself under the necessity of transferring its destinies to fresh hands. The Catholic party having as yet but a precarious and unavowed existence, it was only men of reckless ambition, and alike indifferent to all sects and all parties, who would consent to become instrumental to the iniquitous object in view. Such men readily presented themselves in the libertine throng who had long since collected around the king, and whom the public denounced as the instigators of all his misconduct; for when the nation has thrown the shield of inviolability over the person of its monarch, its only resource, when he misgoverns them or himself, is to allege that he is misled by others.'-p. 84. Clarendon was succeeded, after a short interval, by the Cabal ministry, one of the most corrupt and reckless cliques which ever ruled the fortunes of a nation. It was composed of Lord Clifford, the Earl of Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, better known as Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Duke of Lauderdale, than whom it would have been difficult, even in that age of corrupt politicians, to bring together more unprincipled or disgraceful men. Charles became the pensioner of Louis XIV., and conspired, with the meanness of an assassin, against the liberties of a nation, whose greatest folly had been its confidence in his word. The French king engaged to assist him in dispensing with parliaments, and he in return undertook to assist Louis in the conquest of Holland. Their treaty was carefully concealed, but its general features could not fail to be suspected from the obvious insincerity and tortuous policy of the king. The restoration of popery and the establishment of political despotism were the objects of the Cabal ministry throughout its existence. Happily its power was inferior to its turpitude. The sturdy qualities of the English people were proof against its seductions, and even their prejudices were on this occasion subservient to their true interests. As an illustration of the base practices to which the court was prepared to stoop, we may instance the mutilation of Sir John Coventry for words spoken in parliament, and the impunity secured to the retainer who had attempted to assassinate one of the most zealous partizans of the Stuart house. Referring to the latter, M. Carrel says, Some time after this, a ruffian, named Blood, hired by Buckingham to assassinate the old duke of Ormond, having failed to effect his purpose, was tried, and being condemned, received the king's pardon. The unaccountable protection granted by Charles to this man, who afterwards appeared at Court, decorated with orders, in receipt of a pension, and in high credit, was interpreted in the most |